Page 43 of The Librarians
Jets of heat and cold zip up Sophie’s neck into her skull, spiking a pain that expands and implodes at the same time.
Were this a movie, she’d have interpreted the information Nurse Amiru is trying to impart very differently. But this is real life. This is Jo-Ann of the infinite vitality. Jo-Ann, unlike her exuberant personality would suggest, has never been careless with money, because she always says, somewhat jokinglybut mostly meaning it, that she’s going to live to a hundred and ten and needs a large enough nest egg to be comfortable in her long golden years.
And Sophie has always believed her. When she used to plan a whole life together for them, she even experienced pangs of jealousy, imagining herself dead at sixty-five—not unusual for women of her family—and Jo-Ann living it up in her seventies with a younger, hotter new girlfriend.
Surely this isn’t what Nurse Amiru is trying to tell her. Surely it isn’t too much to expect that Jo-Ann will live at least to her eighties, ditching her pantsuits to exist free and easy in the bright plaid caftans of her island youth, a glass of tongue-scrapingly spicy ginger beer always at hand?
“You mean she isn’t okay now but she will be soon? She’s here in this great hospital”—Sophie googled the hospital earlier and it has a sterling reputation, especially its maternity ward—“and—and you’ll make her all good, right?”
Nurse Amiru, her eyes solemn, places a hand on Sophie’s arm. “I’m sorry. She passed away about an hour ago.”
Childbirth is dangerous business and Sophie is willing to consider postpartum hemorrhaging. She is willing to picture Jo-Ann weak and ashen, surrounded by beeping machines and a tangle of tubes.
Her brain refuses to understand “passed away,” yet something crashes to the floor—the bag of gifts for Elise.
“That can’t be true. You must have her confused with someone else.”
“I wish that were the case. But it’s hard to mistake her for anyone else. When I checked on her, she took one look at my name tag and asked if I was from Kerala. She said that she had an intern at her law firm whose mom is also a nurse from Kerala. It was delightful to talk to her—she knew so much about my home state.”
Sophie’s stomach twists. She knows a thing or two about the beautiful South Indian state too. The intern is now a full-fledged attorney. During their time together, Sophie and Jo-Ann had drinks with him a couple of times. They even attended a grand Christmas feast at his parents’ place.
Still she persists. “Are you sure?”
Nurse Amiru glances down—belatedly Sophie realizes that she is clutching the woman’s hands.
“She developed a pulmonary embolism after her C-section and had to be rushed into surgery on a different floor. I kept thinking about her. So on my break I went up and asked how she was doing and that was how I learned.”
When Sophie was in college and going to football games, her friends, who cared a lot more than she did about the fortunes of the home team, got tense and weepy in the final minutes of hotly contested matches. Some even sank to their knees and prayed right before a Hail Mary pass. Sophie used to shake her head at them. Chances are, a team going for a Hail Mary pass has already lost. Why get so worked up?
Now she too is putting all her hope into one last attempt to hold off the reality crashing toward her like a fishtailing semi.
“But she is—she was—” Dear God, does she really have to talk about Jo-Ann in the past tense? “She was so healthy. She could play racquetball for hours and then go out and dance like she was in a music video. And she was saving her money because she was going to live forever.”
Nurse Amiru envelops Sophie in a fierce hug. Sophie hears herself panting.Please don’t let go. Don’t let go of me.
But the kindly nurse eventually does. “I’m so sorry. But I have to make my rounds now. We have a chaplain on the second floor if you need to talk to someone. The baby is okay for now—she’ll be staying with us at least tonight and probably tomorrow night too.
“You go get some rest. Tomorrow you’ll have to come back as the next of kin to deal with paperwork.”
She hugs Sophie again, this time more briefly. “Take care of yourself. I’ll pray for you and the baby.”
Sophie stares at her departing back. Then she turns toward the window to Baby Elise on the other side, sleeping like a cherub, with no idea that she is now an orphan.
Sophie glances again down the corridor, but Nurse Amiru is gone; the empty passage glares back at her under a pitiless fluorescence.
Something wet falls on her. She looks down. Her hands are clamped together. A large droplet is rolling off the side of her right hand, just as another large droplet splatters onto her left hand.
Tears, from her own eyes.
Sophie doesn’t cry. By nature she is more stoic than expressive, and what little tendency to weep and fuss in the hope of receiving more care and attention was stomped out by her mother’s hard nurture.
And she isn’t even that devastated—yet. She’s in shock. Hell, she’s still in denial. So why have her eyes become leaky spigots?
Because, she realizes slowly, as teardrops continue to rain down, she’s scared, terror coursing through her like a tsunami crossing the deep ocean at five hundred miles an hour.
Her worst fear has come true—the very first objection she raised when Jo-Ann blithely declared that she could be the one to have the baby. Jo-Ann is dead. Sophie has no blood relationship to Elise. She and Jo-Ann weren’t in a civil partnership. She has no eligibility to apply for any legal status that will allow her to make decisions for the baby.
Even sunny, ebullient Jo-Ann was damaged by her upbringing. Even she sometimes stood before a window and stared out into the middle distance, lost in old arguments and old hurts that never quite lost their power to wound anew.
