Heading to the hospital this afternoon, I can’t help my smile when I pass by young families walking their kids to school. Or pushing a baby in a stroller. Or stopping to get a breakfast burrito from a street vendor.
I try to imagine what it’ll be like for us one day. If she decides to live with me, that is.
I spent hours this morning trying to make everything perfect so Elizabeth will have no choice but to agree to stay with me. Gavin and I moved all the stuff from his and Baylor’s garage into my spare room. There is a crib, a changing table, and one of those gliding chairs.
On one side of the room, I put a futon that could be used as a bed for Elizabeth if she’s uncomfortable sleeping in mine. I didn’t want to presume. After all, we’ve only just kissed. And we have never talked about us having a relationship. But the looks, the banter, the way we are with each other—they all seem to confirm what neither of us has come out and said.
I know she might still be upset with me. When I talked to Baylor late last night, she told me she could sense something was wrong. Elizabeth gave Baylor the tablet back, insisting she wouldn’t have time to use it with the baby. Baylor wrote it off as post-partum depression. Maybe that’s part of it, but deep down, I know I’m the cause of Elizabeth’s sadness.
I just hope after she sees everything I’ve done, she’ll realize how serious I am. She’s not a charity case. I would never look at her as such.
I stop in the residents’ lounge to grab the bottle of champagne from the refrigerator. I carry it, two plastic champagne glasses, and a giant stuffed bear with a large pink bow around its neck up the elevator to floor seven.
People look at me and smile.
“Congratulations,” one of the elevator passengers says.
“It’s a girl, huh?” asks another.
“Thank you. Yes, it’s a girl.”
I don’t tell them it’s not my baby. Hell, I practically feel like she’s mine anyway. I delivered her. I’ve held her, burped her, rocked her to sleep. I’m already in love with her and I don’t even know her. I laugh to myself. Because I could say the very same thing about her mother.
I can’t wait to bring them home with me.
I smile at how my whole world is about to change. How it changed a month ago, when Elizabeth first walked into the ER.
As I make my way down the long hallway, something feels off. Nurses are looking at me oddly as I pass their station. I quicken my steps to get to Elizabeth’s room, but when I arrive, everything’s wrong.
There is no bassinet. No stroller in the corner. No balloons or flowers. No collection of Chinese proverbs on the side table.
No Elizabeth.
An orderly excuses himself around me with a bucket of water and a mop.
“Where the hell are they?” I ask, as if he’ll know the answer.
He shrugs at me and continues his work.
Abby comes up behind me. “Dr. Stone?”
“Where is she?” I ask.
“Elizabeth was discharged this morning,” she says.
I shake my head in confusion. “She wasn’t supposed to be discharged until late this afternoon.”
“Elizabeth asked to leave early and Dr. Anders signed off on it,” she says. “She said she would follow up with her own pediatrician in a day or two for the tests we didn’t get to complete due to her early release.”
“But . . . where did she go? Was anyone with her?”
“I don’t think so,” she says. “And I suppose she went home. Where else would she go?”
“How could you let her leave without anyone to help her?”
Abby scolds me with her stare. “That’s not our job, Dr. Stone. She was healing nicely. The baby was doing well. There was no medical reason to keep her. She’d already long passed the forty-eight-hour mark. Don’t worry, I’m sure they will be fine.”
They won’t be fine, I want to yell at her. I want to wring her neck for allowing Elizabeth to leave.
Abby doesn’t understand what she may have done, allowing her to go back to some crack house or shelter . . . or to him.
But I know it’s not Abby’s fault. It may not be anyone’s fault but mine.
I lied to Elizabeth. I paid for her hospital stay, and then I lied about it. How could we build a relationship when it began on a bed of lies? Why didn’t I tell her sooner? It’s not like she could have left, she was on strict bed rest. She wouldn’t have run back then and risk hurting her baby. Not like she ran now.
I’m such an idiot.
I never should have left last night. I should have come back after my shift and made her listen. Hell, I should have slept here. I would have slept here had I known what was at stake.
I put everything down on the plastic mattress of her empty bed. I run my hands through my hair. Then I pull out my phone and dial Elizabeth’s number.
I know she won’t answer. But at least I can leave her a voicemail. Try to explain things. Appeal to her motherly instincts. I’ll leave a hundred messages if that’s what it takes to get through to her.
When it rings, however, I hear a noise in the room. I follow the sound over to the trashcan.
Shit.
I reach down and pull out Elizabeth’s phone.
Then I rifle through the rest of the contents of the trash. The birth certificate application. The Nighthawks tickets. And Jell-O.
Lots and lots of Jell-O.