That Baby (45 page)

Everyone is moving quickly around us.

“Her water broke, but we’re seeing some blood, so there’s a possible placental abruption,” Marcus tells me.
 

The nurses rushing about haven’t said a word. They are focused on her.

Marcus squeezes JJ’s hand. “It’ll all be okay.”

“Remember what I told you,” she says to him.
 

“What did you tell him?” I ask, but she cries out in pain again.
 

Placental abruption
. That’s bad. But I seem to remember that it could vary in severity.

I put my hand on her forehead, trying to keep her calm. Her eyes are big and she looks scared to death.
 

And that scares the shit out of me.
 

“It’ll all be okay,” I tell her, praying that it will be.

“Jadyn, we’re going to do an emergency C-section,” someone says.

Jadyn nods, tears filling her eyes.
 

“Phillip,” she says in a panic. “I wrote it down, but you need to know too. Make them save the baby. Not me. And please promise me that you’ll always remember what we talked about earlier. The love part.”

“What? Don’t even say that! Don’t even
think
that!” I yell, repeating the words she said to me when I was telling her about all the things that could go wrong during early pregnancy.
 

“Here’s the anesthesiologist,” someone says as they’re wheeling her into an operating room.
 

I’m following them, holding her hand and, so far, no one has said anything to me, but they are busy prepping her for surgery.

The nurse that scrubbed me in says, “You can be here for the birth, but they’re going to have to put your wife under.”

We’re in the operating room now and everyone is moving quickly.
 

The anesthesiologist says, “Jadyn, I’m going to put this mask over your face. Just breathe normally and you’ll be asleep quickly.”

I give Jadyn’s hand a squeeze, hold it tight, and mouth,
I love you
.

“I love you too,” she says.
 

She doesn’t look as panicked now.
 

Instead, she has a faraway look in her eyes as the doctor puts the mask into place.

Her abdomen is draped, so I won’t see them make the incision. I don’t want to see that part.
 

Instead, I focus on her.
 

I gaze at her beautiful face and realize all the beautiful moments in my life have been with her by my side.
 

I try to focus on those moments.
 

Think positive thoughts.
 

She’s here at the hospital. She’ll be okay.
 

But her warning about saving the baby haunts me. Why would she say that? Does she know something we don’t? She looked scared when they brought her in, but I’m sure being in an accident and going into labor when you don’t expect it would be scary.
 

But it felt like more.
 

Then I remember her dream.
 

The reason I got crazy and bought her the safest car I could buy.

Oh. My. God.

No.

Please, God, please let her and the baby be okay.
 

Mostly, let her be okay.
 

I need her.
 

My eyes fill with tears as I imagine a life without her.
 

Something I can’t even begin to fathom.

I shut my eyes tightly.
 

Stop thinking that way.
 

Positive thoughts. Positive.
 

Everything will be okay.

I look around the surgical room wishing I could remember more about emergency C-sections from our birthing classes. All the details I thought I would remember so clearly have vanished from my brain, probably because I thought it would never happen to us.
 

Everything is happening quickly but methodically around us, the surgical team moving like a well-oiled machine. And that calms me. They are calm. That means things are going to be fine.
 

In a few minutes, they have her opened up.

“The abruption is much worse than we thought,” the doctor says, while I’m trying to remember what I read. What was the worst-case scenario for a placental abruption?

From somewhere in my brain come the words:
 

While a small abruption can be tolerated, excessive blood loss can result in the death of both mother and child.

I squeeze Jadyn’s hand tightly, praying for the best and trying not to even consider the worst.
 

 
Make sure they save the baby. Not me.

She did know something. She knew something was wrong.
 

She knew.

Oh. My. God.

She can’t die.
 

Cannot die.

It’ll all be okay. It’ll all be okay, I keep trying to tell myself.

But, now, all I can think about is losing her.
 

Of losing the baby.
 

And I know that I can’t agree with her wishes.
 

If there’s a choice to be made, I’ll pick her.

I could survive the loss of our child, but I couldn’t survive losing her.
 

I’m pretty sure I couldn’t exist without her.
 

I remember her coming home from one of Lori’s baby showers. Telling me how someone was telling them about a stillborn baby. How just retelling the story brought tears to her eyes. How she was clutching her growing baby bump like she was afraid to mention the word in front of our child.
 

The doctor pulls out the baby, who looks bluish, not red and angry like in the childbirth class photos.

My heart sinks.

And Jadyn’s hand goes limp in mine.
 

I turn to look at her, innately knowing that even though she’s under anesthesia she knows that our baby didn’t make it.

She’s going to be devastated.
 

A machine beeps.
 

Then another.

“She’s crashing!” a nurse yells.
 

“She’s lost too much blood!”

My world spins out of control as I recognize the underlying panic in their once calm voices.
 

“Her blood pressure is too low.”

“She’s coding.”

The mood in the room changes in a heartbeat.
 

Everyone is suddenly very serious.
 

Grim.

I hear an announcement over the hospital’s PA system.
Code Blue.

“Code Blue?” I ask.
 

“Get him out of here!” someone yells.

“NO!” I scream. “I’m not going anywhere! Someone needs to tell me what’s happening!”

“Sir, you need to leave.” A male nurse grabs my shoulder tightly as tears of frustration and rage spill out of my eyes. “We need you to leave now.”

“I’m not leaving,” I tell him, still holding her hand, but standing up taller, so he can take in my size.
 

No fucking way he’s making me leave.

But then two people have ahold of me.
 

I maneuver away from them, bend down next to Jadyn, and yell in her ear. “Stay with me, Princess! Don’t you leave me! Don’t you
dare
leave me! I need you!”

“I said
get him out of here
!” the doctor’s voice booms.

They manage to get ahold of the back of my shirt and drag me away, forcing me to let go of her hand. But I still have my hand outstretched toward her. I can’t let go.

I can’t.

But as I stare at her lifeless body, the fight is knocked out of me.

They drag me to the door, but I don’t want to go. An insurmountable amount of pain courses through me. This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening.

I cry out again, “Don’t you dare leave me, Princess! Don’t you dare!”

I’m thrust outside of the operating room and into the hall, where a group of nurses are rushing toward me. I back against the wall to get out of their way, but stop one who looks nice.

“What does Code Blue mean?” I ask as she’s opening the door.
 

“I’m sorry,” she says sympathetically, rushing inside and slamming the door on everything important in my world.
 

I drop to my knees and sob as visions of her dance through my head.

 
Hair that looks like sunshine blowing in the breeze as she swings upside down from a tree.
 

That same blonde hair under a veil as she floats down a staircase.

My heart swelling in my chest when she says, ‘I’m pregnant.’

The symphony of her laughter when I tell her that she’s always loved me.

Her lips on mine as she straddles me and says what I’ve been longing to hear.

Her hand squeezing mine seconds before she speaks at the funeral.

Taunting me with giggles when she catches her first fish before I do.

The sound of her voice in my ear every night.
 

Smooth, soft skin that smells like summer pressed against mine.

Screams as I save her from a garden snake.
 

Freckles covered with mud, a white t-shirt becoming transparent as we wash off the four-wheeler.

Standing cheek to cheek by the swings, her tears making my shirt damp.
 

A ring sliding on my finger as she recites, ‘For as long as I’m lucky enough to have you.’

Gratitude when she sees the angel wings tattoos on Danny and me.

A grin that completely undoes me.

Tossing her into a pool then getting chased and letting her catch me.

 
Being rewarded with a kiss on the cheek as she tells me, ‘You acted like a prince today.’

Our lives are like single threads meticulously woven together—the result an exquisite tapestry of past, present, and future. Bound by unflappable trust, our hearts, our desires, her life woven into mine.
 

‘Don’t pull on the thread of your sweater when it’s unraveling, Phillip. It will come undone.’

 
Her sly grin as she says, ‘Let’s pull it and see if it’s true.’

Stitch by stitch.

Row by row.
 

I’m coming slowly undone until there is nothing left of me.

My princess—my life, my world—is dead.
 

Danny

Mrs. Mackenzie’s voice is ragged and stressed.
 

I catch certain key words:
 
JJ. Car accident. The name of a hospital.

I’m turning the car around to head to the hospital before I even hang up.

It's like déjà vu.

I’m drunk, lying in my dorm, and thinking about her. I can still feel the softness of her sweater and the coolness of her skin against my warm hand. I’m thinking about those mile-long legs in dark jeans that hugged her curves.
 

I can hear one of the twins tell me how That Asshole Jake—that's what Phillip and I called him whenever Jay wasn't around—brought another girl to the party. He goes on about the girl’s massive boobs while I watch Jay struggle to get across the field in the high heels she's wearing. As much as I want to immediately go beat the living shit out of Jake, I find myself jogging after her.
 

She has a little meltdown. The cutest babbling meltdown. Of course, my horny teen mind focuses on one detail. The thong she says she’s wearing. Jay has always been cute. She's always been my friend. And, really, she is the only girl friend I have. Every other girl is just sex.
 

And, suddenly, I see my chance, that perfect crease in the defense where I know I can run straight through to the end zone.
 

I shut her up with my lips.
 

She's surprised when I kiss her but her lips quickly get in sync. Kind of like when I taught her how to kiss and we kissed for hours—but hotter. She's better at it. Her tongue not unsure.
 

I want to throw her in the backseat of Lisa's car, strip her clothes off, and fuck her.
 

And if she were any other girl, that's exactly what I'd do.