An Imperfect Heart

by Amie Knight

  I practically jogged the block over to the main hospital and into the ER. I passed the nursing station calling out, “Ian Hughes? He was transferred by ambulance.”

  The nurse’s face fell and I knew. I’d seen that kind of face too many times. The sad face. The fucking terrible news face. My stomach turned at that face.

  “I’m sorry, Doctor Jackson. He didn’t make it. He was DOA.”

  I stood here, stunned. I’d expected something different. Not that. Maybe that he was in ICU or terribly sick but no, I’d just seen him a few weeks ago and he was doing great after his final surgery.

  I hated losing someone. It never got any fucking easier. Every child lost hurt me to the quick. It somehow always seemed to blindside me, shocking me and devastating me all in one foul blow. I wanted to scream.

  Instead, I searched the halls for Deanna Hughes. We were practically friends. It was what happened when you did three consecutive surgeries that spanned years on people’s children. We’d all been through so very much together.

  I found her in the room with her son’s body, sobbing. I hugged her for what felt like hours but was probably only minutes. He’d complained of chest pain and she’d immediately called the ambulance. She’d done everything she could for Ian, just like I had. Sometimes, we had no control over these things. That’s what I told myself on the walk back to the office.

  I was feeling grim, helpless, completely out of control. I thought my day couldn’t get any worse, but I’d been fucking wrong.

  I spent the evening pouring over paperwork and trying to catch up. Maybe I was avoiding going home and the inevitable argument I knew was waiting there. I was still so pissed at Kelly and since then my mood had only soured with my day.

  It was 8:00 p.m. when I got the call that would change everything. It was the perfect ending to a terrible day, which was to say it wasn’t perfect at all.

  I picked up thinking she’d called to see if I’d left work.

  I didn’t even get the chance to say hello.

  “Doc, Doc. She has a fever. It’s 103. She’s so lethargic. Something’s wrong.”

  My world spun. I stood up from my desk feeling disoriented and off-kilter but still I managed, “Put her in the car. Get to the Emergency Room now. Hurry!”

  I hung up feeling a sense of dread hit me like a semi. It slammed into me like a freight train and nearly knocked me over as I made my way down the dark office hallway toward the door to lock up. My hands shook around the key and it took me twice as long to secure the office.

  I jogged back to the hospital feeling like I was in some sort of dream. No, a nightmare. I’d jogged this route already once today. I couldn’t get it out of my mind how it had ended. I couldn’t lose Hope. I’d already lost too much. I would’ve told her to call an ambulance, but we lived so close. It’d be faster to just load her in the car seat and get her here.

  I stood at the emergency room entrance pacing frantically, pulling at the strands of my hair and sweating even though the day was unseasonably cool for spring. I didn’t know what else to do. I’d never felt so out of sorts, so impatient, so frantic.

  Kelly’s car pulled up and I ran to the back door, opening it and retrieving the bucket seat with Hope inside. “How long has she had a fever?” I barked the question. I was crazed. This was my baby girl. I ran my finger over the apple of Hope’s cheek and she felt so hot.

  Kelly walked quickly alongside me as I carried Hope in. “I don’t know. She felt warm earlier, but I thought I was just cold. I took her temp and then called you.”

  I walked past the front desk and pushed my way through the double doors. I ignored the nurses behind the desk farther down the hall and pulled back curtains like a mad man, searching for an empty room. Only finding rooms full of startled people instead.

  “Dr. Jackson!”

  Someone yelled my name, but I barely heard. I had one single objective. I needed to get my baby help.

  “Dr. Jackson! You can’t just come back here. We’re full.”

  I spun to the nurse. I knew her name. I did, but I couldn’t think of it. My mind felt fuzzy. “Our baby.” I held out the carrier with Hope sleeping in it. “Help me.” It was all I could get out. All of my medical training had fled the fucking building. I couldn’t think of one goddamn thing to do to help her. I was a mess.

  The nurse gave me a sad look as she took Hope from me and called a doctor over.

  “I’m gonna need you to wait here while we take a look at her. Okay, Dr. Jackson?” the nurse giving me pity eyes said.

  I knew why they were throwing me out. I was losing my shit. I pulled on the strands of my hair again as the doctor and nurse looked for a room for Hope.

  Kelly followed them with a small worried glance over her shoulder at me. “I need him with me,” she begged the nurse.

  The nurse patted her back. “Give him a minute to collect himself.”

  I leaned against a wall in the hallway nearby, trying to catch my breath. Trying to breathe myself to calm. Only the longer I was there the more panicked I became. I tried counting. I tried deep breaths. I tried everything. I needed to be there for Hope today. I needed to be there for Kelly. But my thoughts took hold, racing through my mind like someone was changing the channels on a TV too quickly.

  Hope could die, just like he did. Hope could die just like Ian. And then Kelly would break. I’d fall. We both would never be the same. I knew what losing a child did to a family. It had the ability to ruin everything, to tear it all apart.

  Pressing the heels of my hands into my eyes harshly, I rocked back and forth against the wall, feeling like this giant hospital was too goddamn small. The beige walls that had felt like home for so many years now felt like they were closing in, like they were getting closer and closer to me. The smell that once was the comfort of a familiar place made the acid in my stomach churn. The soft chatter of nurses and doctors, the beeps of machines nearby that once proved nothing more than the background noise of my workmates now were a cacophony of sounds that made my head pound and my eardrums burn. I held my head in my hands and prayed for some measure of peace, but it never came, no matter how long I stood there breathing deep.

  Before I knew it, I was at a dead sprint. Running out of the sliding glass emergency room doors and across the parking lot, down a block and to my car, ripping the confining bow tie off my neck and wiping the sweat from my brow. With shaking hands and blurry eyes, I barely managed to unlock the car.

  I felt the first tear slip free as I pulled out of the parking lot and onto the main road. I cranked the radio up loud to drown out the pain thundering in my head and pounding in my heart, but it didn’t work. I pulled onto the interstate and drove south. At the time I didn’t have a clue where I was going. I barely payed attention to the roads, but I knew where I’d end up. I needed to talk to him.

  It was 3:00 a.m. in the morning. Where the hell was Doc? Hope was settled and the doctors had finally managed to bring down her fever. I sagged against the wall in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit. I felt like I’d been put through the wringer. And I had in a lot of ways. God, what a fucking terrible day. It had gone from bad to worse. It seemed like Cash had been some kind of bad omen for what was to come because I’d gotten home and noticed that Hope seemed especially tired and cranky. But babies, they couldn’t tell you when something was wrong or if they felt bad, so I’d been extra watchful all day after I’d sent my momma home.

  It was late in the evening when I’d taken her temperature. A temperature like that with a baby with a delicate heart such as Hope’s was dangerous. I’d immediately packed her in the car seat and called Anthony. I’d known we had to get here, even before he’d told me.

  I’d remained calm despite my panic. I’d surprised myself, honestly. I’d thought in the face of Hope’s illness and being alone, I’d lose it, but a calm had swept over me. I’d known what I had to do and I’d done it. This momma intuition was an odd thing.

  Only Anthony had been the opposite. H
e’d looked pale and crazed when I’d pulled up to the emergency entrance. He’d wrenched the door open and grabbed Hope before I could even get around the car. I’d left him in the hall to calm down. Only when I’d finally gotten baby girl settled he’d been gone.

  Now I was out of my mind worried for two people I loved with all my heart. Doc had been gone for hours and so I’d sat at Hope’s side by myself freaking out that she was going to get worse, worried as hell for Anthony. I’d tried calling his phone and texting him more times than I could count. It may have been three in the morning, but I didn’t know what else to do besides call Lucy and pray he was with her.

  “Hello?” Her croaky voice came over the line.

  “Hey, Lucy.”

  “What’s wrong? Is Hope okay?” She sounded more than wide awake now.

  “We’re at the hospital. She has a fever. They think maybe an infection. Listen, is Anthony with you?” I wondered if my voice sounded as desperate to her ears as it did to mine.

  It must have. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

  I paced the room and checked on Hope and those twenty minutes seemed like the longest of my life. And when Lucy showed up in a T-shirt and yoga pants with flip-flops on her feet I thought she had never looked so good, not even when she was in her fancy ass shoes and fancy ass suit.

  Her gentle eyes took me in and immediately wrapped me in a hug and held me tight. How did moms do that? How did they just know what you needed when you needed it, even if they weren’t technically your mom?

  Tears streamed down my face. All of my worry from the entire day spilled over onto my face and landed on the shoulder of her T-shirt. “Where is he?” I sobbed.

  She pulled out of our hug but grabbed my hands. “Let’s sit and you tell me what happened.”

  And I told her everything. The awful meeting with Cash. The fight afterward. The harsh, claiming kiss. And then I told her how he’d stormed the ER desperately trying to get Hope help.

  Her face fell before she smiled sadly at me. “My boy had a very bad day. The worst actually. After he got back from meeting with you, we found out one of his favorite kids was being transferred by ambulance with chest pain.”

  My stomach dropped. “Oh no.”

  She nodded slowly. “He didn’t make it, Kelly. He passed away before Anthony got here.”

  More tears fell from my eyes as I processed the news. Oh God, my Doc really had an awful, terrible day. No wonder he’d lost his mind about Hope. He was barely hanging on. Hope being sick was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

  “Any idea where he’s gone?” I choked out. I needed to make sure he was okay. I couldn’t leave here, but I’d send Lucy to find him. She needed to bring him to me so I could make him feel better.

  Lucy moved her chair closer to mine, until our knees were touching. She squeezed my hand tightly before saying with a sad smile, “I bet Anthony hasn’t told you about Charles yet, has he? He treats him like some kind of special secret and I suppose he is. He was very special to us, our surprise baby boy.”

  Charles? I was so confused. “Charles?” Why were we talking about someone I didn’t know instead of trying to find Doc?

  Her free hand moved to my face, her thumb brushing over my cheek. “Oh, from the moment I met you, I adored you, sweet girl. And I know it may sound crazy, but I saw so much of myself in you. Scared. Terrified. Elated. I experienced it all, too.”

  I hung on her every word, trying my hardest to understand what she was telling me. What she was trying to make me understand.

  “Anthony was already twenty when I found out I was pregnant with Charles. Could you imagine? I was over forty years old and having a baby? It seemed ludicrous at the time.”

  And somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered that night. Me telling Anthony I was an only child. Him telling me he had a brother. I searched her face, wanting to ask a million questions but knowing I needed to give her the time to tell her story.

  “I didn’t want to start over with a new baby. Anthony’s father and I, we were already struggling to hold onto our marriage, but Anthony, he was ecstatic. He was twenty years old and having a baby brother. The kid was over the moon.”

  Anthony had a baby brother, but where was he now? I had a feeling my night was about to get worse. Lucy’s eyes were shiny with sadness when she spoke of Charles.

  “That’s why Anthony picked the heart, you know? Just when I’d finally come to accept that I was going to have another baby boy, they saw it on a scan late in my pregnancy. A heart defect, the same one our Hope has.” She looked over at sleeping Hope in the crib with all the wires attached to her again and wetness spilled from her eyes. “Oh yes, Kelly, you reminded me so much of myself, long ago.”

  “My baby boy, Charles, he didn’t make it to the third surgery.” Her words were like razor blades across my heart, slicing me up. She’d lived my every fear, my worst nightmare. This beautiful, kind woman had lost her baby. My heart was broken for her.

  I pulled her into me for a hug. “I’m so sorry, Lucy. I’m so, so sorry.”

  She rubbed my back while we cried together, arms holding each other tightly. “It’s okay. I’ve made peace with it.” Pulling out of my embrace, her eyes met mine, perseverance burning in them. “Back then, I was so terrified, but Anthony was so sure medicine would save Charles. Ever the optimist, he was.” She turned to look at Hope. “I thought it was so incredibly perfect that you named her Hope. When I sat in waiting rooms terrified out of my mind that my baby wouldn’t make it out of the operating room and I would feel so helpless, Anthony would say, ‘Never lose hope, Mom. There’s always hope.’”

  She smiled at my sweet, sick baby sleeping in the crib near us. “How right he was. So, we held on through two surgeries and then my Charles got really sick. Medicine has come a long way in ten years, Kelly. He didn’t make it to his final surgery, died in the middle of the night in his crib. Anthony was so smitten with him. It broke his heart. He was on the cusp of great things. He was twenty-two at the time, just finished college and getting ready to head to medical school. We called him in the morning, woke him up and told him. He was devastated.”

  Realization dawned on me even as I heard her words. That morning, ten years ago. He’d been so carefree, so happy. He’d kissed my head before answering the phone. And he’d come back ravaged, his face anguished, and I left. I’d left because I’d been a stupid, stupid, young, naive girl. I should have stayed. I should have stayed and hugged him and loved him. My soul ached for young Anthony Jackson who’d just lost his baby brother, but there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it now. I was too late. I’d failed him. I’d failed us. I felt sick. And now I had no idea where Doc was or how I could help him.

  “I’m so worried about him,” I cried fresh tears. I was worried about everyone. Hope, Anthony, Lucy, Me.

  She touched my cheek again. “Oh, honey, he’ll come back. He just needs some time.” Her gaze wandered the room until they landed on my angel snoozing in the corner. “You know, for a long time I was sad. So sad, I thought I’d never not feel sad. Until Anthony finished school and hired me at his office. Where I get to watch him every day save all the children. Where I got to watch him help save Hope. It’s where we’ve healed, that office. Yes, Anthony saves children every day, but every day those children save us, too.”

  Three hours and a half later and I was parked outside of a cemetery in Columbia, South Carolina. I rubbed the grit from my eyes and pushed the car door open. It was pitch-black outside, but I didn’t need light to know where I was going. I’d been here enough times to know where my baby brother was buried. I traversed the path through what felt like too many graves to count before coming up on the familiar headstone.

  Charles James Jackson. There he was. I leaned down on my knees at the head of the grave, the dew on the grass seeping into my pants, but I didn’t care. I reached into my back pocket and fished out my wallet. In the little pocket beneath my ID was where I kept him.

&nbs
p; His little face, just two years old, his soft hair blond, his eyes green like mine. It was the last picture I had of him. Now it was all I had left of him.

  Sitting his picture on the headstone, I said, “Hey, buddy.”

  I hadn’t been to see him in a long while, probably over a year, and shame flared through me, but I kept him there in my pocket always, all of my love for him in one single photograph.

  His deep dimples smiled at me from the photo and a single tear slipped down my cheek. “I’m sorry it’s been so long.” I laid my palm on the headstone next to his picture.

  I’d loved Charles long before he was born. I’d always wanted a sibling. I was twenty at the time, but better late than never, right? I’d only had him for a mere two years, but in just that short time, he’d managed to impact my life more than any other person.

  I’d always known I’d be a doctor, but I chose the heart because of him. I was going to go to school and learn everything I could. Become the best to make sure he and my mom had the best.

  It had all been in vain, though. He wouldn’t make it to his third birthday and it had come as the greatest shock. I’d been with Kelly the night before and had the most amazing time of my life. The call had broken me. I’d wanted to cry and scream and tear my apartment apart, but I couldn’t with her there. I couldn’t grieve. So, I’d tossed her out, convinced I was doing it for her own good. Seeing me like that would scare her. She wouldn’t understand my grief, after all, we hardly knew each other. She didn’t know and love Charles like I did. How could she possibly understand?

  The months that followed now seemed like a dream. I’d drifted through them dazed, and grieving so terribly. I felt like I’d failed him. So, I worked harder, became better. I’d never fail anyone again, I told myself. But medicine, God, faith, they didn’t work that way. Some things were out of my control and I lost kids all the time, my only consolation that I saved more than I would lose.