“What the hell is happening? Doctor?” I wanted to slap her awake, tell her the baby was here, and she wasn’t allowed to give up. The nurse grabbed the baby, placing him in a warming incubator as I struggled to slide out from behind Remi.
“She’s hemorrhaging. Call in a team. Blood pressure is down, heart rate is dropping.” A nurse took the baby, whom I put a hawk eye on, but my glances darted back to Remi, who stayed silent and unmoving, scaring the shit out of me. Her pink color vanished to ghostly white.
“Sweet girl, come on, show me those green eyes.” I rubbed her arms as they tugged me away, untangling me from her.
“Come on, sir, wait outside please.” The nurse manhandled me toward the door.
“Remi!” I was forced outside as they worked on her. The privacy drapes were pulled tight and staff rushed in and out, ignoring me. I was convinced with dread that I wouldn’t see her green eyes open again. Ethan wailed inside the crib, and they shut me out of the room when three more hospital staff fully scrubbed in pushed past me.
Looking down past my empty arms, all I could see were my bloodied pants and feet still wearing socks. My boots were in the room, but I didn’t need them right then. I needed to be with Remi, but they wouldn’t let me. A nurse took Ethan in his rolling heated crib, but I wasn’t allowed to go with him either. As long as Remi was coherent they permitted my presence, but now that she was unconscious they got rid of me as if I were in the way.
Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out my cell phone and considered calling my dad. Despite our chaotic unhealthy relationship, he was still my dad. My finger swiped the screen, and then I remembered our last argument right after Kristen ended it with me. I told him I wasn’t getting married, I was never having kids, and don’t bother changing my mind. He couldn’t help me; or rather he wouldn’t help me beyond a lecture filled with religious rhetoric and judgment I didn’t need. I didn’t have a clue what to do. I had never felt so helpless in all my life.
Thinking about the sweet girl less than ten feet away from me, I slid down the wall to the floor as my legs gave out. I put my hands together and did something I hadn’t done in years. I prayed.
9
Remi
Memories slipped out of reach when I woke again, forcing myself to get out of bed to wander the empty hallway alone. The lights blinded me, but that was the pain in my head. Weakness sapped everything out of me. I was thirsty and I knew there had to be water somewhere. Hospitals were like mini cities. Self-supporting and everything self-contained within. It was a silly thought and I wondered how much they drugged me up. My legs moved, but each step was tempered by sharp jolts of pain.
A nagging tug had me looking down and holding my bloated but empty stomach. “Where’s my baby?” I panted, holding myself up. It hurt and fluid seeped from where I’d pulled out the IV when I got out of bed. I was confused. I was faint. I was all things and nothing at all. I leaned into the wall outside my room and slipped down to the floor. It was cold and I had no pants on. It was a weird surreal feeling so I sat tight and wondered where my pants had gone, where my baby was, and why I was all alone.
A baby cried and I shuffled to get up, but I couldn’t, not really with my legs tangled. Someone with a kind voice called my name. It wasn’t my mother; she had been absent from my life for a long time, choosing to run out when the going got tough. The dark felt comforting for a second, wrapping me in a warm blanket that I let myself slip down into its warmth for a little while longer on the floor. I promised myself I’d come back, but I wasn’t sure I would have the strength to crawl upward. Sleep sounded like a good idea where all my fears dissipated.
“Oh, honey, here, you can’t be on the floor.” A kind nurse with strong arms helped me up, and we shuffled back to my room. I turned, realizing I’d only made it just outside the door.
“My baby?” It came out more froggish than human-sounding but she understood me just fine.
“He’s right as rain, now let’s get you cleaned up and back in bed.” She tucked me in, raising the bar on the bed and locking it this time. Feeling glazed over, I watched her fiddle with the pump next to my IV.
“You know, I feel pretty,” I told her and she smiled, patting my hand, removing the IV, frowning.
“That’s the morphine talking, honey.” She grabbed an alcohol swab and a new IV for my throbbing hand. She was quick and efficient.
“That’s some good stuff.” I heard her laugh and before I knew it, I was off to la-la land, once again blanketed by the darkness I wasn’t smart enough to fear.
It was easy to see the foolish version of myself, standing on the steps of the college I badly wanted to attend, watching the boys from the football team brush past me like I was nothing more than an apparition. It was what I expected until one paused halfway up the steps, turning to look at me.
“What’s your name, Red?” His smile lit up the sky and my dream went from black and white into full Technicolor. He was good-looking in the typical way, and his social standing was obvious the way everyone was staring at us. I felt the disruption around me as if I’d somehow unsettled the common expectation of things, but I didn’t care. I gave him my name, going with the reckless flow of things.
“Remi.” He nodded and tested my name out on his too perfect lips.
“Come to the game on Friday?” he asked, brushing my singular braid over my shoulder.
How exciting to be asked when I wasn’t even a full-time student there yet. “Sure, I’d like that.”
He winked at me and walked away. His friends made catcalls, saying all manner of insults like if the drapes matched the curtains and if I liked threesomes, but he punched them in the shoulders one by one, turning his head to give me a teasing wink. Feeling special, I watched them walk away, making their way down to the field.
It felt like an awfully long walk when the football stadium morphed into the frat house where he invited me to meet him after the game. The permeable smell of alcohol filtered into my brain and he was there again, offering me a long neck bottle of beer. I took a sip, not liking the taste but continued drinking it anyway in the hope of impressing him. I reminded myself to search the brand of beer on the internet next time I was at the library or ask my boss if he’d heard of it before.
“Do you like it?” he asked me. He was lying me down on a bed upstairs in his room. I was scared but nodded anyway. The first thrust hurt and he didn’t stop. Foolishly, I didn’t ask him to because I followed him there at his invitation. I drank the beer he’d offered me and weakly smiled while crying on the inside when he continued moving inside me.
The dream ended with me feeling sick and my stomach hurting. I didn’t want to be there, but I was there and a niggling sense of having to go back, climb up the ladder out of the darkness filled me with trepidation. The other side was scary and full of responsibility, but I finally had someone there waiting for me, filled with unconditional love for me. I was not alone. I had my son, but I also saw another set of friendly blue eyes and tattooed arms, open and waiting for me to step into them.
10