by Aly Martinez
She giggled soft and sad. “I’m really glad the judge allowed you to be here.”
“Christ, me too. Hey, that reminds me.” I dipped low and kissed her slow and sweet.
Arching her back, she curved her body into mine and wrapped her arms around my neck.
“You were incredible in court today. Seriously, Charlotte, if this whole medical thing doesn’t work out for you, you could have a career in law.”
“I just paid off my medical school loans. I’m not eager to get back into debt for another advanced degree.”
I chuckled. “Well, the option is always there.”
She blew out a heavy breath and glanced back at the door to the waiting room. “Has it been four hours yet?”
“I wish. I hate the not knowing.”
She traced her fingers down my jaw and over my lips. “And Laughlin scrubbed in to observe. He said he’d be sure to keep us in the loop. There will be a nurse who comes in and updates us regularly.”
“Not regularly enough,” I mumbled. And, when her face fell, I felt guilty about not being stronger and more positive for her. “Hey, you want to play a game?”
“Not particularly.”
“Too bad.” Taking her hand, I led her over to two chairs situated away from the rest. “Let’s pretend.”
Her worried eyes flashed dark. “I thought we said no more pretending.”
I kissed her forehead and then murmured, “But this is the good kind of pretending.” I turned her sideways in her chair and draped her legs over one of my thighs. “The kids and I did this a lot after… Well, anyway. I’ll start. Six minutes.”
She quirked an eyebrow. “Six minutes to do what?”
“No. Where are we going to be in six minutes?”
“Uh…right here?”
Rolling my eyes, I huffed in mock frustration. “Okay. I’ll start. In six minutes from now, we’ll still be sitting here, but the nurse will have come in and told us that everything is going well. Brady will drop to his knees, thank the lord, and then stop being an asshole for the rest of our lives.”
She grinned. “Psh… Good luck with that.”
“Now, you go. Six hours from now….”
She blinked. “Um…six hours from now, we’ll be…” She stopped talking, and tears filled her eyes.
“It’s okay,” I breathed, rubbing her back. “Nothing is too big to wish for during Six Minutes.”
She nodded and swallowed. “Okay…so, six hours from now, we’ll be sitting in Travis’s recovery room, waiting for him to wake up, while listening to his new heart play a perfect rhythm on the monitors.”
“Damn right we will.” I winked. “Now, my turn. Six days from now…” I tapped on my chin. “It’ll be me and you, dressed all in black. I’m talking ski masks, cargo pants, black Henleys, combat boots—the whole nine.”
“So, we’re robbing a bank? What is it with you always breaking the law? Do you have a crew you need to get back to in jail?”
I laughed when it should have been impossible. “Nope. We’re sneaking Hannah in to see her brother.”
“Ah…we should probably get a giant duffel bag.”
“See? You know what I’m talking about!”
“Though, on second thought, it would probably be easier if I walked her in through the door. Six days from now, he’ll be out of ICU and in the transplant unit. I know some people who can get us in as long as she’s not sick and he’s healing up properly.”
“Oh. Well.” I scoffed. “Now, you’re just showing off.”
Her shoulder shook with laughter and she beamed up at me. “I love you so much.”
“I know.” I winked. “Now, six weeks. You’re up.”
“Humm…six weeks. Well, we’ll be home from the hospital.”
“Whose home?” I clarified.
“Uh…my new one.”
I made the sound of an annoying buzzer. “Wrong answer.”
She twisted her lips. “Okay… Your house?”
I did the buzzer thing again. “Still wrong!”
“Whose house, then?”
I leaned in close and brushed her lips with mine. “Our house.”
“What? No.” She jerked away, but I caught the back of her neck to prevent her from going far.
“You need a bigger place,” I whispered. “I happen to have a bigger place.”
She gripped my wrist, her fingers biting into it as she held it tight. “We can’t just move in together.”
“Why not?” I asked. “It solves all of our problems.”
“Only by creating more problems. What if we don’t work out? The kids would be devastated.”
“So we’ll work out.”
Her panicked gaze searched mine. “It’s not that easy.”
“It is that easy. It’s a commitment. To each other. To the kids. To being a family. Look, I know it’s going to be hard sometimes and we’ll go through our ups and downs like any other couple, but come on, Charlotte. I’m thinking, after all of this, there isn’t much we couldn’t conquer together.”
She began gnawing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do. Think about it. Travis gets to go back to the house and bedroom he calls home. You yourself said today that this stress is not good for him. Imagine what another move could do while he’s trying to recover? And, this way, he gets to keep both of us close. On the nights when you’re working at the hospital, he’ll have me there. And, on the nights when I’m at the restaurant, you’ll be there. And, on nights when we’re both there, we’ll be together like a family.”
She cut her eyes over my shoulder. “You’re talking a lot about the kids, but what about us, Porter?”
“Us?” I laughed. “Sweetheart, we are the easiest part of this. I love you. You love me. I get to fall asleep every night with you in my arms. I get to make love to you in the darkness. And hold you in the light. I don’t have to crawl out of your bed to rush home. We don’t have to make time for each other when our schedules get too busy. We can finally be together.”
She shook her head, short and jerky. “It’s too soon.”
“That’s what the six weeks are for, crazy,” I teased.
She half laughed, half cried. “You’re the crazy one.”
“I’ll gladly accept that title as long as you’re planning to move in with me.”
She peeked up at me with timid eyes. “I don’t—”
The whole room jumped when the door suddenly swung open.
Travis’s surgeon was standing on the other side, his face pale and filled with sorrow.
Greg Laughlin stepped in behind him, his face contorted in agony, his eyes aimed on Charlotte.
They weren’t supposed to be there.
They were supposed to be in the middle of surgery.
On my son.
They were supposed to be giving him a new heart.
Giving him a second chance at life.
They were not supposed to be standing there with apology in their eyes.
“Charlotte,” Greg called before swallowing hard.
“No,” she whispered.
He swept his gaze through the room, stalling on Tanner and Rita for a beat, but the pain in his eyes was stronger than ever when it landed on Charlotte.
“Maybe we should talk in the hall,” he whispered.
On shaking legs, Charlotte rose to her feet, her eyes feral. “You are not here right now.”
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
“You are not here right now!” she repeated, her tears finally breaching the surface.
Every hair on my body stood on end, and nausea rolled in my stomach.
“No!” she screamed. That single word was so tortured that it was as though it had been torn from her soul.
And, as it ricocheted around the room, it tore through mine.
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t focus.
My legs wouldn’t work, and my arms were slack at my sides.
It
felt as though every part of my body were simultaneously being ripped off while I was being stabbed with a million hot irons.
Greg moved fast and was on Charlotte in a second. His arms wrapped around her, keeping her on her feet, while his mouth moved at her ear.
The room erupted in a flurry of cries and questions.
But I couldn’t hear anything over the thunder of my own pulse.
I sat there, unable to move, desperately trying to figure how it was possible for the darkness to get even darker.
* * *
The room was pitch black.
The darkest night even before the sun had sunk on the horizon.
We’d been sitting like that for a while. I was in his lap, my legs draped over the arm of the chair, and his arms around my back.
Our hearts beat in unison.
Our breaths mingled in the inches between us.
The tears had dried hours ago.
But the fear and the uncertainty were more potent than ever.
“What do we do now?” he whispered.
“We just keep holding on to each other,” I choked out. Unable to see, I felt his head fall back as he stared up at the ceiling.
“How?”
My breathing shuddered. Porter had always been so strong for me. I had to be there for him now. I owed him that much.
“Did I ever tell you about my first sunrise after he went missing?”
He shook his head, sad and slow.
I curled closer into him as if I could somehow get inside and ease the staggering aches in both of our hearts.
“The day Lucas was taken, I overheard Brady tell my mom that only two percent of children who had been kidnapped come home after the first twenty-four hours. I didn’t think much of it at the time because my son was coming back to me. You know? But, as time wore on…I wasn’t so sure anymore. I began to obsess about that clock. After I got home from the police station that night, my mom helped me change out of my clothes. I’d been too consumed mentally, physically, and emotionally with the second hand on the clock to perform even the most basic of tasks. Each silent click of that tiny, plastic arm was deafening.” My voice hitched as the memory of that day slayed me. “Time was running out. I was only hours from becoming the part of the ninety-eight percent who never saw their child alive again.”
“Charlotte,” he whispered. “Don’t go back there.”
“I have to,” I breathed, touching my lips to his.
He sighed and silently waited for me to continue.
“I was one sunrise and two percentage points away from a lifetime of the unfathomable—being forced to carry on without him. It was all so surreal. I couldn’t sleep that night. And, with another tick from the clock, I feared I’d never be able to sleep again. Not without him. So I threw on a pair of shoes and climbed out the window like I was sixteen again.
“I can still remember the chill in the air assaulting me, though it was still infinitely warmer than the frozen tundra icing over my heart. Where I was going, I wasn’t sure, but I couldn’t sit there doing nothing anymore. He was out there somewhere without me. My feet started moving on their own accord toward the park. The same path, step for step, that I’d taken earlier that morning with my son before the world had turned upside down. My hands ached for the stroller handle, and my ears yearned to hear the cries I’d so desperately been trying to silence with that morning walk. In that minute, I’d have given anything to have those cries back.” My body tensed, the regret and longing in the memory becoming tangible all over again.
Porter nuzzled my jaw with his breath whispering over me like the softest feather. “I’m right here, Charlotte. I’ve got you.”
I inhaled so deeply that my lungs ached, and then I continued. “As my legs carried me closer to the place I’d last seen him, I allowed my mind to conjure up memories of that trip. It was crazy… When I had left my house that morning, I was frustrated, sleep-deprived, and impatient, but in hindsight, I’d never been happier in my life.” My voice cracked.
But Porter silently held me and allowed me the time to collect myself.
“I talked to him,” I confessed. Closing my eyes, I allowed my mind to transport me back in time. “Little things, like, ‘Shh… It’s okay, baby. Mamma’s right here.’ I whispered them into the wind as if he could hear me. But, with a silent scream from yet another second passing me by, hope slipped further and further out of my reach. That night, I sat on the bench for hours, pretending the sun was still high in the sky, children running and laughing all around us, Lucas crying in his stroller.” I paused as my chin began to quiver and the traitorous tears once again hit my eyes. “But, most of all, I pretended I’d never let him out of my sight.”
“Sweetheart,” Porter soothed, gliding a hand up and down my back.
“I stayed there all night. My eyes aimed at the horizon. And, regardless of how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop the sun from rising that morning. It was the darkest sunrise of my entire life. For ten years, I lived and breathed that darkness every day until I found you.”
“Jesus, Charlotte.” He palmed each side of my face and kissed me. His lips were full of love and tasted of hope.
“It’s always darkest before dawn, Porter. We just have to wait a little while longer. The sun always rises, baby.”
“Dad?” Travis croaked, and we both exploded out of the chair.
“Yeah…I’m here, buddy. Charlotte too,” Porter said, smoothing our son’s dark hair down.
I flipped the nightlight by the sink on so we could see him.
He’d been asleep for hours. When they had returned him to his room from the OR, he had been awake but still groggy and out of it from the anesthesia. We didn’t even have a chance to talk to him before he fell back asleep.
“Is it over? Did I get a new heart?”
Porter took both of our hands in his. “No, buddy. There was something wrong with the donor heart. They didn’t even start the surgery.”
“Oh,” he groaned. “That kinda sucks.”
I laughed, a single tear escaping the corner of my eye.
Kinda sucks weren’t the words I’d wanted to use when I had seen his surgeon in that doorway.
It had been too soon.
I had known right then and there that there wasn’t going to be a transplant that day. Suddenly, I feared there wouldn’t ever be one. And, after the drug of hope had swirled so high inside me, the crash back down hit me with a devastating force.
We were right back to the agony of waiting and praying all over again.
It had taken me over thirty minutes of sobbing in Porter’s arms to realize that it wasn’t over.
There was only one choice.
And, through it all, we would be together.
As long as we held on to that, we couldn’t possibly lose.
“Yeah. It definitely sucks,” I said softly.
Porter gave my hand a reassuring squeeze. “Hey, what do you say we FaceTime Nana and Hannah? They made me promise to call as soon as you woke up.”
“Okay,” he mumbled, shifting in the bed. “Since I didn’t have the surgery, does that mean I can eat? I’m starving.”
“Yeah.” I grinned. “I’ll make sure the nurse gives you the good red Jell-O.”
“Nah, make it green. Hannah loves that stuff.”
Smiling, I walked out of that room feeling lighter than I had felt in years.
And it wasn’t because everything was finally perfect.
Travis was still in desperate need of a heart.
Brady was still being an ass.
Porter was surely going to push the issue of us moving in together.
But, for me, another day brought another sunrise.
And, for the first time in nearly a decade, I was excited for life on the other side of that horizon.
* * *
One week later…
“Hey,” I said, stepping out in the walkway.
Brady froze, one hand on his phone, the other leisurely tucked
into the pocket of his khaki slacks. “Hey,” he replied, suspiciously flashing his eyes around the area.
I’d been standing outside the hospital entrance for the last half hour, waiting for just that moment. Brady usually arrived at least twenty minutes early to see his son. I’d been trying to catch him alone for the last three days, but I’d missed him every time. Today, it was now or never.
“Can we talk for a minute?” I asked.
His body tightened as he leveled me with a glare. “I’m not sure we have anything to talk about. Save whatever you have to say for the judge.”
I stopped in front of him and tilted my head to the side. “See, that’s the thing. The judge and I don’t have any issues at the moment. Everything I have to say is for you.”
“Okay, let me rephrase. I’m not interested in anything you have to say. I’m just trying to see my son. So, if you’ll excuse me—”
I shifted my weight between my feet and crossed my arms over my chest. “I’m withdrawing my petition for partial custody.”
His eyebrows shot up, and his chin jerked to the side. “I’m sorry. Come again?”
Yeah. That was basically my family’s reaction when I’d told them earlier that morning. They’d all been certain I was losing my mind. Deep down, I knew I was doing the right thing.
“Travis was four when I first met him,” I announced. “I was on this new health kick and decided I was going to eat all organic and local produce.” I chuckled.
Brady glared at me impatiently.
“I’ll never forget. I was picking out tomatoes when I caught him staring at me. He had these big, brown eyes, but his face was completely blank.” I smiled and cut my gaze down to the ground. “Now, knowing Charlotte, it makes a lot more sense.”
“Can you get to the point?” he grumbled.
I took another step toward him. “The point is I had to build a relationship with him too. What Travis and I have was not a natural thing in the beginning. I had to work for it. Day in and day out, I put in the time to grow something with him. Yeah, he was younger then, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have to earn his trust. I started from scratch, Brady. Just like you. So I know it’s possible. But you’ve lost your fucking mind if you don’t think he feels the tension between us.”
