Prologue

 

 

 

Gia      

“You ready for this?” My best friend Chloe says to me as she leans forward, and slightly across the girl sitting in between us. The girl leans back to accommodate my intrusive friend. “I mean, holy shit. Like any second they’re going to call our names out and we’re going to walk across that stage and they’re going to put those things that have a name–that I don’t remember–over our necks and then we’re going to be midwives.”

I laugh at my overly dramatic friend, shaking my head lightly. “Thanks for giving me the play-by-play. I was a bit nervous how this would all play out.”

She winks at me. “But not anymore.”

“Not anymore,” I concede, glancing around the room for the twentieth time in the last half hour. “Have you seen my parents anywhere?” I ask.

“No, I haven’t. And I thought for sure when you went up to accept your Academic Achievement Award, your father would have screamed at the top of his lungs.” Me too. “Did you have to go and get freaking 4.0 and show us all up?”

I shrug, just a little put off that my parents don’t seem to be here. And it’s not like I have my cell phone on me because I don’t. I’m wearing a black graduation gown which obviously has no pockets, and under that, a dress which also has no pockets. I didn’t bother to bring my purse because I didn’t want to carry it and now I’m regretting that decision.

Maybe the traffic getting into the city was bad, but my parents aren’t the sort to be late, especially for big occasions. And I consider graduating with my doctor of nursing practice as a certified nurse-midwife to be a big occasion. I mean, it took years to get here. And though my father would have been thrilled for me to have joined him in the long line of doctors our family is comprised of, I know he’s proud of me.

He’s told me so a thousand times over.

Ten minutes later, after enthusiastic people are done talking enthusiastically about all the remote, Third World countries they’ve delivered babies in–and all the ways they’ve changed the world to make it a better place for birthing said babies–they call my name. As I walk across the stage, I get the requisite amount of cheers. I get the friends' cheers. But I don’t get the parents' cheers.

Because my parents aren’t here.

Because they didn’t make it to my graduation.

Walking down the steps on the opposite side of the stage from where I came up, I don’t bother going back to my seat. Something is wrong. My parents wouldn’t do this to me. They wouldn’t.

The heavy-as-hell wood doors of the auditorium slam shut behind me and I take off at a sprint.

My apartment isn’t far from here, only a few blocks and then I’m at the front door of my building. Running up the four flights–because I live in a miserable four-story walk-up–I frantically unlock the door to my studio apartment. I could have done the whole roommate thing, but well, I hate people in my stuff. Hence the four-story walk-up because single students living in New York who are in school cannot afford anything else. Even this place is a stretch.

My phone is exactly where I left it on the tiny counter, in my even tinier kitchen.

I have six missed calls.

All from my mother.

Swiping my finger across her name on the screen, it instantly calls her back. It takes half a ring before her voice fills my speaker and I can honestly say, I’ve never felt this sort of panic before. My heart is beating out of my chest and I can’t stop myself from pacing around in a small circle as I chew the shit out of my cuticles.

“Gia?” My mom says as she answers. Her voice is even more agitated than my heartbeats. “Oh my god, honey. We’re at Mount Sinai.”

Mount Sinai? Hospital, I realize a half beat later.

“What happened?” I can barely breathe the words as I drop to the floor. I don’t even bother trying to find a chair because my knees gave out on me.

“It’s your father,” she sniffles. “They think he had a heart attack, honey. It’s not good. I need you to come here, now.”

My face drops into my hands as silent tears begin to pour out of my eyes. I don’t want my mother to hear how distraught I am. I can’t even seem to ask if he’s okay. If he were okay, he wouldn’t be in the hospital and my mother wouldn’t sound the way she does.

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Then I hang up. I don’t mean to hang up on my mother, but I have the sudden overwhelming urge to ugly cry and that’s the sort of thing one does without an audience. I sit on my floor with my knees drawn up to my chest and my face in my hands, sobbing my eyes out for approximately five minutes.

I want to cry longer. I really do. But I need to get down to the hospital which is relatively far from my very upper west side apartment. Ordering myself an Uber, I fly down the stairs and out the front door, with my purse this time, and the second my heels reach the sidewalk, that Uber pulls up for me.

The ride is longer than I would like and by the time I reach the emergency room, I’m a wreck. Even more of a wreck than I was in my apartment, because I’ve had this entire twenty-minute ride through traffic to ruminate and obsess over every single what-if. Bursting through the automatic doors, I run over to the triage nurse, tell her my name and then she gives me the look. I know this look. I’ve given it to patients.

It’s trying for placidity but it comes off as sympathetic.

I don’t say anything as she leads me back through the huge double doors and into the patient area. She’s talking to me like I know nothing and right now, I’m not as annoyed with that I as typically am when people think I have no medical knowledge.

“I’m sorry dear,” she says, lacking any emotion in her tone, her eyes focused ahead, “but your father had a pretty big heart attack.” She could be talking to herself for all the consideration she’s showing me. I’m strangely relieved by that indifference. “It’s an ST elevation myocardial infarction,” she goes on, which actually surprises me. Usually triage nurses aren’t so forthcoming about a patient’s medical condition or diagnosis, and right now, I sort of wish she wasn’t so vocal. I wish she had stopped at heart attack instead of being as specific as she is. Maybe she’s just trying to show off with her big words, but I know exactly what kind of heart attack that is.

It’s a STEMI. Those are the kinds of heart attacks which have people dropping dead on their lawns. The types where people are dead before they even hit the ground.

That’s the type my father just had.

“Is he alive?” I manage as we weave our way through the emergency department. When I was in nursing school, I did an eight-week rotation in the ED. I hated every single second of it. Right now, I hate this place a million times more than I ever did then.

“He’s–” she starts and then pauses, because we’ve reached our destination and there is a team of doctors hanging out, just sort of loitering around while one of them talks to my mother.

My father is not in the room, but my mother is.

And she’s sobbing.

Not just crying, but hysterical while a tall thin man with dark skin and kind eyes tries to comfort her. I stand here, frozen on the precipice of the doorway, listening to him tell her, he’s up in the cardiac catheterization lab and they’re trying desperately to open the blockages from his carotid arteries by threading a catheter into the vessels and place a stent. That his heart attack was severe and he’s in critical condition. That they’re doing everything they possibly can for him.

I want to throw up everywhere. Bile climbs its way up the back of my throat, but I swallow it down, knowing I’m the one who has to be strong here. Right or wrong, my mother will look to me.

I step into the room and a dozen eyes turn to me. I glance past them, one by one, getting stuck on one of the doctors who happens to be remarkably handsome and then moving on. I reach my mother–and at the sight of me–she loses her last shred of composure and breaks down completely.

“They’re operating on him,” she chokes out through her tears. My mother doesn’t understand the difference between the cath lab and the OR. She may be a doctor’s wife, but she has absolutely no medical knowledge to speak of. That, and I think she’s understandably too upset to focus on what they’re saying to her.

The doctor who was just speaking to my mother looks at me, then my outfit and back up to my eyes. It takes me an extra minute to realize I’m still wearing my stupid graduation gown.

At least I took off the cap.

“So he’s up in the cath lab,” I say, letting my mother cry into my shoulder with my arms wrapped around her. “Do you believe that will be enough to open the obstruction or is bypass going to be necessary?”

He examines at me for a second. Blinks. And then asks with an inquisitive air, “You’re in the medical field?”

“Yes,” I say with an edge, because I do not want to be treated like I’m naïve, by this man. “I’m a CNM, but I was a nurse before that so I’m not as clueless as this black gown would let you believe.”

The doctor nods at me, those eyes which I thought were kind are now appreciative. “Well, then, CNM, I can’t say for sure. We’re hoping he makes it through the cath lab first…” he trails off because he doesn’t want to say that he’s not sure that he will.

Oh, god.

“Your father was in critical condition upon arrival–”

“So it’s a wait-and-see game now,” I interrupt.

He nods at me. “Yes. That’s exactly right.” He looks over his shoulder at one of the other doctors–the one who I thought was attractive–and then back at me. “May we speak to you out in the hall for a moment, please?”

Giving my mother a kiss and telling her I’ll be right back, I follow them out into the hall. I don’t like this. And I feel really fucking stupid and undermatched by the fact I’m still wearing this black gown. It makes me look like a novice despite what I just told him.

I stand there, in the middle of the hall with the entire ED going on around us. I fold my arms across my chest. “What’s your name?” I ask the main doctor.

“I’m Doctor Sanders,” he says. “Michael,” he adds in a softer note. “And this is Doctor Finnigan Banner. He was the doctor who admitted your father.” I nod at him, trying to ignore the second doctor’s bright-blue eyes, piercing stare and sexy-as-sin thick, rumpled chestnut hair. Talk about the worst possible time to be attracted to someone. “Doctor Banner, would you care to walk Miss Bianchi through everything?”

Dr. Banner nods, stepping forward and into my personal space a bit. He’s tall. Imposingly so and broad. I can tell he’s built even though he’s wearing a white lab coat and a baggy, blue scrub top. His chiseled jaw is lightly lined with brown stubble, which he reaches up to rub absentmindedly before his hands drop to his sides, and he gets into doctor mode.

“Your father presented in cardiac arrest–” Jesus Fuck! “We were able to cardiovert him back into sinus rhythm and after the EKG, we determine the extent of the MI he was having. We felt there wasn’t enough time for further testing or imaging, other than some lab work, and he was sent up for stat angiogram. His rhythm wasn’t holding well even with the medications we were giving him.”

“I have so many questions,” I start, unable to meet this guy’s eyes, because even though this situation is overwhelming, his eyes are too. And they’re staring at me. Not just looking. This is so much more than looking. I glance down at my hands instead, even if it makes me feel weak to do so, and swallow hard. “But I don’t want to ask them.”

“Take your time, Miss Bianchi–” Dr. Banner says.

“Gia,” I interrupt. “My name is Gia.”

“Gia,” he says in a tone I can’t determine. “Both Dr. Sanders and I are here to answer any of your questions at any time.”

“Thank you.” I nod.

“We will update you as soon as we know anything,” he says and I feel his warm, strong hand on my shoulder, giving me a squeeze. “Right now, he’s in very good hands.”

I nod again. It’s all I seem to be able to do.

“Thank you,” I say, managing to bring my eyes back up to his. Damn, those eyes. They’re disarming me completely. “I appreciate that.”

“We tried to explain everything to your mother,” Dr. Sanders interjects, his tone kind regardless of the fact that I snapped at him before. I might have been a bit out of line back there. “But I’m not sure how much she understood.”

More nodding. “I’ll talk with her.”

Walking back into the room, I’m in a daze. All of this just feels so surreal. So impossible. I’ve seen it with patients. I’ve watched as it happened to others. But you never expect it to happen to you.

My mother is still crying and once again I wrap my arms around her. She looks at me with red eyes and says, “I’m so sorry we missed your graduation, Gia. Your father is going to be so disappointed when he realizes. He was so excited, honey. So very proud.” I wish she wouldn’t tell me that right now. All it’s doing is making me cry. Making my gut twist and knot up. “The moment we hit the FDR, he began complaining of chest pain and asked me to take him here. To this hospital.” She points to the floor. “But maybe I should have taken him to the closest one instead.” She shakes her head, like she can’t believe any of this is happening either. “He knew he was having a heart attack,” she tells me just as that doctor–Dr. Banner or whatever his name is–enters, standing tall and rigid.

I see it on his face. He doesn’t even have to tell me.

My father is dead.

He looks at me, those eyes lingering on mine for a few extra seconds and then he turns to my mother. Dr. Sanders joins him and they proceed to gently explain that he is in fact dead. That my father is dead.

They apologize. Tell her how sorry they are for our loss and blah, blah, blah. All I can think about is the fact that my father is dead. That my mother is a widow. That he never saw me walk across that stage tonight, and while he was having a heart attack, I was pissed off they weren’t there.

A nurse comes in and takes my mother out of the room. They lead her somewhere else. Somewhere where she can speak to people and make arrangements and see my father and do whatever people do when they’ve just lost someone they love.

I can’t do that with her. I just…can’t.

Instead I run, past those double doors and through the waiting room and out into the bay. I find the edge of the sidewalk and then I collapse.

My father is dead.

How the fuck did this happen?

I stare sightlessly into traffic until I feel someone slink down next to me on the edge of the sidewalk. I don’t have to look over to know who it is. I smelled his cologne before he even sat down. Felt his presence like a force of a nature.

“Dr. Banner–”

“Finn,” he corrects. “You can call me Finn.”

I ignore that. First names are not helpful right now. “If you’re here to offer me comfort, save it. I’m in no mood.”

He edges himself closer to me until his white-coat-clad arm is practically touching my black gown. And he doesn’t say anything for so long I eventually turn and glance in his direction because for the life of me I cannot figure out what the hell he’s doing out here with me. But I have to admit, it’s a distraction.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know this–”

“Must be hard for you,” I finish for him. “I thought I just told you to save it. I don’t want platitudes. I don’t want to hear that you guys did everything you could. I don’t want to hear that he wasn’t in any pain. I just don’t want to hear it. And maybe that makes me a bitch, but I don’t care. I’m all for being the bitch right now if it spares me the speech.”

“Okay then,” he says with the slightest of smirks, scooting just a bit closer to me. Now he’s definitely touching me. No mistaking it. “No platitudes. No standard words of comfort.” I nod. “How’s this then? I lost my father the same way when I was twenty-two.”

I examine his profile, his eyes fixed out into the street the way mine just were and I sort of feel like shit for dumping on him. “That sucks,” I say instead of I’m sorry. Hearing I’m sorry only seems to make you feel worse.

“Yeah. It did. I won’t even lie and say it made me stronger or a better man or that he’s the reason I became a doctor because all of that would be a lie.”

“Yeah?” I laugh, despite myself. “Don’t sugarcoat it for me now.”

He chuckles, peering in my direction and making it impossible for me to see anything else. “I had wanted to be a doctor since I was six. His death really had no impact on that. And I was already a much better man at twenty-two than he was at fifty-two so I can’t say that either.”

“Well, alright then.” I smirk and it feels…good. “Sounds like your father was a real prize.”

“If that’s sarcasm, then I’ll say you get where I was going with that.”

“It was sarcasm, so I guess I do.”

He smiles the most beautiful of smiles at me, those eyes slaying my thoughts. His jaw is strong and absurdly sexy with just the right amount of stubble that says, I’ve been at this job for hours and haven’t had time to shave. Even his freaking nose is perfect. It has the smallest bump on the bridge, making me wonder if it was broken long ago. It’s just different enough to make him the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen.

My father is dead and all I see is Dr. Banner. But it’s so much easier to think about him than the fact that my father is gone. Than it is to think about how my father will never get to hear about the work I do. Or the fact that I’ll never introduce him to the man I’ll marry. He’ll never know his grandchildren. Fuck.

I sigh, fighting the urge to succumb to the tears I’m desperate to shed. I hate today.

“My father was a doctor,” I say. “Did my mother tell you that?” He shakes his head. “He was a cardiologist of all things so I think I’m drowning in irony.” He rubs his arm against mine, but he doesn’t laugh, which I appreciate it. “I come from five generations of doctors so when I–his only child–told him I wanted to be a nurse, he was surprisingly okay with it. He told me it was about time the family had someone who cared enough about humanity to try and fix it.”

“Wow,” Dr. Banner muses. “That’s pretty incredible.”

I nod. “Yeah, it really was. And when I told him I wanted to be a midwife, he offered to pay for graduate school. Said the future babies of the world needed a brilliant hand to lead them in.”

“Shit,” he mutters.

“Yeah,” I agree. “Shit. Because today was my graduation and he’s dead and I can’t even tell him I got an award for being top in my class.” I give him a self-deprecating smile. “I’m not bragging, I swear. I’m just pissed off.”

“It’s cool. I was top in my class too. So now we’re both bragging.” He smiles at me and despite the somber mood I’m drowning in, I feel that smile.

“Well, aren’t you the big man on campus.”

He laughs and I find myself laughing with him. “That’s such a cliché. I prefer, most astute and talented man on campus.”

“Noted. Whenever I think of you, it will be in those terms.”

Dr. Banner tilts his head so he’s catching all of my face, and my attention has nowhere else to go but to him. His eyes are piercing, his expression pointed. “This may be totally inappropriate, especially given the situation, but that’s definitely not where I want your thoughts to go whenever you think of me.” I swallow. Hard.

He opens his mouth to speak when one of the nurses comes out, calling my name. Dr. Banner’s eyes shut, his face is lined with regret. Regret for what specifically, I cannot be sure. Because he doesn’t ask me out and he doesn’t say anything else. But I guess this isn’t the moment for whatever he’s trying to offer me.

So instead, I nudge him with my elbow and say, “See you around, Dr. Banner.” And then I leave him, sitting on that curb, watching me walk away.