Don't Go (12 page)

“Let’s not talk about that now.”

“It’s okay, I want to. What’s going on? Fill me in.”

“No, don’t worry about it tonight.” Dave shook his head, his expression pinched. “The last thing you need now is shop talk. We can talk another time.”

“No, I might not have another time, and I want to know. I wish you had told me already.”

“We didn’t want to worry you over there. We figured you had enough on your plate.”

“I get that, and thanks.” Mike knew they were being considerate by not telling him, just like Chloe had been, but he felt better knowing the facts. He appealed to Tony, the more talkative of the two. “What’s going on? I want to know.”

“Fine.” Tony’s dark eyes flashed with anger. “Our business fell off, but Jim’s using that for an excuse to start a new practice. It’s all about sports medicine for him, and our side is like a ghost town. We’re both looking to get out.”

“Leave the group?” Mike shook his head, incredulous. “We’ve been together almost a decade.”

“I know, I’m sorry, but I’m out. I’m hoping I can join a group in Bryn Mawr.”

“But why break up? Why don’t you join Jim and Lyon? They’ll take you, won’t they?”

“In a word, no.” Tony shook his head, his feathered hair blowing in the wind. “We asked him, and he said no.”

“No way,” Mike said, appalled. “He’s not just gonna ditch us.”

Tony snorted. “Mike, you’re the nicest guy in the world. This is why I miss you, man.”

Dave smiled sadly. “Mike, we’ll keep our eyes open for you, but I doubt there will be a practice when you get back.”

“Why throw it away?” Mike wanted to change their minds. “We’re making money, and I love working with you guys. If we make less, we make less. It’s still enough, right? Jim said you’re getting bonuses over base, and I’ll be home in no time.”

“Sorry, but no.” Tony’s lips buckled. “It’s not only the money, Mike. I refuse to be treated like dirt in my
own
practice.”

Dave shook his head, resigned. “I found a new group of orthopedists who left Rothman. They’re in East Goshen, out of the system.”

“Out of the system?”

“I know, I’m going to find life beyond this galaxy.” Dave smiled tightly. “I’m boldly going where no black man has ever gone before.”

Mike reeled. “I figured you were unhappy, but not this unhappy.”

Tony interjected, “I’m not unhappy, I’m homicidal.”

Dave squinted against the cold. “Look, I’m really sorry, Mike. If room opens up for you, I’ll let you know. We’ll stay in touch, I have your email.”

Mike tried to keep it together. All he felt was loss, on top of loss.

“Hell, we’ll always be friends.” Tony smiled, gesturing at Dave. “We’ll still golf. We’re going to Pebble next month.”

Mike didn’t golf. They must’ve forgotten.

“I’ll teach you to play,” Dave offered, reading his mind.

“Okay.” Mike rose stiffly, forcing a smile. “I should go inside,” he said, chilled to the bone.

Chapter Twenty-one

Mike rested in the rocking chair, sitting in the darkened bedroom while Emily slept. Bob and Danielle had gone to bed, and he’d sneaked in, in his borrowed bathrobe. He closed his eyes, trying not to think of the wake and the news from his partners. There came a snuffling sound from the crib, but he didn’t think Emily would wake up and he wanted to be in her presence.

He eased out of the rocking chair, crossed to the crib, and peeked inside. Emily was lying on her back again, her head to the side. She was sucking a pacifier, and he stood as still as he could, his eyes taking in every detail. He was trying to memorize the way she looked, so he could carry the image back with him. It hadn’t worked when he deployed the first time, and Chloe had told him he was silly to try.

I’ll send you a picture, every day. You won’t have to remember, you’ll have the real thing.

Mike had disagreed. The picture wasn’t the real thing, even the memory wasn’t the real thing. He was in the presence of the real thing, this baby who didn’t want any part of him but who
was
a part of him, and all that he had left in the world. It would be so hard to leave her, and he couldn’t imagine letting her go without having held her. He’d kept checking on her at the wake, and she’d fallen asleep on Tony’s shoulder, whom she barely knew.

Mike saw himself flunking as a father, the proverbial slow-motion wreck that he was powerless to stop or derail. Maybe he didn’t have what it took. If he was naturally good at surgery, then he could be naturally bad at parenting. He wondered if his father had felt that way or never realized it. He didn’t know if lousy fathers knew they were lousy, or whether they were spared by their own selfishness. His father hadn’t stayed long enough to answer these questions.

He remembered the morning his father had left for work, on the day he never came back. Mike had watched him walk down the street, his bearing characteristically erect, heading to the train station to catch the 7:15, his newspaper under his arm. Mike had replayed that scene so many times since then, not only as a child, but even, embarrassingly, as an adult, hoping it would come out a different way. And each time, he’d say the same thing, like a secret prayer.

Don’t go.

Chapter Twenty-two

The funeral procession began, and Mike walked with Danielle behind the polished casket, which was being rolled down the center of the church on an elevated metal gurney. He still couldn’t believe that Chloe was sealed inside, but he had seen it with his own eyes, when he’d said good-bye, one last time. He’d cried himself out, leaving him with an emotional exhaustion and an agonized love for his wife.

Danielle walked next to him, numb and teary, carrying Emily, precious in a little red coat, white tights, and pretend shoes. Bob was one of the pallbearers and he looked stricken beside her casket, at the back, and the other pallbearers were Jim, Tony, and Dave, Sara’s husband Don, and Scott from the funeral home. Even Father Hernandez, their elderly priest whom Chloe liked, looked teary-eyed as he swung an ornate brass censer on a clanking chain, trailing thick black smoke and wreathing the air with burning incense.

Mike focused on putting one foot in front of the other, the smoke filling his nostrils and his head pounding with the powerful notes of the organ. The congregation turned as he walked by, and he spotted Laura, Jill, Bonnie, and Sara, so distraught on his behalf. He saw himself through their eyes, objectified, a father left alone to raise a little girl. He vowed to himself before God that he would be better than his own father, and it struck him that there was no better place to start than here, in the presence of the holiest of fathers.

Mike stopped abruptly in the middle of the church and turned to face Danielle. “Danielle, please let me have the baby. I should be the one holding her at her mother’s funeral. It’s okay if she cries.”

Danielle looked as if she didn’t know what to say, her glistening eyes widening at this spontaneous moment. Bob, the other pallbearers, and Father Hernandez looked back, frowning and halting the procession.

Mike held out his arms. “Don’t worry, Danielle. I’m her father.”

“Here, take her.” Danielle, shaken, offered him Emily.

“Thanks.” Mike reached for the baby, cradled her against his suit and tie, and looked into her bottomless blue eyes, his heart swelling, full and complete. He felt as if he were finally doing right by her and Chloe, the three of them together as family, for one last time.

A murmur of approval rippled through the congregation, and a wave of loud sniffling. Emily burst into tears, but Mike had expected as much. He held her close, faced front, and the procession started moving again. Her crying reverberated in the lofty church, a heartbreaking sound against the organ.

“It’s okay, honey,” Mike whispered into her soft ear. He held Emily close, even as she began to scream louder, squirming and twisting her head. He kept walking down the aisle, and the heels of his dress shoes clicked on the marble floor. Father Hernandez swung the censer as he processed, his white-and-gold robes swaying back and forth.

Suddenly Emily stiffened, arched her back, and launched herself out of Mike’s arms, heading for the marble floor.

“No!” Mike shouted in horror. It startled him so badly that he lost his balance and began to fall backward.

Danielle screamed. The congregation leapt to its feet. Father Hernandez whirled around, his robes swirling. The organ music stopped. Everyone gasped.

Emily was about to hit the floor when Bob stepped backward, reached out, and grabbed her by the coat. “I got her!” he shouted, collecting the bawling baby.

“Thank God!” Danielle rushed to Emily. People craned their necks or jumped to their feet, saying, “He dropped her!” “What happened?” “Is the baby okay?”

Father Hernandez peered down at Mike, his hooded eyes wide. “Son, are you all right?”

Mike looked up at Christ on the Cross, then closed his eyes, in hell.

Chapter Twenty-three

Mike hadn’t wanted to relive the funeral, but they’d gotten the story out of him as soon as he got back to the 556th that night. Chatty, Oldstein, Phat Phil, and Joe Segundo were sitting on racks and supply boxes in their tent, which was as messy as a frat house with stinky socks, free weights, paperbacks, and old DVDs. An illegal space heater cast a warm, orange glow on their grizzled faces, all of which looked at Mike in disbelief.

“You did what?” Chatty asked, shaking his head. He had on his garbage-bag Batman cape, and for some reason, had taken to wearing night-vision goggles pushed up on his scrub cap like designer sunglasses. It would be pure Chatty to wear what the Army considered a sensitive item in the least Army way possible. “Scholl’s, you’re telling me you dropped your baby?”

“Mike, are you serious?” Oldstein chimed in, incredulous. His forehead wrinkled deeply under his watchcap, and he blinked behind his wire-rimmed glasses, which were on the thick side, making his sharp brown eyes look smaller. Phat Phil exchanged glances with Joe Segundo, and they both stopped eating their Snickers bars.

“What can I say?” Mike swallowed, hard. He felt empty, raw, and exhausted. “She’s strong, for a baby. I didn’t know. She just popped out of my arms.” He groped for words to describe what had happened. He had replayed the scene so many times. “It was like she launched herself, like a rocket.”

Joe Segundo frowned. “So what happened?”

“She was fine, thank God.”

Chatty kept shaking his head. “Wait, wait, wait. What? I don’t understand. Scholl’s, you can’t tell a story to save your life. How could she be fine if you dropped her on the floor?”

“She didn’t hit the ground. It was a marble floor. If she hit the ground, she could’ve fractured her skull.” The very thought made Mike sick to his stomach. “My brother-in-law caught her.”

Everyone exchanged glances for a minute, and Chatty rose, hitching up his ACU pants, his cape wrinkled. “Hold on, Scholl’s. Are you telling us that you dropped your baby at your wife’s funeral? And your brother-in-law caught her? Like a football?”

“Yes.” Mike felt so ashamed, heartsick. He had avoided Emily for the rest of his leave, and she cried every time she saw him. He worried Emily would never warm up to him, much less love him.

“That’s the funniest thing I ever heard!” Chatty erupted in laughter. “You fumbled your own daughter!” Phil, Joe, and Oldstein looked at each other, then they burst into laughter, too.

Mike blinked, astonished. He felt jarred that they could laugh at such a thing. His only daughter could have been killed, at his wife’s funeral.

“Oh, no, no, no! You’re killing me! It’s too funny!” Chatty threw himself backwards onto his rack, laughing and kicking his feet. “She launched herself like a rocket? A
rocket
?”

Phat Phil guffawed. “A
baby
rocket!”

Oldstein shouted, “No, a missile! A baby missile! A shoulder-to-air baby missile!”

Mike didn’t know how to react, then he realized he was back in Helmand, at the end of a never-ending war. He’d had reentry issues going home, and now he was having reentry issues coming back. He remembered that the only way the 556th survived was through gallows humor, and they all laughed at their darkest moments, including him. He also knew that they were only trying to distract him, bringing him out of his misery, the only way they knew how. He started to smile because Chatty looked so funny, rolling back and forth in hysterics, then Mike started laughing, and soon the tent was filled with the sound of insanely sad laughter.

“Scholl’s, catch!” Chatty tore off his goggles and threw them at Mike, who dodged them.

“Yeah, catch, Scholl’s!” Phat Phil joined in, laughing and throwing the Snickers bar. “Can’t you catch, butterfingers? Get it? Butterfingers!”

“Scholl’s, go long!” Joe hurled a paperback.

Mike ducked and raising his arms to shield himself from the things they started throwing, and he felt good for the first time in forever, the laughter momentarily releasing his pain, dispelling his shame, guilt, and grief. They’d cured him, if only for now, as they threw everything they could at him, and when Mike was on the ground, they buried him under their clothes, books, boots, blankets, and a lamp, then jumped onto the top of the pile with the abandon of much younger men.

Leaving Mike underneath, laughing and feeling that he belonged here, at war. Because he was finally, and for only a brief moment, at peace.

But that night, Mike tossed and turned in his rack. His sleep cycle was completely flipped. His thoughts were full of Emily and Chloe. Their tent was frigid and drafty, and the space heater illuminated the others, sleeping. He heard a snuffle from Oldstein, and Phat Phil turned over, making his rack squeak. No sound came from Chatty, and Mike didn’t know if he was sleeping. Typically he slept the least of the docs, always the first one running to the OR, a heavy burden even for a superhero.

Mike gathered his blanket around him, stuck his stocking feet in his boots, and made his way across the cluttered tent, stepping over the junk they’d left on the floor like sloppy frat boys. He went outside, where the cold air hit him full in the face and neck. He trundled to one of the beach chairs in front of the tent, which was usually the first thing they set up at camp, to make it homey.