And it wasn’t like he had to be there for Reb’s surgery. He wasn’t her dad.
My mind processed all of that, but it didn’t help the nervous nausea that had me bent in half as I tried not to get sick. Mel had asked if I wanted her to spend the night with us, but I’d told her to meet us at the hospital the next morning because I’d thought that Will would be with me.
But he wasn’t.
He wasn’t anywhere. He wasn’t answering any of my texts, or any of my phone calls. He’d left right after breakfast the morning before, and I hadn’t heard from him since. I was starting to panic.
He always called, even if it was just to see how my day was. He sent me texts asking for blowjobs, and memes he thought were funny, and random pictures of Rebel that he’d taken on his phone. He’d never been silent for so long, not since those three weeks after we’d slept together the first time when he’d been out of town.
“He’s fine,” I said out loud, my raspy voice breaking the silence of the house. “He’ll show up in the morning with some excuse.”
I wasn’t a clingy girl. I wasn’t needy. I liked being by myself, and I didn’t mind when Will had to work long hours. I didn’t call him constantly or expect him to be at my beck and call.
I was just so scared, a bone-deep fear that felt like it was seeping in more and more hour by hour. The closer it got to the time I had to wake Rebel up, the more debilitating the fear became. It wasn’t adrenaline-inducing fear. No, instead it was the type that left you paralyzed, barely able to breathe.
I glanced at the clock and lifted my hand to my mouth, my chapped lips and torn cuticles stinging as I began to pull at the skin of my lower lip.
He might still call. God, I just needed him to call. It was too late to call Mel or my dad. They were already sleeping because they had to meet us at the hospital in four hours. I probably wouldn’t even wake them up if I called.
I stood up and began to pace back and forth across the living room, my eyes so tired that they stung. Time was moving too fast, and also so slow I thought I was going to go crazy. When my steps became too frantic for the small space, I went all the way down the hall and back.
I kept moving, showering and getting dressed in between pacing the house. Finally, the alarm on my phone went off, indicating that my wait was up. It was time to wake Rebel.
* * *
“This stuff’ll knock her right out,” the anesthesiologist, Doctor Grant, told me two hours later, handing me a little cup of liquid while I sat with Rebel on her hospital bed. “At the very least, she’ll be so relaxed she won’t care what’s happening around her.”
“But she’ll be asleep before you do anything else, right?” I asked, moving Reb’s hand away from the buttons on the side of the bed.
“Of course,” he reassured me gently. “We’ve done this thousands of times.”
“Not to my kid,” I murmured, lifting the cup to Rebel’s lips. She drank it greedily since she hadn’t had anything to drink yet, even though she’d been asking for water since she’d woken up.
“You’re right,” he said, chuckling. “Not to Rebel. But she’ll be fine. I’ll be back in about thirty minutes to see how it’s working.”
He left the room as Rebel climbed onto my lap, the little gown she was wearing tangling in her legs. She’d been pissed when they had me strip her down to her diaper, but I’d calmed her with a new stuffed owl I’d packed to keep her occupied.
“Hey, girls,” Mel called softly as she pushed back the curtain shielding the door. “Auntie Mel’s here.”
“Hey,” I answered dully, smoothing down Reb’s hair.
“How you doin’, mama?”
“I’m ready for all of this to be over,” I said softly, kissing the top of Rebel’s head as she leaned heavily against me, her hand fisting in my ponytail.
“Almost done,” Mel said kindly, sitting on the opposite side of the bed. “Where’s your dad and Will?”
“Dad went to get coffee,” I said, meeting her eyes.
“Will?”
“I haven’t heard from him.” The words came out weird, almost garbled.
Mel’s eyes widened in sympathy. “That dick!”
I shrugged. I couldn’t even think about Will anymore, not with Reb’s surgery looming so close. God, I was being such a wuss. It was freaking tubes in her ears. Thousands of kids got the procedure every day, even kids with Down syndrome. The chances of something happening were higher for Rebel, but they were still small. I needed to suck it the fuck up, but I just . . . couldn’t. She was my baby. She was everything.