Exception, p.34
Exception, page 34
“Is my sister okay?” she asked. The words felt weird coming from her dry mouth.
“Yes, she is,” the woman replied with an understanding smile. “We were able to revive her, treat the problem and save her uterus. It was a very successful procedure. At the moment she’s in ICU, where we intend to keep her for the night. She’s sleeping now and receiving some blood transfusions and fluids, but she’s doing great.”
Overwhelmed with relief, Emily rolled her body into Taylor, who folded her in a comforting hug. Chuck asked when he’d be able to see his wife. The doctor answered that, because of ICU policy, Chuck would be allowed inside in a few moments to stay with his wife, but Emily would have to wait until visiting hours in the morning. She reassured them once more that Charlotte would make a full recovery and that she’d be monitored throughout the night. Chuck asked the doctor about his daughter, and was informed that they would have to wait for Zack for news on her. The two men thanked her before she left.
Taylor took Emily back to their couch where they resumed their position. Knowing that Charlotte wasn’t in danger anymore, all the anxiety in the room was turned focused on Zack and baby Alice.
Silent as the grave was the best way to describe the waiting room during the minutes they waited; minutes that were so long, they felt like hours. Finally the silence was broken by a deep voice and a couple of footsteps approaching the room. Having heard that voice countless times during the year she’d attended hospital functions with Zack, Emily didn’t even have to look to know that her friend and his boss were entering the room.
Emily didn’t move to stand up; she knew that Zack wouldn’t leave the baby’s side unless she was doing well or dead. The happy tone both him and his boss, Larry, were using told her that the first option was the right one. So, she just continued to watch the snow, falling through the window.
In the distance she heard Zack introducing Chuck and Larry, who engaged in conversation right away. She heard footsteps getting closer, and then a coppery head blocked her view to the window when Zack flopped in the seat next to her legs.
“Congratulations on being an aunt, Cheesecake.”
Still at a loss for words, Emily simply smiled at him. It was the smallest ghost of a smile, and was as empty as she felt. Her eyes were filling up with tears and her fingers digging into Taylor’s arms. The happiness in her heart at the thought of being an aunt felt almost wrong, knowing that her beloved sister was lying in an ICU bed.
“I kicked some serious tail with her, sweetie. Even Larry was impressed.” Zack’s pride got a little of her attention, and she widened her smile slightly to show her appreciation. When their eyes connected, Zack continued, “She’s a tiny little thing, Ems, and so ridiculously cute, like a little furless kitty.”
His words took her back to one of their earliest conversations about cats and their individual preferences. Emily loved the furry beauty that was the Birman breed of cat, while her friend adored the furless Sphinx. The discussion of which baby kitten was cuter had become a private joke to them, one that compelled her to reply.
“Furless kitties are not cute, Z, they are weird.” Emily’s voice was raspy and both men could feel the strength she had to pull to say them, but she was a little closer to being her normal self, and they had to appreciate that.
Laughing at her weak attempt at humor, Zack reached into the pocket of the white lab coat he had on over his green scrubs and retrieved his phone. He fussed around with the device for a few seconds before handing it over to her. After one look at the screen, Emily looked back at him with amazed, wide eyes.
“Because I was so freaking awesome in the OR, I decided to be a bad little doctor and took this for you.”
Emily looked back at the picture of her niece. She had tubes and wires connected to her tiny little body. Her head was covered by a pink woolen hat that looked too big, and her eyes were covered by weird-looking goggles, but, like Zack said, she was tiny and ridiculously cute. Emily was completely taken by the little girl in the picture who, despite all the complications, was perfect.
Her eyes looked up at Zack. Using her words and her eyes, she thanked him for all he’d done for the only family she had, and then she went back to staring at the little princess in the picture. From that moment on, Taylor took over the conversation, letting her lose herself in the little respite she was having from all the craziness.
Zack explained to Taylor what had happened. He tried to keep the information on a need-to-know basis, making sure to deliver the most pertinent information in a way that wouldn’t scare his fragile friend. The bottom line was that, even though the baby had suffered a little distress during her troubling delivery, she’d suffered no serious complications other than the ones that are inevitable for a premature baby. He also informed them that the baby would have to stay in an incubator for about a month until her lungs were fully formed. Being a master at finding a silver lining in everything, Zack made a point in commenting that all of that guaranteed that Emily would enjoy her sister’s company until Christmas, and would get to spend the holiday with her family and friends as she wanted.
Chuck and Larry joined the three friends sitting on the couch once their conversation was over. Emily got to show her brother-in-law the first pic of his daughter, and congratulate him on making such a good-looking baby. He gave the full credit of that to his brave wife.
Knowing that Charlotte and the baby were fine, the family and friends who’d gathered in the waiting room said their goodbyes and left for the night. Emily did her best to say goodbye and thank all of them for their support, but the handshakes and words she had to say nearly caused her physical pain and she couldn’t help but to feel relieved when all of them left and she was finally alone with Taylor and Chuck. Being the angel Zack was, he took Chuck to see his baby before going home. After stopping by the waiting room momentarily to tell Emily how beautiful Alice was, Chuck disappeared through the ICU doors and went to be with his wife, leaving the two friends who cuddled on the couch to enjoy some silence and privacy.
Rearranging positions, Emily turned her face to look into Taylor’s eyes. They held each other’s glance for several minutes, in which Taylor saw all the emotions she’d been holding in during that awful night. Alone and protected by the only person she was ever completely vulnerable with, she let the tears she’d been holding fall from her eyes.
Broken hearted by her pain, Taylor pressed her to his chest, allowing her to purge her angst through the tears that ran like rivers from her eyes. He wanted to crawl under her skin, remove the hurt, and encompass it as his own. Knowing he couldn’t, he simply held her and delivered soft kisses to her hair and forehead in hopes that his love could soothe her.
“I thought she’d die,” Emily finally admitted after a long period of silent sobbing. “I saw her bleeding on the floor and I thought she’d die in my arms. I didn’t know what to do. Our whole lives I was the one bleeding, and she was the strong one, with the great ideas. I tried to be strong and brave like she was, but I was just so scared.”
Her words were followed by a new wave of tears that soaked through Taylor’s shirt. He felt that she wasn’t done talking, so he waited in silence, comforting her with his touch and lips until she felt ready to speak again.
Wiping her eyes with the back of her hands, she continued, “Then it took forever to get news, and Chuck kept sobbing. I know she’s his wife and that was his baby, but I just wanted to shut him up and make him stop. He did nothing when she was bleeding. He had one job, call 911, and he didn’t do even that. He left us hurting and alone, like everyone else and now he gets to be with her. He didn’t have the right to cry like that, he should have sucked it up.”
Taylor could understand her anger, but he could also put himself in Chuck’s shoes. He knew that if it had been Emily bleeding on that floor, making his world crumble around him, he’d have been just as numb.
“He was scared shitless. Don’t be too hard on him, Ems,” he said in his most conciliatory tone. “Before I came to sit with you, I talked to him. He was devastated. Charlie is his world and he loves her more than his own life. When you love someone like that, the idea of losing them is unimaginable.”
The silence that followed Taylor’s words allowed Emily time to process; despite her anger, she knew he was right. Chuck had probably felt the same desperation she’d felt, he just acted differently.
“How did you get him to react back in the bathroom?”
“It wasn’t me,” Taylor snickered, remembering what had happened. “Charlie told Zack to bitch-slap him, which he did. Chuck snapped right out it.”
His words made Emily laugh. “Only Charlie would think of that while writhing in pain.”
Taylor agreed with her, and then the silence was back. He felt Emily relax in his arms; the body that had spent the past several hours rigid as a rock was now soft and molding perfectly to his. He’d moved her up to his lap and her head now rested on his shoulder, her breath tickling his neck in the most delicious way. Her breathing had become so even he was sure she’d fallen asleep—that was, until her whispering voice called his name.
“Yeah?” he whispered back.
Like she’d done in a much happier moment earlier that night, her hand cupped his cheek. Her head was still on his shoulder, delivering her whispered words right into his ear. “Thank you for holding me tonight. You were all that kept me from falling apart.”
“Good to know,” he replied with a content smile and another kiss. “You got me really worried, you know?”
“I’m sorry, it was just too much. It was like I was stuck in my nightmares, remembering every time Charlie and I were at the hospital and how she never left my side. I felt powerless and useless being trapped in this room, unable to hold her and help her.” Even though her tears had stopped, Taylor could hear the sadness in her voice. She took a long deep breath before continuing. “My mind kept going back to the night Lewis died, the pain I was feeling was so close to what I felt that day and it was suffocating me.”
She took her head from his shoulder to look into his eyes. Once more they were filled with tears, but this time Emily had a small smile on her lips. Taylor recognized it as being the sad but thankful smile she used whenever she shared something painful with him. There was a sense of gratitude in him, knowing he was the only person that got to see it.
“Your voice and your touch brought me back,” she admitted, her voice cracking with emotion. “Every time I was about to give into despair, I heard your voice and felt your arms holding me. It was like you were pulling me back from the precipice.”
“I’d go to the ends of hell to make sure you’re well, Ems. Holding you and keeping you safe when you’re upset is practically nothing.” Those words were only half of the truth. The other half was mostly about the love he felt for her being the reason why he’d do that. However, she wasn’t ready for that and, even if she was, with all of the overwhelming emotions she’d just experienced, this would be the worst night for him to profess his feelings.
His loving fingers guided her head back to his shoulder, and they continued their conversation. Emily asked him every detail she couldn’t remember from the night. He filled her in on how he found her staring at the stainless steel door and walked her to the waiting room where, after talking to Chuck and calling the Webbers and Jody, he sat with her.
The story followed with Taylor telling her that Jody and Johanna had cleaned the mess in the bathroom and brought her a change of clothes. That information left Emily feeling like crap for paying them no attention at all, and, despite Taylor’s assurance that both women understood perfectly and didn’t harbor any animosity towards her, she was determined to send them flowers and a thank you note as soon as the gift shop opened.
Morning came, shining bright light on their faces as they continued to cuddle and talk. Despite having spent the whole night awake and being physically tired, neither of them could sleep.
Emily paced the small waiting room. All of the calmness and peace she’d felt while resting in Taylor’s arms that night was long gone. From the moment one of the nurses informed them that visiting hours were only an hour away, her anxiety began building up again.
Her pajamas were replaced by her favorite jeans and a white long-sleeved thermal shirt beneath the gray sweatshirt Jody had brought her. Taylor had forced her to eat breakfast at the hospital’s cafeteria, which her stomach was now threatening to expel.
Emily tried to focus her nervous energy on anything but the glass door that connected the room to the nurse’s station. Her eyes scanned over her surroundings for what felt like the first time. Two identical green couches and a few green armchairs lined the white wall, from which pictures of mountains hung in leaf-green frames. The window from which Emily had watched the snow fall the night before was the only one in the room, and a flat screen TV hung from the wall opposite.
“Stop fidgeting and sit down. They’ll call you soon enough,” Taylor told her, his annoyance at her stalking back and forth reaching its limit.
She rolled her eyes at him and continued pacing. “I can’t remember if the TV was on or off.” She voiced the thought she’d been obsessing over for the past fifteen minutes.
“It was on. Simon turned it off right after he got here. Now, come here and sit with me.”
Despite her anxiety she couldn’t ignore the look he gave her or the arm stretched towards her. She walked in the direction of the couch intending to take the seat next to him, but Taylor had other plans and, once she was within arm’s reach, he held her by the waist and brought her to his lap. The swiftness of the motion extracted a small giggle from her lips.
“Much better, in my arms and giggling, just the way I like to see you.”
Before she had a chance to say something back, her phone vibrated with yet another incoming message from Zack, who had been texting her pictures of Alice since he’d arrived at the hospital again. The comfort of Taylor’s arms and the cuteness that was her niece were good distractions—for a few seconds at least, and then she was back to fidgeting mode.
“Fucking Chuck,” Emily cussed again.
She’d been doing that on and off for the last twenty minutes since her brother-in-law had left the waiting room to go visit his wife. Taylor had tried to reason with her, explaining that he was her husband and it was only natural that he would be the first in during visiting hours, but it had been useless. Understanding her need to be angry at things, he let her curse as much as she wanted to, especially since, unlike the maddening pacing, seeing her use such uncharacteristic language was hilarious.
As if on cue, the glass doors opened and in came a red-eyed, puffy-faced Chuck followed by Lisa, the gray-haired nurse who was looking after Charlotte. Finally breaking into a smile, Emily kissed Taylor’s cheek and followed Lisa into the hallway, completely ignoring her brother-in-law when she passed by him.
Her sister was in farthest room, separated from the nurse’s station and the other patients by a glass door. The room was not as silent as you would think an ICU room would be. The doctor and the nurses on call were quiet, speaking to each other in hushed tones but the room buzzed with various sounds coming from the machines connected to her sister.
Charlie’s face lit up when she saw her sister walk into her tiny room. She wanted to stand up and bring Emily in for a tight hug, but the array of tubes and wires connected to her arm and chest wouldn’t let her. Adding to her discomfort, her empty womb was still pretty swollen and sensitive.
As the two pairs of blue eyes found each other, Emily’s filled with tears again. This time, they were happy ones. “How are you?”
“Aching a bit. Pissed that I can’t see my daughter and scared shitless. Other than that I’m fine. Come sit.”
Emily smiled, thinking how obsessed everyone was with having her sit, but she did as her sister asked. Taking a seat next to the bed, she handed her phone to Charlie who stared at the picture on the screen like it was the most amazing work of art in the world. “Mommy, this is Alice Anne Watson-Bennet. Makes good on her name too, little troublemaker.”
There were tears in Charlotte’s eyes. “Chuck said she’s tiny, but perfect.”
“That she is and, according to Z, she’s cute as a furless kitten.”
The two sisters giggled. Charlotte continued to stare at her baby for a little longer, thanking her lucky stars that, according to her doctor, she’d be out of ICU within the next hour and would finally be able to take a trip to visit her Alice.
“He took it like a daisy, didn’t he?” Charlotte asked, returning the phone and cleaning her tears. Emily knew immediately who her sister meant; Chuck’s name was written all over the question.
“Pretty much. I almost bitch-slapped him a few times,” Emily teased with a knowing smirk.
“So, Taylor told you about that?” Charlotte laughed. “Sometimes he deserves it. Sorry I kept you waiting so long.”
With a smile that was somewhere in between happy and sad, Emily carefully maneuvered the tubes so she could hold her sister’s hand. Almost instantly, both pairs of eyes were filled with tears, and they stared at each other in meaningful silence.
“No fair, calling me Lottie when I was in the worst pain I’d ever felt and bleeding to death.”
Emily’s wet eyes gave her sister the most sincere annoyed look she could muster. “Don’t start. You’re the tape that holds me together. I had to remind you to fight harder and not leave me.”
“By calling me the nickname our dead brother used. That’s a low blow, Emmy.”
“I agree. It’s also a stolen blow, or don’t you remember calling me Millie back in California?”
Charlotte’s brow almost touched her hairline in an attempt to hide her snickering. “Touché.”
The two sisters shared a smile and, just like that, the humor was gone. With her nerves working overtime, Emily started fussing with her sister’s messy hair.
