Come Back To Me (18 page)

Chapter Twenty-Four

“She’s stable. She had a conduction problem to the heart. We did an ablation of the pathway to the heart,” Dr. Kelly spoke to the Johnsons, Kevin, and Alice in the waiting room.

Stable.
As reassuring as that word should have been, Beau found it unnerving. He clenched his jaw. She had been
stable
before.  “What does that mean, an ablation?”

“There are nerves, pathways, that stimulate the heart. Sometimes there’s an aberrant pathway that doesn’t conduct properly, causing abnormal electrical activity to the heart. We’re lucky we caught it. We burned the aberrant pathway that was causing the arrhythmia. She should be fine now.”

Beau ran his hand through his hair. He crossed his arms and asked, “And the baby?”

Dr. Kelly took a deep breath, lowering her eyes for a nanosecond—enough time for Beau to notice, and for the world around him to stand still. “She’s in the neonatal intensive care unit.”

“She?” If a heart could swell to twice its normal size, Beau’s heart did it. His heart beat against his chest so hard he could feel it behind his eyes. Tears sprang to his eyes. “A girl,” he whispered.

“She?” Carol repeated.

Robert touched her shoulder, and nodded, as if to say,
Not now, Carol.

“Yes. She’s very premature, Mr. Johnson. A baby's ability to survive outside the womb increases dramatically between twenty-four and twenty-eight weeks, increasing from about forty percent at the beginning of the twenty-fourth week to more than eighty percent just four weeks later.” She paused, letting the information sink in.

Beau squeezed his arms tighter around his chest. “And she’s?”

“Roughly twenty-six weeks.”

Beau quickly calculated how many weeks he’d been gone. His gaze narrowed.

Dr. Kelly interrupted his thoughts. “Before the twenty-eighth week of pregnancy, almost all babies will have short-term complications, like difficulty breathing, as your baby is having.”

My
baby?

“Some preemies will also have some long-term problems, and others—”

Carol gasped, turned her back.

Robert took a step closer to Beau.

“There are no guarantees, and unfortunately, we can’t predict the outcome at this time.” Dr. Kelly looked over her shoulder, following Beau’s glare.

His eyes fixed on Alice. Alice crossed and uncrossed her arms. Her eyes danced around the waiting room. Beau took three heavy steps in her direction.

“Beau? What is it?” Robert asked.

Beau put a hand out behind him, palm up. Robert took the hint.

Alice feigned a smile. “A girl,” her voice shook.

“Alice? Twenty-six weeks? What the hell is—”

Alice took two steps backwards. She looked up and saw Louie hurrying down the corridor. “Beau, I—”

“Alice, I came as quickly as I could. Is she alright?” Louie burst into the waiting room.

Alice spun around, “Louie, she’s—”

Beau breathed heavily through his nose. “Louie?” He stood eye-to-eye with Louie, sizing him up. The angular nose, thick eyebrows, and curly hair might look decidedly nerdy on some, but on Louie, it had a handsome appeal.

Louie reached out his hand and in a serious tone said, “Louie Tole.”

Beau’s face reddened. Louie’s friendly demeanor and the concern in his eyes brought his good looks to the forefront. Beau’s gut twisted, pushing an acidic taste to his mouth. He couldn’t look away from the man’s thin pink lips. “Beau Johnson,” his words were heated.

Louie lowered his hand, he looked to Alice, back at Beau, then took in the rest of the waiting room, the grieving parents, the doctor, worried and rushed, Kevin, standing behind Beau, arms crossed, eyes trained on Louie. “I’m a…a…friend of Tess.”

“He’s our client,” Alice piped in. “We’re helping him fill a position. We’ve been working very closely the last few weeks, and Louie—”

“I’ve become good friends with Tess. I was worried about her.”

“You called him?” Kevin accused Alice with a disapproving look.

Alice looked down. “Yes, I…I thought I should.”

“Mr. Johnson, I’ll come back,” Dr. Kelly said and hurried down the hall. Beau had forgotten she was in the room.

Beau paced, his limp more pronounced. “The baby…she’s twenty-six weeks?” He looked from Louie to Alice.

Robert put his hand on Beau’s shoulder. “Son, let’s all calm down and talk about this. We all thought you were gone, even Tess.”

Beau shrugged him off. He looked at Kevin. “You knew,” he pointed in the general direction of Louie, “about them?”

Kevin looked from Beau to Louie and back again, then gave a small nod and lowered his eyes.

“Beau,” Louie said, “I’m not sure what you think’s going on, but I can assure you—”

A nurse rushed into the waiting room, abruptly stopping the deteriorating scene. “Mr. Johnson?” she said hurriedly.

Beau turned, his eyes on fire.

“There’s a problem in the NICU.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Jesus, Alice. I can’t believe you called him. What were you thinking?” Kevin fumed as he and Alice walked down the hall to the cafeteria.

“I thought he should know,” she said.

Kevin glared at her.

“I screwed up, okay? I didn’t think it through.” Alice stopped and leaned against the wall. “She’s my best friend. All I was thinking about was her. She’d been spending all this time with him. I didn’t even think about Beau. I know he’s here, but, I mean, I thought...I don’t know what I thought.” Tears streamed down her face. “I’m scared, Kevin. She could die.” She turned away.

Kevin put his arm around her, hovering between angry and in love. “She’s not gonna die,” he said.

Alice sniffled, leaning into him. “She could. Beau will never forgive her—or me. What’ve I done?” Her eyes darted about the hall.

“Geez, Al. Why’d you do it?”

“I don’t know.” She pulled back and looked up at him. “I thought he needed to be here.” She looked away. “Maybe I’m one of those people.”

“What people?”

“One of those people who has to ruin other people’s lives, I don’t know,” she buried her face in her hands.

“You’re not that person. You care, that’s all. You knew he’d be worried. It’ll be okay.” Kevin looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes.
Okay
was one thing he was not sure things would ever be again.

Louie leafed through an old copy of
People Magazine
in the waiting room of the neonatal intensive care unit. His eyes moved from the pages of the magazine to Robert and Carol. He set the magazine down and leaned forward, clasping his hands between his legs, “I’m really sorry about what’s happened to Tess and the baby. I didn’t mean to upset Beau.”

Robert lifted his gaze, his face unreadable. “We’re all in a state of shock.”

Carol clenched Robert’s hand. Her thin, arched eyebrows lifted, but her eyes remained dark. “So, are you and Tess,” she waved her hand in the air, clutching a tissue, “dating?”

Louie looked down at the floor. He shrugged. “To be honest, I’m not sure what you’d call it, but yes, we were spending time together.”

Carol leaned into Robert’s side, as if the words had pushed her against him.

Robert put his arm around Carol. “This is going to be a difficult situation for everyone involved.”

Each time someone walked by the waiting room, the three of them looked up, expecting to see Beau, who’d excused himself to the men’s room fifteen minutes earlier.

“We weren’t, um, we hadn’t…” Louie blushed. “What I’m trying to say is that we were close, but it’s not what Beau thinks. We weren’t…intimate.”

Carol closed her eyes, her words came out in a rush of breath, “Oh, thank God.”

Alice came in with Kevin trailing behind her. Her eyes were swollen, her face drawn.

“I’m sorry,” she said to them all. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble for anyone. I just thought Louie should know what’d happened.”

“That’s alright, Alice. We know you didn’t mean any harm, dear,” Carol said.

Louie stood. “I can leave.” He put his hands in his jeans pockets. “I mean, I don’t want to. I want to know how Tess is doing, but I don’t want to cause anymore pain for Beau, or for you two.”

Robert and Carol spoke in unison.

“You don’t have to leave,” Robert said.

“Maybe that would be best,” Carol said.

Louie took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He shrugged and extended his hand to Robert. “I’m truly sorry if I caused you any grief. It wasn’t my intent.”

Robert tucked his chin into his chest, his eyes serious. He shook Louie’s hand. 

“I’ll call you,” Alice said as Louie passed by, catching, out of the corner of her eye, Kevin glaring at her.

Beau stood beside Tess’s bed, his nerves afire. He stared at her bandaged face. “Damn it, Tess,” he said through gritted teeth. He paced, his injured leg throbbed. “How could you do this to us?” The monitors lulled him into a daze. His eyes glazed over.

“Hey, sugar, how’re you holding up?”

Her southern drawl pulled him back to the moment. “Hi,” he said, lowering himself into his seat.

“I hear you’re a proud papa now. Congratulations.” She checked Tess’s vital signs, humming. “What’re you going to name that sweet little treasure of yours?”

Beau shrugged.

“You’re gonna wait and see what Mama says, are you?” She tucked Tess’s blanket around her body. “Well, I think that’s mighty nice. Give her something to wake up for.”

“Do you think she can hear me?” Beau asked.

“I’d like to think so. I’ve seen some miraculous things happen in my day.” She walked toward the door then turned back around. “Talk to her, sweetie. She needs you as much as you need her.”

Beau sat in the chair for a long time, staring at Tess, the sunshine streamed across Tess’s chest. He’d worked so hard to come back home to her, and now, he wasn’t sure he could ever look at her the same way. How could she have thrown away their relationship so quickly? How could she have slept with another guy so soon after he’d left the country? The veins in Beau’s neck bulged. He clenched and unclenched his fists.

Beau’s thoughts turned to Iraq, the day he’d awakened in the tent with Suha caring for him. He hadn’t known where he was or who she was. There had been only one thought on his mind: Getting back to Tess. He remembered Samira watching him from across the tent and Edham clinging to his hand as they took their daily therapeutic walks. He heard Athra’s piercing scream when she was ripped from Samira’s arms. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead.

He looked at Tess’s broken, bandaged body with fresh tears in his eyes.

“What have I done?” he asked. “I’ve ruined our lives. I can’t live without you.” He clenched his teeth, “But I can’t,” he pushed back from her, wiping his eyes with his sleeve, “I can’t even look at you without seeing him.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Samira leaned against the cool cinderblock wall of the army barrack where she and the children had stayed the night before. Her stomach growled. She wished she’d eaten more of the hearty meal they’d fed them the evening before, but she’d been too nervous. The children had been famished. She’d thought Zeid and Edham would be up for hours with bellyaches, but they’d slept right through the night. Only Athra had awakened several times, crying and reaching out for Samira.

Samira lifted the shade, bringing sun across the children’s cots. She knelt in the center of the small room, her knees pressed against the concrete floor. She bent forward and prayed. She prayed for Suha, who had not been washed and wrapped in a clean, white cloth by a loving family member. She hadn’t been buried after a special prayer had been said in her honor. She hadn’t been buried the same day. Samira prayed that the absence of those acts would not disgrace her in her afterlife.

Edham knelt next to Samira, his hands clasped together. He rocked in time with his mother. When her body slowed, he spoke. “I miss Mr. Beau, Mother.” His long dark lashes blinked rapidly, awaiting an assurance that was not to come.

Zeid stared at him from the edge of the cot where he sat.

Samira leaned back on her heels and ran her fingers through the bush of hair just above Edham’s right ear. She kissed his cheek.

“I am glad to be without him,” Zeid’s cutting words pierced Edham like a spear.

Edham jumped to his feet and ran shoulder first into his brother’s chest, propelling him backward with a howl of anger. He punched his brother’s ribs over and over again.

Samira grabbed him from behind, “Edham! Release him!”

Tears streamed from Edham’s eyes, his heart pounded, his arms hammered Zeid’s chest with such speed and force that he feared he would not be able to stop.

Zeid pushed at Edham’s chest. “Get off!”

“You are just like Father! I hate you! I hate you!” Edham yelled. “I love Mr. Beau!”

Samira yanked Edham’s right arm so hard it startled Edham out of his hate-driven reverie. He spun and stared at her, his lower lip quivering. He collapsed into her arms, sobbing and panting until his sobs became hiccups.

“He’s crazy, Mother,” Zeid wrapped his reddened arms around his knees and pushed back toward the wall.

Samira stroked Edham’s back, holding him against her chest, “Calm, Edham. We’re all scared.” She shushed Zeid before any more words could escape his mouth, staring at him with remorse in her eyes.

Athra crawled up onto the cot, her thumb jammed into her mouth, and sat next to Zeid, her wide eyes flitted from Zeid to her mother, then back again.

A knock at the door shot three sets of worried eyes in Samira’s direction. She gently led Edham to the other cot. “They heard us,” she scolded. She wished Suha were there. Fear swelled in her chest. She held up a trembling hand, palm facing the children, signaling them to stay put. She covered her head with her
hijab
and reached her other hand toward the door handle. Her slim fingers wrapped around the cold metal. The lock sprang open. Samira pulled the door open an inch and peered into the hall. A man in uniform stood with a tall, dark-haired man. Samira dropped her eyes. The man’s pressed trousers lay perfectly above his shiny black designer shoes. His dark skin and thick dark hair were comfortably familiar.

The man lowered his eyes and gave a slight bow. “Ms. Samira?” His voice was calm and low.

Samira’s eyes filled with fear. She peered out from behind the door.

“I am Mr. Fulan. Beau Johnson asked me to come.” Hearing her native language in conjunction with Beau’s name sent a chill of relief through her body. She took a loud deep breath and glanced back into the room, where Athra huddled between Edham and Zeid, and for the first time in many years, she knew they were going to be okay.