Speak with me? My stomach twists, worry the rope that tightens the noose around my heart. “I’m sorry for scaring you. I’m on edge.”
A sympathetic smile creases the corners of her mouth. “Understandable. If it’s any comfort, her vitals are good, better than expected after surgery.”
“Do you think she’ll wake up soon?”
Her shoulders slump, a long shift seeming to weigh her down. With dark circles under her eyes, she says, “The mind is an amazing thing. It’s protecting her right now. By keeping her asleep, the pain she’d normally feel is blocked.”
“I don’t want her in any pain. Isn’t she being given meds?”
“She has those too, but her brain will keep her asleep until she’s ready. The trauma she experienced and the surgery were intense.” She leans forward and touches a dial on one of the machines next to the bed. “My guess is she’ll wake in the next six to twelve hours, but it could be tomorrow. Even if she’s asleep, her body is busy healing, so the rest is good for her.”
A dark figure looms just outside the doorway. Sara Jane’s chart is removed from the wall and the sound of paper flipping over the top of the clipboard is heard. Rounding the corner, my spine straightens. The doctor puts me at ease immediately. “Our patient is doing well.”
Thank God. My shoulders drop, some of the tension leaving my body. He leans forward and shakes my hand. “I’m Dr. Levy, the doctor on call.”
“Alexander Kingwood,” I reply, tightening my grip just a tad more than he does.
We release hands, and he nods toward the bed. “Everything is looking good—her vitals and her progress in such a short time. Sometimes we see more activity—a spiked heart rate for instance, but she’s resting quite comfortably.”
“That’s a relief. What do I do? What should I expect?” I can’t handle half-truths, not when it comes to my Firefly. “Tell it to me straight, so I can prepare.”
Pressing the tips of his fingers into the right side of his stomach, he says, “Dr. Curtis spoke post-surgery about her wound. To elaborate a little on that, one inch over and it would be a different case altogether. I heard you found her and brought her here.”
“Yes.”
“You saved her life. A guardian angel watching over her. A few more minutes and . . . well,” he says, glancing to the nurse, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
Fuck. “I’m grateful we are.”
“So am I,” he says. “There may be numbness around the incision point. There will be some external scarring, but the liver regenerates quite quickly. In fact, it could regenerate in as few as three weeks. Her belly will be sore, but it’s important she is up and moving around from day one but at small increments. No heavy lifting, and only showers for the first two weeks. She may experience nausea and headaches, but apart from that, we expect a full recovery.”
Tucking the chart under his arm, he maneuvers around Sara Jane, checking her wrist with the IV where a little bruising has formed. Then he just stares at her. It’s easy to get lost in her pure beauty. If he only understood her physical beauty paled in comparison to the beauty of her heart. I know how lucky I am that I’m the one she chose to expose that to.
The doctor’s hands grip the bedrail, and I admit I’m surprised to see his knuckles whitening. When his eyes meet mine again, he says, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
The comment strikes me as odd and my head jerks back. She’s alive. Why is he apologizing? “But you said she’ll be fine.”
“She will.” He takes a deep breath. “But we never detected a heartbeat, so it was concluded the blunt-force trauma to the abdomen caused it. The bruising prior to surgery supports the conclusion. I’m truly sorry.”
“What?”
As if he didn’t hear me, he adds, “If you’d prefer, a nurse or I can tell her when she wakes up. Her stress levels must be kept to a minimum . . .”
His words go on, floating to me but ignored as the first few bounce around my head trying to find something solid to hold on to just to understand them.
I’m sorry for your loss.
Blunt-force trauma.
“Tell her what?” I ask.
“About the baby. I know this is awful . . .” He closes his eyes and shakes his head. When he looks my way again, the pain in his eyes cuts through the low light of the room. “She begged us to save the baby when we wheeled her into surgery. I gave her my word we would. I tried, but the baby was already gone.”
Baby.
Baby.
Baby.
“I don’t understand.”
The doctor tilts his head slightly as confusion widens his dark pupils. The nurse at his side replies, “You didn’t know.”
Not a question. A realization.
She comes around and covers my hand with hers. I hadn’t realized I was gripping the bedrail on this side of the bed just as tight as the doctor on the other. The woman between us made everyone want to protect her from the horrors of life, from me and the pain I’ve rained down upon her. This wasn’t about us anymore, or the petty bullshit tiffs with her family. “Sara Jane was pregnant.” The words are murmured sliding into sequence with the beeping heartbeat of the monitor.
“I’m sorry,” he repeats, the nurse moving to the other side again.
I hate their eyes on me. I hate their pity. I fucking hate hate hate . . .
Taking Sara Jane’s hand, I stare at the fine features of her face, something I love love love . . . There’s a frailty that’s not the girl I recognize at all, the hospital bed swallowing her small frame. “Can I have a minute?” I ask. I want them to leave. I need them to go.
I don’t wait for a response, and I don’t think they give one. There are no doors in ICU but if there were, I think they would have given us the privacy we need. I lower the bedrail, but am careful when I sit next to her, leaning my elbows on the mattress. Staring at her stomach, I try to imagine what it looks like under the sheet and woven white blanket. I want to see her body. I want to see where my baby once lived.
My chest aches in ways that remind me of seeing her on the ground, beaten. Shot. The bullet—did it strike her and my baby? My stomach muscles tighten and bile rises. The memory of finding her splayed out under a clear blue sky . . .