“Here, drink this.” Shannon hands me a small plastic cup with water, and my stomach rolls with bile and fear.
“I can’t. I keep throwing up.”
“All the more reason to drink. You’re dehydrated.” She forces the cup into my hand and assists its journey to my mouth. I reluctantly take a sip, which seems to please her, and a smile lights her friendly face, although her eyes look too troubled, just like mine.
“Thank you for staying, Shannon.”
“I’m so sorry, Regan. I should’ve—” She sucks back the emotion cracking her normally unshakeable demeanour, and I interrupt.
“Whatever you’re going to say, you couldn’t have done anything. You did everything I would’ve done, and Ruby would still be in the same place. So please don’t think you could’ve done anything to change this outcome.”
“I hear what you’re saying, and I’m going to ask you just one thing. Do you hear what you are saying? It’s not your fault.” With this, she takes my shaky hands in hers and tries to reach me with the return of her matter of fact world comfort that I have come to depend on, on more than one occasion. Harper may be my best friend, but friends with kids understand.
“I can’t be a donor, Shannon. I’m her best chance at surviving this and because of my own anaemia, I can’t save her.” I can’t contain the devastation, it bursts from me in a gut-wrenching cry that tears me in two.
“Oh, Regan, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know that.” She drops my hands and surrounds me with a full and much-needed hug. Pulling me into her slight frame, she rocks me until my not so silent tears ebb enough that I can draw an almost steady breath.
“It’s a very strict list. It has to be to minimise the risk of rejection, and she’s AB negative.” I pull out of her hold and slump back in my chair, feeling the weight of the fucking world begin to crush me. My eyes continue to trickle with a never-ending stream of tears. This can’t be happening, please.
“Is that bad?”
“It means we are currently looking for a needle in the mother of all haystacks, or a miracle that her father is going to walk through those doors.” I point at the end of the corridor and for a moment we both just stare at the double doors expectantly. They open and shut with an elderly porter bringing supplies to the ward, clearly not a candidate with his dark chocolate skin, ancient face, and the fact that he’s a porter, and Raleigh was after a sugar daddy.
“Shit,” Shannon says, and her eyes widen with worry that she’s expressed something she should be keeping at bay, hopelessness. “Do you still have your sister’s stuff?” If she felt hopeless, it was only for a fraction of a second, and her expression is now a mix of determination and intrigue, the latter has me feeling the same.
“Some of it I kept for Ruby, why?”
“Look, Raleigh may have left a clue, something that leads to Ruby’s father. Give me your keys, and I’ll have a good look.” She hurriedly gathers her bag, and coat, and cups her hand for me to give her the keys to my apartment.
“I did check when she died, there’s nothing.” I fish my keys from my pocket and hold them out.
“But you weren’t really looking, and, besides, as smart as you are, you do not have my stalking capabilities. If he’s in there, I’ll find him.” She snatches the keys with excitement and levels a knowing look on me that almost has me believing.
“Thank you, Shannon.” I stand and she holds me so tight she squeezes the sound out of my grateful words.
“Anything for you, babe. You’ve got this.” She smiles with all the optimism that evades me.
I don’t have this, not by a long fucking way. This isn’t one of my patients. This is Ruby, and she’s my baby.
“Hey, how are you doing?” His soft deep voice still makes me jump. I haven’t moved from Ruby’s side since they let me back in. Her tiny hand lies limp in mine, twitching occasionally and making my heart race with hope, if only for a moment.
“How does it look like I’m doing?” I snap, with tension ticking at my clenched jaw and rolling off me in tidal waves. “What are you even doing here?” I scowl.
He holds up his palms in surrender but doesn’t back away.
“Look, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll cut and run. That really shouldn’t be so hard for you. After all, it is what you’re good at.”
“I get you need a punching bag, Reggie, but pick your battles. I’m not going anywhere.” He stands behind me, presses his body to mine with his hands on my shoulders, preventing me from moving away. I don’t really want to move away, I like the way this feels too much, and what’s worse is, I need it. I turn in his arms and let his embrace envelop me.
“I’m sorry.” I mumble into his scrubs, noticing he’s managed to change out of his evening wear. “Felt a little conspicuous in the dress suit hmm?”
“I could be dressed in a big bird costume, and I wouldn’t care, Reggie. However, it’s a damned site easier to get some co-operation if I look the part of senior doctor. Prom date doesn’t really cut it in the haematology department and don’t apologise.”
“What were you doing there?”
“I wanted a rush test done. I know it’s a long shot, but in these cases it only takes one match, isn’t that right?” He says this with all the positivity a professional can muster. I’ve said the words myself, sadly a hundred times or more, and only now do I feel how utterly hollow they can be. It’s clearly written all over my tear-streaked face. “Stop that, I know what you’re doing, and you also know you have to believe. You’re not a quitter, Regan, so don’t you fucking dare start now.”
“My anaemia means I can’t be a marrow donor, Joel. It’s killing me, waiting like this. How do parents do this? Watch helplessly, holding onto fragments of hope, trying to find something positive when they know the truth. Even now, when I know that likelihood of finding a perfect match with AB negative blood, I cling to the notion of a miracle, when miracles don’t exist. How do people do this?”
My shoulders shake, my knees wobble, and I grip the loose material of Joel’s top to prevent me hitting the deck with sudden weakness. I can’t do this.
“They just do. They don’t have a choice, Reggie. And don’t give me that crap; miracles happen all the time, especially in a place like this.” He tips my chin, but the warm smile he gives me doesn’t reach the chill in my heart.
Nevertheless, I return it because I appreciate the sentiment. I turn back to Ruby, taking her soft hand in mine and drawing in some stuttered breaths that catch and hurt my chest. My mind wanders with all the mistakes I’ve made. As if this torture isn’t enough to endure, I have to rake up a fresh hell of agony at my failings as a mother.
“I failed her.” I repeat my internal torment, not loud but audible.
“How the fuck did you do that? This isn’t on you, Reggie.” His fingers dig into the tops of my arms, and he shakes me a little. The sense to stop talking evades me. My darkest and most shameful moment of motherhood falls from my lips like a confession.
“She nearly died.”
“She’s going to get that transplant.” He states this as a matter of fact, which we both know is a matter of chance.
“I didn’t mean that.” I twist out of his hold and slip into the hard plastic chair beside Ruby’s bed.
Joel drops to his haunches and once more takes my hands in his. His silence is potent, his expression pained, and I take strange comfort that he’s just as lost as I am.
“She was eight months old and still wasn’t sleeping through. I hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep in what felt like forever.” I pause when my eyes flick over to her sleeping body, and I squeeze them shut at the cruel cut of irony. Please wake up, Ruby. When I open them, Joel is just staring into me, wordlessly supportive, and I find the strength in that to continue “I was back at work, and I didn’t have anyone. It was just me and a baby that wasn’t mine. I’ve never said that out loud, but at my lowest point, that’s what kept running through my sleep-deprived, stupid head.” I snap my mouth shut, horrified that I gave the words enough oxygen to be heard, I thought it back then, and saying it now, I know I’m a monster.
“I understand.” Joel sweeps the palm of his hand softly down my cheek, scooping up a little of the river of tears falling from my eyes.
“I’m a monster, Joel.”
“I think that’s a little harsh, Reggie. I think you’ll find you were a new single mom, and that makes you a sleep-addled saint, in my opinion. Why were you on your own, though?”
“Harper was studying overseas, and Cameron was travelling. I didn’t have the network I do now. I was so alone. I knew I wasn’t coping, and I was too fucking stubborn or proud to ask for help.” I screw my cuffs up into my fists and scrunch them into my eyes, absorbing the liquid but also pressing hard to ease the building pressure. I started this tale, and as hard as this is, I feel I need to finish it. I suck in a long, slow, steady breath and exhale with the rest of the sorry story.
“She just wouldn’t sleep. One night I just couldn’t do it anymore. I screamed right back at her. I shook her crib so hard, it rattled and screws fell out. I howled at her to shut the fuck up. I told her I hated her…hated her.”
Joel breaks eye contact for the first time, and I don’t blame him, like I said, monster. My vision is so distorted with tears, when he looks up, I can no longer read his expression. Regardless, I carry on.
“The rage and desperation coloured everything, and I just exploded. I raised my hand. I actually raised my hand to hit my baby. I couldn’t make her stop crying.” His hand tightens around mine, and I can feel the change like a physical drop in temperature between us.
“I caught myself. I don’t know how.” He lets out a puff of heavy air, but I don’t share his relief. “I ran from her room and slammed the door. I remember falling to my knees, weak and devastated. I just sobbed. I could hear her desolate cries, her struggles to breathe, and I couldn’t go back inside. I didn’t trust myself. I knew that, as scared as she must have felt, she was still safer in her broken crib than in my arms. Now tell me I’m not a monster!”
“That’s why you defended that woman the other day.” Joel replies, and the colour seems to have drained from his face.
“Glass houses and casting stones don’t really help anyone.”
“What happened?” He releases my hands and steps to the side of the bed. I do the same, my hands gripping the steel bar with anxious, white-knuckle strength.
“She eventually fell asleep, and I did too, on the floor outside her room. I didn’t sleep for long, an hour tops, but when I woke, I was so fucking ashamed, I got help. I joined a single mom support group, playgroups, and sitting circles. It’s where I met Shannon and Ophelia. Harper came back and loves Ruby like her own. The point is, I now have people I trust to help me if I need it, and I’m not too proud to ask for help. Maybe giving birth gives you this perspective straight out of the gate, but it took me that night to realise, and I made Ruby a promise. I chose to keep her; she’s mine, and her needs trump mine. It’s that simple.”
I stroke the dark curl of hair that always falls in the centre of her face away and back up over the back of her head, only to have it spring straight back. I rise to my toes and lean over to kiss the impossibly soft skin on her pale cheek. My tears fall and dampen her skin until it glistens. Gently wiping it dry with my thumb, I turn to face Joel. ”It takes a village to raise a child.”
“So they say.”
“I’ve never told anyone that story.” I feel a wave of uncertainty hit me, and just as it’s about to drag me under, he snatches me into his arms and hugs the life into me. His head rests on mine until he pulls back enough to tenderly kiss my forehead.
“Whether you like it or not, Reggie, you trust me.”
“So they say.”