Chapter 9

 

 

 

 

Gia

“There was nothing you could have done,” Chloe says to me, her hand on my shoulder, her blue eyes filled with sympathy. I can’t say anything. I can only nod because if I speak, I will absolutely break down. “These things happen. They’re horrible and gut you, but it’s part of the job.” Another nod. “Go home, Gia. You’re done for the day anyway. I’ll come by later.”

I shake my head. “You don’t have to come. I’m just going to go home, have a soak in the tub and then go to bed.”

Chloe stares at me for a moment, trying to decipher my bullshit level, before blowing some of her long blonde bangs out of her face. “I’m so sorry. I really am. It sucks the big suck. Are you sure there isn’t anything I can do?”

“No,” I sniffle. “I’ll be fine.”

I think that might be a lie. I don’t think I’ll ever be fine again.

“Come here.” Chloe pulls me into her arms and hugs me snugly against her.

I push her back, wiping away at my hot tears. If that hug continues, I’ll cry more and I don’t want to do that. Especially here in the breakroom at work.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Get some sleep, okay. And don’t torture yourself the way I know you’re apt to do.”

More nodding. “Goodnight.”

I throw her a weak wave, before tossing the strap of my bag over my head and leave the breakroom. I ignore the way the nurses are talking behind the nurse’s station. I ignore their pitying looks. I ignore the other patients in labor who are walking the halls with their smiling faces and the pained deliberate masks of concentration.

I ignore all of it.

Because today was the worst day of my life.

Even worse than my father dying, I think. I don’t know. It’s certainly up there.

Stepping out into the cool September evening, I stand in front of the hospital not knowing what to do next. I can’t go home. I know I told Chloe that’s what I was going to do, but there is no way I can be alone in my apartment with my thoughts. I can’t stand them right now and I’m practically still at the hospital. They’ll be a million times worse at home.

My phone buzzes in my scrub pants and for a second, I debate whether or not I should check it. But I do, because it could be my boss or something else important. I already spoke with her about what happened and everything was documented, but still.

It’s not my boss and it’s not Chloe or Monique even.

It’s the guy I went on a date with the other night. I sigh. He was cute, but it just wasn’t there for me. I hate to be a bitch and not text him back or worse, tell him over text that it’s not him, it’s me, but I believe that’s what I’m about to do. Number one, I decide, because I really don’t want to have a meaningless text conversation with a meaningless guy at the moment.

The electronic doors open and shut behind me and I hear people coming and going. I need to get away from this place. My feet take off without premeditated intention. I’m just walking because people say that’s a good thing to do when you need to think. Or is it to clear your head?

Shit, I can’t remember which it is.

Walking for either purpose has never really been my thing.

It’s still not, which is why after I make it only a couple of blocks, I’m done. I need to sit and drown myself in copious amounts of alcohol. That’s never really been my thing either, but after you lose a patient, that’s the thing to do, right?

I walk into the first bar I see and find myself laughing out loud like a crazy person when I realize it’s the bar I had drinks in with Colin the night Finn was eye-flirting with me.

Whatever. I don’t care.

That ship has long since sailed. I haven’t even seen Finn in like a month, other than in passing, and I never speak to him and he never speaks to me. How lame is it that that’s now our thing?

Sliding onto the barstool, I grab a laminated menu off the counter and peruse it, searching for the strongest thing they have. I am not a shots person. They tend to make me sick. Even the sweet girly ones. Especially the sweet girly ones.

But I do want to get very drunk and I want to do it quickly so maybe those shots are the way to go? Who the hell knows. All I know right now is that a new mother is dead and her baby is up in the NICU with possible brain damage from asphyxia.

Oh, and the father is a fucking mess. How could he not be? I could barely look at him and that made me feel so much worse because he deserved my eye contact. He deserved the respect of me looking him squarely in the eyes when I told him that his wife didn’t make it and his baby was fighting for its life.

“What are we having?” the pretty young bartender asks and I wonder if her job is as cool as it looks. Maybe I’m in the wrong profession. I highly doubt that people die on her watch. And you get to wear whatever the hell you want without getting blood on it.

“What do you recommend for the shittiest day in the history of shittiest days?”

She crosses her colorful tattooed arms over her black low-cut blouse. “What sort of shittiest day we talkin’ about?” She notes my scrubs. “Patient die?”

I nod.

“Your fault?”
I sigh, because it wasn’t my fault but that doesn’t make me feel better. “No.”

“You good with rum?”

“Sure. Why not.”

“Okay, I’m going to make you a drink with Bacardi 151 which is over seventy-five percent alcohol. I’m not going to make it too sweet otherwise you’ll be puking your guts out with the worst headache of your life tomorrow. So don’t ask what I’m putting in it. Just drink the drink.”

“I think I might love you,” I tell her and she laughs.

Leaning back in my seat, I scrub my hands up and down my face. I don’t think I’ve ever felt like this before. So completely helpless and ruined. So tormented.

“You going to tell me what happened or just leave me here in suspense,” the bartender asks and for some reason, the thought of talking to a perfect stranger is so much more appealing than talking to my best friends or anyone else I know.

“I was the midwife for a very healthy thirty-one year old lady. It’s her second baby and she had no complications or issues with the first one.”

“Okay, I’m following. Go on.”

Leaning forward, I prop my elbows on the counter and take a sip of the pale-green concoction she slides in front of me. “Wow, that’s really good.”

“I know,” she smiles, mirroring my position against the bar. I realize it’s dead in here and I’m extremely grateful for that as she’s giving me her undivided attention. “I’m an awesome bartender. It’s my one great.”

“You’re one great?”

“Yes, the one thing I’m great at. Everyone has one, whether they know what it is or not.”

“Huh,” I say, swirling that thought around my brain for a moment before I take another sip of my oh-so-yummy drink. It’s not sweet. It’s not sour. It’s not fruity. It’s like the perfect combination of all three. “So yeah, she was rocking along at seven centimeters and then all of a sudden–literally out of nowhere–she said her head hurt and then ten seconds later, she was gone. Her vitals tanked, and even though I hit the code button that second, and we did everything we could for her, it was too late. A burst aneurism, we think or possibly a stroke. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

“Shit,” the bartender mutters, and I point my finger at her because shit just about covers it.

“Yeah. Shit. And if that wasn’t fucking tragic enough, her poor baby was without oxygen for far too long by the time we finally got him out. He’s in the NICU now and it’s not looking all that great.”

“I’m Ophelia.”

I tilt my head. “Like from Hamlet?”

“Yeah. My mother did it to me, don’t ask.”

“I’m Gia. My father did that one.”

“Well Gia, I agree that your day was beyond shitty. This first one is on me. And after you’re completely plastered to the point you’re aiming for, let me know, and I’ll get you an Uber or call someone to take you home.”

“Ophelia, I think you just became my favorite person ever.”

“Wow,” she muses. “Not only did you already profess your love, but now I’m your favorite person? Your day might be shit, but mine’s looking up.”

I laugh. Well, it’s really more of a cackle, because I think this Bacardi 151 stuff is already starting to get to me. Admittedly, I’m a bit of a lightweight and I haven’t had anything to eat in several hours.

But I do not care.

In fact, it’s already working. I’m feeling better albeit chemically induced, but whatever. I’ll take what I can get right now because things were going so well. So goddamn well.

My job was awesome.

I was rocking it.

And now? Now I feel like all my confidence is gone. Not just gone, but shattered.

Yes, it wasn’t my fault that this mom had an undiagnosed aneurism or threw a clot. And yes, those things have been known to happen at any minute, and given the strain of childbirth, it’s not a surprise that it picked that moment. But still. It’s a life lost. A baby who might never recover. A father who lost his wife. A four-year-old daughter who lost her mother.

It’s just not fair.

And I get that sounds childish, but you come to expect certain things to be fair. You don’t expect really horrendous things to happen to good people. To new moms and tiny babies. You don’t expect lives to be totally and completely annihilated in under five minutes. Now that father has to go home to his daughter and tell her that not only is mommy never coming home, but that her brother might not make it either.

And if by some miracle he does survive, what sort of shape will he be in?

“No crying,” Ophelia says, handing me a bar napkin.

“Sorry,” I sniffle through my tears. “It just doesn’t make sense, you know?”

“It’s not meant to. It’s life.”

“Yeah, that’s not all that reassuring.”

Ophelia laughs, taking my empty glass and mixing me another drink. “I already told you what my one great is. If you’re looking for brilliant words to make you feel better, you’re drinking at the wrong bar.”

“Noted,” I say, picking up my newly delivered cocktail and taking a big pull of it through the straw. “But I think your one great is exactly the great I need right now. Ophelia, here is my address.” I pull a pen out of my bag and write it down on the napkin. “And here is money. Don’t let me have more than four of these no matter what I say to you, and at that point, call me a cab and hand the driver this.”

“You got it. I’ll make sure you get home safe. Even if I have to take you home myself.”