“She’s coding!” he said, stopping defibrillation. He was doing chest compressions now. “We need to get her prepped.”
Charlotte knew what that meant. It was time for her to deliver the baby. In case Melanie wasn’t going to make it.
Everything was moving in slow motion. She was trying her best to keep her head clear, to remember what needed to be done and not think about who she was cutting into. They were fortunate-the baby was 33-34 weeks gestated, so if they could deliver him, chances were good he would make it. But they had no idea how much oxygen he’d lost or for how long.
It was a scary time. Charlotte had to keep it together.
She went through the motions, concentrating on the task as chaos happened around her. It was becoming much clearer that Melanie was probably not going to make it. Charlotte had to be quick to save her baby. If there was anything she could do to make this have some sort of silver lining, it was really up to her to make it happen.
Fortunately, the trauma to Melanie had not impacted her uterus, and when Charlotte pulled the tiny baby boy out of Melanie’s dying body, the OR was suddenly filled with the sound of his high-pitched screams as cold oxygen hit his body for the first time. It was the best of signs, it meant he had probably not been without oxygen long enough for any damage to have been done, but being that he was still premature, he needed to get to the NICU, stat.
As much as Charlotte wanted to stay and be with Melanie, it was her job to take care of the one thing Melanie loved more than anything in the world.
It was time to save the only one that could be saved.
********
Melanie Hopp had lived long enough for her child to be rescued, but she passed away soon after the emergency C-section. She never got to hold her baby, or kiss him goodbye. Her tiny child would never have a single memory of the mother who had been so excited to be his.
Charlotte stayed overnight with him. His lungs were still underdeveloped and he was on a ventilator for now, but all signs pointed to him being okay. It was a miracle, and the staff at the hospital were giving Charlotte a lot of accolades for saving him.
But she’d never been so miserable. She’d laid in the bathroom and cried for almost 20 minutes, thinking about the injustice of what had happened today.
It made her question the point of life, when all it seemed to bring was painful moment after painful moment. Why did anyone even have children? Knowing the risks and knowing that life could be flimsy and unsteady, why did people do this to themselves? Having a child meant being scared forever. It meant possibly leaving them behind, even when you weren’t ready.
After the day Melanie died, Charlotte couldn’t put her heart into her work. She’d show up at the office late, she’d leave early. All she wanted to do was go back in time and save Melanie. Save her mother. Save herself.
Charlotte was on the very edge of a mental break. And she knew that wasn’t a safe place for a doctor to be. People depended on her to keep it together and be in the right frame of mind to make the hardest decisions.
But Charlotte couldn’t do it anymore. After years of being strong, she had nothing left. Not after seeing it happen again. A life lost for no good reason at all. And justice would never be served, more than likely. Just like it would never be served for her mother.
Charlotte decided she needed a sabbatical. She needed to get away from Nashville and return to her other home.
And that is how Charlotte Sanders ended up back in Charleston.
Chapter Fifteen
Declan had told his father’s nurse that he’d be coming by in the morning to check on him.
“He isn’t doing well,” the woman warned him over the phone. “He’s in a great deal of pain. It’s important you spend as much time with him as you can.”
“Does he ask for me?” Declan said, running his hands through his hair.
“He doesn’t need to,” the nurse said flatly. “You’re all he has.”
Declan sighed. She was right.
“I’m on my way,” Declan said. “Just make him as comfortable as you can.”
As Declan walked outside into a perfect Charleston day, he glanced over at Charlotte’s house. Her car was still in the driveway.
She hasn’t left yet, he thought. Is it ridiculous to hope she’ll stay?
He shook away the thought. There was probably no way in hell he’d ever see or speak to her again. Not after what she knew. Before she’d run away, he’d wanted to tell her he knew he’d made the wrong decision. That it had eaten him alive ever since, that he’d never been able to find any sort of contentment with the secrets he held. If he could go back in time, he’d do it all different. Especially, since despite keeping his mother’s secrets, she’d still taken her own life anyway.
He couldn’t think about that right now. It was time to focus on what was at hand. His father.
It was the one relationship he had left. He couldn’t let that one fall apart, too. Not when there was so much still yet to be said.
********