13
That evening, I turn the water off and slip into the tub, inch by inch. The bubbles consume my limbs and then my middle until I am submerged up to my neck. I lean back to dip my ears underneath, searching for the thick silence. I detach myself for a little while, close my eyes and try to pretend that I’m the only person who exists, that this tub is the only thing left in the world and that if I tried really hard, I could melt right into the hot water. I slip underneath the surface, and the heat stings my face. The bubbles fill in the hole above me like I was never there.
I sit in the tub until the water is cold and my hair has dried, watching the water leak, drop by drop, from the faucet. The only indication that the rest of the world outside is still moving comes when I hear a knock on the bathroom door hours later. I start before I remember there’s only one other person who has a key to the house.
“You’re not supposed to drop by without asking,” I say. I try to insert frustration into my voice, but I don’t have it in me today. Truthfully, I find some relief in him coming back. After our last conversation, I was sure he hated me. And I couldn’t entirely blame him.
“Are you okay in there?” Cooper asks, his voice muffled.
“I’m fine,” I say, fighting my contradicting emotions—hoping he’ll go away quickly, so I don’t have to acknowledge the confusing voice inside me begging him to stay.
I don’t want to be alone. I’d let anyone stay if they’d distract me from the questions circling in my head, one of them being if Cooper would have ever loved me at all if he’d known that first night that he would never fully break through my walls. Or would I have, instead, not even been worth a memory. Just an “oh, yeah” if Stephen ever asked, “Hey, what ever happened with...”
That’s why, no matter how relieved I am to hear his voice, he has to leave. I can’t further muddy our relationship by making the same choice I made the night I met him—secrets and solace.
There is a long pause before Cooper asks, “Can I come in?” Through the door he sounds embarrassed by the question, as if he doesn’t have the landscape of my body memorized.
As I’m about to say “no,” the door clicks open, and Cooper slips in, careful not to look in my direction. My hands float to the spots over my breasts to provide a small amount of privacy, the bubbles long gone. He sits on the toilet, facing away, his shirt untucked and hanging around him.
“What is it?” I ask.
“I came by to drop off more food for Spencer,” he says. “I saw your car in the garage, but you didn’t answer, so I got worried.”
“I’m fine,” I say.
Even through the back of his head, I can see the frown he’s wearing. Or maybe I’m imagining it there because I’ve memorized the landscape of his body, too.
“There’s a bottle of wine sitting on the kitchen counter.”
“It’s just wine.”
“It’s never just wine with you, Dylan.” He knows as well as I do that wine is my balm for the particularly bad days. After a pause, he asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”
I shake my head, though he can’t see me. I shift against the porcelain that’s growing more uncomfortable by the minute. My fingers and toes are pruned beyond recognition.
After a long silence, he says, “Can I help?”
“There’s nothing to do. Besides, it’s not your job to worry about me anymore.”
“I never worried about you out of obligation. I do it because I love you. You can kick me out a hundred times, and that won’t change.”
“Cooper, please, don’t.” I’m trying to sound angry, but my voice is watery and breaks at the end of my plea.
He sighs. “I’m sorry. I’m not trying to upset you.” I can tell it’s hard for him not to turn to me, look me in the eye. It’s where he finds the words on my tongue before I speak them.
My fingers ache with the need to reach out to him, to turn him to face me, to curl up in his lap, let him hold me and ease the pain away. It takes all my willpower not to. But it wouldn’t be fair to him, not when half my fears are for losing a friendship with another man and the other half are for a family he can no longer be a part of. He doesn’t move either. He sits there on the toilet seat, hunched over to rest his chin on his palm, like he wants to be close to me for a little longer.
“Can I make you dinner?” he finally asks.
“I’m not hungry,” I say softly, my argument thinning.
“Can I pour you some wine?”
I sigh, a mournful smile below the surface. “Okay,” I whisper.
When I come out of the bathroom fifteen minutes later, though, Cooper is gone. I peek out the front window and his car is gone, too. It’s probably for the best, but I can’t deny my disappointment. I had no right to let him stay in the first place. I’m the one who asked him to leave. I’m the one who told him it was over and that we both needed to move on.
But as I’m staring at the soil where my daisies should have been months ago, I hear the front door open and close, and a moment later Cooper appears in the kitchen with grocery bags.
“Sorry,” he says, breathing heavily. “I didn’t want to bother you again. Bruschetta?”
“Sure,” I say, feeling a twisted sense of relief when I know I shouldn’t.
He walks up next to me and peers out the window into the backyard.
“What are you looking at?” I ask.
He shakes his head and says, “Nothing.”
We make the bruschetta together. With every step Cooper makes, he stumbles, hesitates and looks to me for approval in his own house that is no longer his home. He keeps his distance, but I feel his every movement. Our connection remains unbroken like a high-pitched vibration only we can hear—a sound so strong nothing drowns it out, not even all the other noise between us.
The wine helps. I peel the tomatoes; he slices the bread. We walk around each other, careful not to touch, but the hyperawareness this requires means we don’t talk. I’m okay not talking, just having him here. I know it’s dangerous to pretend, for even a moment, that we could go back...that he never left. But it’s such a sweet salve to my lonely heart.
“So how’s the apartment hunt going?” I finally ask.
“Fine,” he says with a shrug. “Actually, I haven’t been looking, to be honest.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, it’s not because I expect you to change your mind. I don’t. Don’t worry. It’s just... I guess if I move into a place of my own, it’s official. I’m not ready for that yet.”
I stop chopping. I don’t know how he does it—wear his heart on his sleeve. I chance a glance in his direction. His expression is grave. I knew he’d have a hard time on his own, but it hurts to see the reality on his face. He’s never lived alone before. Neither have I, but being alone has never bothered me.
“Maybe you don’t have to be alone, though. Couldn’t you stay with your parents for a while? Or Megan?” I gauge him, watching his eyes for a flicker of hurt at being left out of her pregnancy.
“I couldn’t live with my parents again. And... I don’t know... Megan’s been avoiding me. Maybe Mom told her about us, and she’s mad at me or something.” He shrugs, but I can see it bothers him. I wish I could tell him the truth to unburden him, but it’s not my truth to tell.
“Stephen?” I ask. I’ve been avoiding him at work, not sure of where our relationship stands without Cooper or Megan in it and not ready to face another disappointment.
“Maybe,” Cooper says, but I can tell he’s humoring me.
“You haven’t told him either,” I guess. His lack of response confirms it. Maybe he’s not as open with his feelings as I thought.
Cooper crosses to the sink to fill a pot with water.
“I went to visit that patient at the hospital today. The kid I told you about. His parents had brought him into the office for a cold a couple of months ago. Then again a couple of weeks later. And then a couple weeks after that. Finally, I sent him over to the hospital to get some more tests done.”
“What’s wrong with him?”
He stops and puts the pot down to wipe his cheek with the inside of his collar. “It’s cancer,” he whispers.
“Oh, Cooper.”
“He wasn’t getting better because his body was too busy fighting the leukemia.”
“I’m so sorry.”
He returns to the food and I let him. I know how staying busy eases the pain. I can’t imagine what Cooper must be feeling. It’s my worst fear—losing a patient. Being responsible for the loss of a life.
“I know we’re doctors and this kind of thing is going to happen from time to time, but he’s a kid, you know?” he says as he works. “Maybe I’m naive, but being in pediatrics, I just didn’t expect it. I don’t know how to handle something like this. I’m glad I’m not the one who has to tell his parents.”
“They don’t know yet?”
“They’re going to the hospital tonight after his dad gets off work. I keep imagining the look on their faces when they hear the news. Over and over it plays in my head.” Cooper pauses. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make tonight about me.”
“Don’t apologize.”
I want to go to him and wrap my arms around him, but I stop myself. Instead, I swirl my wine around the glass, pick up a piece of tomato with my fingers and suck it into my mouth. The juice drips down my hand. I wipe it off on my pants. As I chew, I notice Cooper is watching me.
“Something has changed,” Cooper says.
“What?” I ask. He doesn’t answer right away. He studies me further.
“I don’t know,” he says. “Something about you is different.”
“About me?” I laugh, because if anything has changed, it’s that more of my sanity and strength have been chipped away, and at an alarming rate. I feel vulnerable in a way I never have before, no longer able to hold myself together, no longer able to put on a facade. “I don’t think so.”
“I think so,” he says.
He sweeps his gaze over me again, then locks eyes with me until I can’t move. My heart beats faster, and I’m breathless under the power of his longing, the way he grips the counter as if physically stopping himself from coming to me. His hands must lose the battle because after a long, wordless moment, he steps forward and pushes me against the sink. Either the alcohol or the need for some semblance of normalcy in my life keeps me from stopping him. He presses his forehead against mine and, gently, he kisses my cheeks, whisper soft. He brushes his lips over my forehead and nose, and my own lips tingle in anticipation of what will come next. Instead, he bites his bottom lip and closes his eyes. I close mine, too. My chest rises, further closing the space between us, then falls.
“I should go,” Cooper says.
We’re emotional and treading in dangerous waters, and we both know it. Without opening my eyes, I nod. I feel his hands slip from my body, and my skin is icy where they once were.
“Good night,” he says.
“Good night.”
He hovers there for another moment, then takes one last sip of his wine and leaves.
I finish making my bruschetta alone, and all the fears creep back in, along with one more: that I will never get over Cooper.
My phone rings later that night as I’m lying in bed, still imagining Cooper’s touch in the privacy of the dark. I expect it to be the hospital, but when I place the phone against my ear, an unexpected voice says my name. Cooper’s voice.
“Oh,” I say, sitting up. “Hi, Coop—” I stop myself and clear my throat. I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to call him by that nickname anymore. “Hi, Cooper.”
There’s an uncertain pause, a question. It’s late. I worry that something is wrong. I worry that it’s Megan, but I can’t ask.
“Is everything okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Everything’s fine,” he says.
“Oh,” I say. Then, “Good.”
I wait for more, anticipation buzzing through my veins.
“It was good to see you tonight,” he finally says.
I hesitate, then melt back into bed. I shouldn’t be letting him say these things to me. I shouldn’t feel so happy that he is.
“It was,” I say.
“I...I miss you.”
I open my mouth to return the words, my heart thrumming a beat against my chest. “I...know,” I say. I scrunch my eyes shut.
We’re silent for a while, and then he says, “Dylan?”
His voice still makes my heart speed up. And then I hear the faintest sound of someone calling, “Coop,” on the other end of the line. A woman’s voice.
I hang up the phone before I hear any more and bring my fingers to my lips. They’re cool with shock. I shouldn’t be surprised. What Cooper does with his life no longer involves me. I know that. I shouldn’t have let myself get caught up in the moment. And yet, I sit there staring at my phone in my hand for minutes, hours, days, wondering why the stars stopped lining up for us.
* * *
The labor and delivery unit doors open seven minutes after a page from Enrique, and I nearly run headlong into him where he waits for me with a surgical gown.
“You told me there was coffee,” I say.
“I’m making it just the way you like it,” he says. “That fresh pot will be an hour stale by the time you finish up here.”
“You know me too well.”
I let him slip the gown over my arms as he updates me on Erika’s progress. I’ve been monitoring her labor via phone for the better part of the day.
“She reached ten centimeters five minutes ago and has already done some practice pushes,” he tells me. “You’re good to go.”
I follow him to the delivery room door, and he opens it for me. Before I walk through, I stop to take a steadying breath. No matter how many times I cross this threshold into these rooms that are my second home, I still have to tame the butterflies in my stomach. I do it because, regardless of the patient’s condition, there is no more important part of my job than bringing an air of confidence to the situation.
“How are you, Erika?” I ask as I enter the room. Several nurses shuffle silently from one side of the room to another, grabbing supplies and preparing them on sterilized tray tables. I greet them all with a nod and a smile while I scrub in, then I take a seat in front of Erika as a nurse rolls a chair underneath me.
The room is dim aside from the delivery lights overhead. Andrew holds Erika’s hand and wears an expression of panic and awe. The mom-to-be is already on her back with her legs pulled up to her chest, strands of thick black hair stuck to her forehead with sweat. Her face is red, and her eyes are glazed over with pain. I adopt the soft voice I reserve for the delivery room.
“How is she doing?” I ask Andrew.
“Amazing.” He sounds composed, though he nods his head vigorously.
Erika gives a low, guttural moan, and I can tell without checking that she’s ready to go. I can always hear that subtle shift in a woman’s voice from being overwhelmed by the pain of labor to being in control of it. I glance at the monitor over her right shoulder to ensure a normal fetal heart rate. When the contraction graph indicates the current one has waned, I speak to her again.
“You’re doing fantastic. I know it’s tough, but it’s almost over. Are you ready to meet your baby?” I ask her.
She gives a pained smile, and a tear streaks down her cheek into her hair as she nods. “Yes. Dios mío, por favor,” she moans.
The next contraction begins to rise. Erika has a nurse next to her who holds one foot and encourages Andrew to hold the other. The warm delivery lights hum above me. As I run two gloved fingers over the crown of the baby’s head and a tuft of thick, black hair, I hear Andrew whisper to his wife, “You can do this. You’re almost there.”
I focus my attention on Erika’s eyes, while my hands fall into position instinctively.
“It’s time,” I say to Erika. “If you feel ready, I want you to push.” She whimpers uncertainly, but I know she’s strong. “Your baby is right here. I can feel his head. Let’s introduce him to the world.”
She chokes back a sob and nods. “Okay.”
Erika takes a deep breath, and when the contraction peaks, she braces herself and noiselessly thrusts the baby downward. Andrew’s knuckles whiten as Erika clamps down on his hand, and her lips purse together until they’re white, too.
“Again,” I say and watch the baby breach the threshold. Erika takes another deep breath and then grunts as she bears down. Other than the nurse counting beside her, the room is silent with anticipation. Every number reverberates in my ears. “Can you give me one more?”
She does, and the baby crowns, emerging from her womb.
“Keep pushing. Keep pushing,” I urge.
With one more count of ten, the baby’s head slips out, and I cradle it in my hands like blown glass. Erika gasps for air and drops her head back on the pillow. The baby’s swollen face is tinged with purple, and my heart skips a beat, but my training kicks in before the panic.
“Hold it for one second,” I say and run my fingers around the baby’s neck. The umbilical cord is wrapped around once, so I work my fingers gently underneath it and loosen it until I can loop it over its head. I check the baby’s heartbeat on the monitor—too low—then take the bulb sucker from the nurse at my shoulder and sweep the baby’s mouth and nose.
I peer up at Erika between the frame of her legs, all business.
“This is it,” I say. “One more big push. Give it everything you’ve got. Here we go.”
I take a big, synchronized breath with her and watch as the baby bulges out, and then, in a split second, a tiny body slides into my palms. In every way, I feel the weight of a life in my hands, and as blood pumps loudly in my ears, the movement around me fades into the background like static on an old radio.
He’s a boy. So perfect, with little hands and little feet. A precious head with sticky black hair. The sweetest combination of his mother and father in a tiny bundle that will bond them together forever. When he fears monsters in the closet, he’ll lie between them in their bed, and they’ll sing him to sleep. In ten years, his weekly soccer games will bring them side by side in the stands, even if only for an hour when taking time off work for a vacation is impossible. In twenty years, when they look at each other like strangers and wonder why they stayed, he will always be the answer.
And he’s limp.
“Dr. Michels.” Enrique’s sharp voice snaps me back to the hospital room, and he snatches the baby from my hands. Another nurse cuts through the umbilical cord, and he’s whisked away.
“What’s happening?” Erika shrieks, but no one answers her as everyone but me crowds around the warming table, frantically buzzing above the child, pulling equipment closer, grabbing more blankets. “Is he okay?”
My mouth goes dry, and I feel beads of sweat form across my forehead and prickle under my arms.
What did I do wrong?
Erika stirs in the bed like she might try to escape it, but I pull myself back to the moment and reach out to steady her. I swallow hard and palpate her abdomen, clinging to procedure to keep the situation under control.
“Tell me what’s going on,” Erika shrieks.
This isn’t the first time a baby has come out with the umbilical cord wrapped around its neck, and this isn’t the first time a baby has needed resuscitation after birth, but this is the first time I’ve ever felt a baby so lifeless.
This isn’t happening. I chose this profession to make sure this didn’t happen. I live my whole life at this hospital to make sure this doesn’t happen.
My breathing is shallow, but I face Erika with a facade of reassurance.
“Erika, you have an experienced team of people over there taking care of your baby, I promise you that. I know it’s hard, but they need to focus on doing their job right now, and I need to focus on doing mine. Let me take care of you, so that when your baby is ready for you, you will be ready for him, okay?”
“Him?” she asks.
I nod.
Her body jolts with each escaped sob, and Andrew looks back and forth between me and the huddle of nurses in the corner, clearly unsure of whether he should stay with his wife or go to the baby.
“Give them their space,” I say to him quietly. Half of my attention is on gently tugging the umbilical cord, while the other half is listening to every zing of sterilized tools being released from the packaging, every hushed prayer exchanged by the nurses. I pick up the suturing needle, but my hand is shaking so badly, I don’t trust it to do its job. I take a few steadying breaths.
“Give me just a minute,” I say so softly I’m not sure if anyone hears me, and place the needle back on the tray.
I assess the situation.
Erika’s bleeding is normal. Andrew is there to take care of her. He won’t be losing a wife today.
But the baby behind me still isn’t crying. I won’t allow this sweet, young couple to suffer the loss of their child. Not them.
I rise from my chair and break through the nurses in the corner to find the boy as pale and ashen as death. The warming lamps beat down on my hair as I wedge myself into the group and lean over the plastic barrier of the baby warmer to touch his icy paper skin. I know the nurses’ procedure as well as my own. I know they’ve suctioned his lungs and stomach. I know they’ve cleared all airways. I know they’ve called the neonatal nurse practitioner. All that’s left to do is to perform CPR, and so I do, because I can’t sit over there and do nothing while the threat of losing a child hangs over my head. I place my fingers over the center of his rib cage and thrust them down with so much force, I’m afraid I’ll do more harm than good. After a moment of stillness and confusion amongst the nurses, I recognize Enrique’s hands as they return to stimulating whatever circulation there might be in the baby’s arms and legs. Another nurse places the oxygen mask to the baby’s nose and mouth, and he’s so small, it covers most of his face.
“C’mon. C’mon,” I say. The baby looks helpless with his little features staring up at me, pleading for a chance at life. I swat a loose hair away from my eyes with the sleeve of my gown.
Nothing.
Nothing.
It’s too late.
It’s too late.
It can’t be too late.
“I’ve got it,” a voice says at my side, and two hands reach in around the baby. I step away and allow the space to be filled by the neonatal nurse. I stumble over my feet, my hands still outstretched until the tiny body is blocked from view. I turn to Enrique, staring at him without seeing him. My heavily beating heart tracks the passage of time as it thrums in my ears. After the longest minute of my life, Enrique reaches out to me, but I step back. I’m not the one who needs to be consoled.
“Do you want me to page Dr. Galloway to finish up with Mrs. Martinez?” he asks. I can barely hear him over the quiet roar of the nurses working behind me.
I’ve never lost a patient before.
Not this couple.
“No,” I say immediately and look away from the pity on his face. “No,” I say again, more to myself than to him.
I snap off my gloves and dispose of them without another glance behind me. I return to Erika’s side where she cries uncontrollably, craning her head for any glimpse of her lost child. I glance back and forth between mother and father, seeing their anguished cries but not hearing them. For now, I do the only thing that’s left to do. I take Erika’s hand and hold it in mine while the baby is wheeled away.