When I get to Elizabeth’s room, it’s empty, but I hear the shower running in her bathroom. I sit down on the chair next to the bed and close my eyes for a minute. Then I smile when I hear the familiar “Da-da-da-daaaaa” sound coming from the TV and look up to see she’d been watching ESPN again.
Then I look at her bedside tray to see it piled high with various flavors of Jell-O.
Then I look at the fetal monitor next to the bed and all I can see is Jenny Beaumont’s face when I told her her baby was dead.
I hear the bathroom door open. I scrub my hands across the two-day stubble on my jaw, trying to rid my head of the painful memory.
“Oh, hi, Kyle,” Elizabeth says, walking across the room fresh from a shower. Her blonde hair, that falls just below her chin, is darker and wavier when it’s wet; and her face, devoid of all makeup, looks fresh and almost adolescent.
I stand up and help her back into bed. Then I get the fetal monitor hooked up again.
She looks at the clock on the wall. “Yes!” she shouts. “Eight minutes.”
I look at her in confusion.
“Abby said I had ten minutes to shower, but I did it in eight.” She gives me a triumphant smile.
I shake my head in awe at her excitement. I guess I was right about it not taking much to please her.
“What?” she says. “If I’m going to be stuck in this place, I might as well make the little things count, right?”
“I like your attitude,” I say, walking back to the table where I left her chart. “No more heavy bleeding?” I ask.
“Nope,” she says with another pleasing smile. “Just some spotting.”
“That’s good.” I open her chart and read the nurse’s notes. I catch a glimpse of her recent ultrasound and let out a deep sigh as it has me thinking about earlier.
I don’t usually sit down in patient rooms, but I do now. I sit down and pinch the bridge of my nose. Maybe I’m getting sick. I just feel—off.
“What’s wrong, Kyle?”
I shake off the feeling and look up at her. “Aren’t I supposed to be asking you that?”
“You just seem different,” she says, studying me.
“I’m fine,” I say. I nod to the television. “What’s with you and ESPN? You really are a sports junkie, huh?”
She laughs. “I am. I’m trying to catch up on all the scores. I don’t own a TV. I usually go to Sal’s to catch the highlights.”
“Sal’s on 52nd?” I ask.
“You know the place?”
“Best egg rolls in New York,” I say.
“Oh, my God, right?” Her eyes roll in appreciation. “I walked his dog for a week when his regular guy went on vacation. After that, he let me come in and watch TV even if I couldn’t buy anything.” Her eyes snap to mine and she shuts up as if what she said was too revealing. “Um, he had a beautiful Wheaton Terrier named Wonton.”
“Wonton?”
“Yeah. A dog named Wonton owned by a guy named Sal who runs a Chinese food restaurant. Pretty crazy. You’d think he’d own a pizza place or something with that name. Sal’s Pizza,” she muses.
I eye her tray table. “Speaking of food, what’s with all the Jell-O?”
She laughs. “Abby said Jell-O is pretty much a staple here at the hospital, and since I’m going to be here a while, I might as well figure out which flavor is my favorite. So, she brought me all of them to try. I really like her.”
“Oh,” I say, looking out her window to check out the approaching summer storm.
“Kyle?”
I look back at her and see the concern etched in her face. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?” she asks.
She looks worried and I realize that maybe she thinks I’m here to give her bad news about her or the baby.
“Everything is fine. You’re doing well and so is the baby.”
“Not with me,” she says. “Something is wrong with you. What is it?”
I shake my head. “Just a difficult case, that’s all. Nature of the job.”
“I’m sorry.” She reaches over and touches my shoulder in the same way I comforted her the other night. She studies me. “You need a distraction. Something to get your mind off whatever is bothering you.”
“Let me guess,” I say, looking up at the TV. “ESPN? Or maybe you had something else in mind. One of those survivalist programs perhaps? Bare-ass naked guy climbs into volcano whilst trying not to roast his balls?”
She laughs for the third time. Why am I even counting? Then she asks, “Whilst?”
“Sorry, I guess my British attending is rubbing off on me.”
She nods. “Oh, right, the one who sentenced you to babysitting duty.”
“Not a sentence,” I say. “A privilege.”
She rolls her eyes. “Whatever you say, Dr. Stone. And no, I wasn’t referring to watching television to get your mind off things. I was thinking of a game my friends and I used to play in college when we were stressed out over an exam.” She frowns. “But now that I think of it, it wouldn’t work in this situation.”
“Why not?” I ask, intrigued.
“Well, because for one, I’m pregnant; and two, you’re working which probably means drinking alcohol would be frowned upon.”
“Probably,” I say sarcastically. “What game was it?”
Her face pinks up. “It’s totally juvenile. But it was fun. I don’t know why I even thought of it. It’s stupid.”
“After the way you just blushed, now you have to tell me, Elizabeth. What is it?”
“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Her face breaks into an adolescent smile. “Have you ever played ‘Never have I ever’?”
I draw my brows together thinking of the games my brothers and I would play in the old neighborhood. “Is it anything like ‘Spin the bottle’ or ‘Truth or dare’?”
She giggles. “Not that juvenile,” she says. “In ‘Never have I ever,’ you say something you’ve never done before and if anyone else in the room has done it, they take a drink. It’s fun.” Then she looks embarrassed again. “Well, it was when I was nineteen. Sorry, it was a stupid idea.”
I smile. She doesn’t know what a great idea it really is. Elizabeth is a closed book. Not once has she ever given anyone details about her except where her pregnancy is concerned. And I could use something to get my mind off things. Every time I look at my damn hand, I think of the tiny girl I was holding in it earlier. “No, I want to play,” I tell her.
She looks at me awkwardly. “What don’t you understand about the whole drinking thing?”
“We’re not going to drink alcohol, Elizabeth. Although I do have a damn fine bottle of champagne in my locker.”
“Why do you have a bottle of champagne in your locker?” she asks. “Hot date after work?”
“Ha! Hardly. I’m a second-year resident. There isn’t any time for dating. No, I had a professor in medical school, Dr. Williston, who said every new doctor should keep a bottle handy because you never know when you are going to want to celebrate that one great thing. He said for some it would be the first time they do a solo surgery. For others, the first time they deliver a baby. Or maybe for when you save a life by making a difficult diagnosis.”
“And you haven’t opened it yet?” she asks.
I shake my head. “Haven’t felt the urge.”
“It’ll happen,” she says, encouragingly. “Probably when you least expect it.”
“I suppose,” I say. “Anyway, alcohol is not required under my rules of the game.”
I look around the room for ideas when my eyes land on the tray table beside her bed. I stand up and walk around the room to examine the Jell-O cups. There are six different flavors. Six possible things I can learn about the girl lying in this bed. My mind starts to go over all the possible questions.
“We’ll play for Jell-O,” I tell her. “And we play until each of us has tried every one.”
“Jell-O?” she asks, like I’m off my rocker.
“Why not? Abby said you need to pick your favorite flavor; and I, as the great babysitter I am, will play the stupid, juvenile game just to make you happy.” I wink down at her.
She smiles and tucks a lock of wet hair behind her ear. “Fine,” she says, pretending to pout—but I know better. She’s happy.
She reaches over and grabs a couple of spoons encased in plastic. She hands me one. “I’ll go first, just so you’ll know how to play.”
“You better,” I say. “This medical degree I have might not qualify me to understand the rudimentary rules of a childhood game.”
“Shut up,” she says, laughing at me. “Okay, I’m going first anyway. Um . . . let me think.” She looks at me and scrunches up her nose to form a small wrinkle. “Never have I ever been a doctor.”
I roll my eyes at her. “Really?”
“Just trying to make sure you get how to play. Now pick your flavor.”
I open the tinfoil top on the yellow one and take a bite. Lemon—not my favorite.
“Okay, now it’s my turn. Never have I ever been out of the country.”
Her hand doesn’t move at all. “Back to me,” she says. “Never have I ever ridden a horse.”
I pick up the light-green cup and take a bite. It’s friggin’ gross. “Tenth grade,” I say, choking the bite down. “The horse’s name was Beauty. She bucked me off and I broke my damn leg. Alright, let’s see . . . never have I ever had stitches.”
She picks up the yellow one and takes a bite. “You must have led a sheltered life,” she says, pulling her leg out from under the blanket. She points to her ankle. “Scooter accident when I was eight.” Then she shows me her left elbow. “Softball field. Fourteen years old. Didn’t know there was a break in the fence when I dove for a ball. Ripped my elbow from here to here.” She runs her finger along the faded scar.
“And this one?” I ask, touching the faint scar on her collarbone.
She looks up at me, frozen. Damn it. I shouldn’t have touched her.
Why the hell did you touch her?
I pull my hand back as she clears her throat. “Uh, I forgot about that one. It’s not nearly as interesting, I—I fell into the corner of a table.”
“Age?”
“Huh?” she asks.
“You were eight when you fell off the scooter and fourteen when you dove for the softball. How old were you when you fell into the table?”
“Oh . . . uh, twenty-three,” she says.
“After a night of playing ‘Never have I ever’?” I joke.
She smiles morosely. “Funny, but no.” She pushes the yellow Jell-O across her tray table with her nose in the air. “Definitely not that one,” she says. “Okay, never have I ever flown in an airplane.”
I pick up the red cup and open it before dipping my spoon in. “Mmmm, pretty good,” I say, swallowing the strawberry confection. “My parents moved us from New York to California when I was fifteen. They still live there so I fly out when I can, which isn’t much these days.”
“It’s nice that you get to see them,” she says sadly. “Even if it’s only occasionally.”
The look on her face. Jesus. She really doesn’t have anyone, does she?
“My turn again.” I can’t think of one. My mind is blank. She’s going to think I’m a lame doctor who can’t think up a stupid question. I just spout out the first thing that comes to mind. “Never have I ever been married.”
“I, uh . . .” She looks at the cups in front of her and then out the window.
Damn it. I went too far. I am a lame fucking doctor. What was I thinking?
There’s a knock on the door. I turn around to see Mallory standing in the doorway with a few bags in her hands. I walk over to help her with them, relieved to be saved from my stupidity.
“Hi, Mal. Thanks for coming. Elizabeth, this is my sister-in-law, Mallory. I thought that since you two are about the same age and you obviously have something in common, you should meet.”
Mallory rubs her pregnant belly as she walks over to the bed. “Hi, Elizabeth. It’s really nice to meet you.”
“You, too,” Elizabeth says, looking confused.
Mallory notices her reaction, too. “When Kyle said he had a pregnant patient who was on bed rest for what could be weeks, I told him I wanted to stop by and keep you company. I can’t even imagine what it must be like to be quarantined away from the world. Would you mind if I sat with you for a while?”
Elizabeth smiles, looking more at ease. “Mind? Not at all, it would be great to have some company.”
She looks guiltily at me. “Not that you aren’t good company, Kyle, uh . . . Dr. Stone, but you have no idea what it’s like to be pregnant.”
“It’s still Kyle,” I tell her. “Mal is family.” I walk around the bed to clean up the Jell-O. “We’ll finish our game another time, okay?”
She nods.
“I’m off after rounds, so I’ll see you tomorrow, Elizabeth. Thanks again, Mal.”
“Anytime,” she says.
I walk out the door and stand there for a minute, eavesdropping.
“My brother-in-law is a pretty great doctor, don’t you think?” Mallory asks.
“He is,” Elizabeth says. “He’s a lot nicer than most doctors I’ve met.”
“He’s a lot nicer than most people,” Mal says. “You won’t find a better breed than the Stone brothers. Then again, I may be a bit biased. So how far along are you?”
I leave them to their conversation, walking down the hall with a huge smile on my face, realizing just how much better I feel leaving her room than when I first entered it.