Page 77 of Endurance
I turn when I hear Belle intake a sharp breath.
“They rushed her in for an emergency C-section. It all happened crazy fast. Then, when they pulled the baby out, her colour was off. It was terrifying, but there were doctors right there and they rushed her off to the NICU straight away. I wanted to stay with Vi, but she screamed at me to go with the baby, so I did.” Hayden’s face crumples with more tears, and Belle begins trembling beside me. I take her hand and clutch it firmly against my chest.
“They got the baby’s oxygen levels up rather quickly and said she was looking really good. That the NICU was only a precaution and she could go meet her mummy. But then—” He clears his scratchy throat. “Then a nurse came in and told me there was a tear in Vi’s uterine wall and she was losing too much blood. They had to put her under in order to repair it. But she’s okay now.”
Hayden’s mum releases a quiet sob as Hayden covers his face with his hand, his entire body racked with cries. “I’m sorry. Everyone’s all right. Everyone’s fine now. Vi’s awake and has just properly met the baby for the first time. They’re moving them both to a patient room now.”
Hayden finally looks up, his eyes wide and tearful. He looks at his brother and adds, “I can’t believe how close I was to losing them both in one fell swoop.”
Dad steps in front of all of us and grabs Hayden by the shoulders. “You didn’t lose them. They’re okay, son.”
Hayden wipes his face and sniffs. “But to think that Vi was bleeding like that and I left her. She had to have been so frightened.”
“You took care of my granddaughter. You did what a good father should. You did what Vi wanted. Everyone is okay now.” Dad’s voice is choked with just as much emotion, but his words seem to help.
Hayden nods woodenly and pulls the scrub cap off his head. “They put us up in a big room, but I’ll have to take you back in shifts.”
Hayden’s mum speaks up, looking straight at Dad. “You all go first. Go see your daughter.”
FOR AS LONG ASI’VEbeen a surgeon, there’s this little tickle I get on the back of my shoulder blade whenever a patient is about to go downhill. It’s like a small electric pulse that tingles with a sense of foreboding. I don’t know if it’s some sort of mental intuition or just a fluke, but it almost always occurs right before things take a turn.
So whenever I get that tingle, I’ve learned to stop what I’m doing and wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
And then it happens. Monitors start going off, a bleeder sprays, pressure drops. Then it’s the rush of problem-solving in order to right what went wrong, push the correct meds, stop the bleed, and send them into emergency surgery.
Sadly, it doesn’t always end in my favour. I remember all of the patients I’ve lost. And with foetal surgery, I don’t just remember the baby, but the mother as well. Mostly because if the baby dies in surgery, then the mother has to subsequently deliver them afterwards.
Stillborn.
It’s the worst part of my job.
But without surgery, the baby has little to no chance of survival. So the rewards of a healthy baby outweigh the risks of a dangerous surgery. That’s how I get myself through the bad cases. Through the losses.
We give the doomed a chance at salvation.
With Vi, I felt the tickle as soon as we were outside of Tower Park. Everything happened too quickly. Her contractions were coupling, coming out of nowhere, one on top of the other. And then to hear nothing for hours was alarming. Indie and I kept exchanging worried looks but couldn’t say anything. We were on the wrong side of the doors.
But it all could have turned out so much worse. What if we hadn’t got them to the hospital in time? Would there still be a baby? Would there still be a Vi? Suddenly, I wonder if the rewards are worth the risks. When you’re talking about a person you know and care about, and not just a name on a chart, everything feels different.
I feel my guard coming up as I file through the hallway with the Harris clan. It’s rising up over the knots in my stomach, that tickle on my back, and the heaviness in my chest. It’s climbing to numb my mind and push me back to a safe distance.
I’m an outsider in this group. I’ve been amongst them for barely a month, and they have no idea that I’m nothing like them. I never speak to my brother. My mother is a vapid, emotionless ice queen who shames emotion. My father all but told me there’s no reality in this world where Tanner Harris could ever commit to me, let alone love me.
The Harrises all lean on each other and talk to each other and have silent conversations by giving each other a simple look. They do public displays of affection and have a waiting room bursting with loved ones.
That’s not me. Those aren’t my people. My people are like Indie, who understands crazy eyes and side-eyes and emotional outbursts. We’re exactly alike. Or we used to be before she found Camden.
We’re different in the sense that she grew up in boarding schools and never knew her parents, whereas I had a home life with mine. But our pasts are one in the same. She was two plus two; I was three plus one. Our equations were different, but we both resulted in the same sum.
Our families don’t sit in waiting rooms.
And now I have something different right on the tips of my fingers like Indie does with Camden. A different life. A different equation. A different sum.
