The Smallest Part

by Amy Harmon

  “But Cora beat you to it.”

  “Yep. Cora didn’t ask her mom. She just brought the kitten home. She named him Popeye, and he disappeared about a month later.”

  They were both silent for a moment, remembering.

  “Didn’t you ever notice that whatever you wanted or whatever you set out to do, Cora wanted to do it too?” Noah asked.

  “She wasn’t like that.”

  “She was, Mer. And it’s okay to admit it. One of the hardest things about Cora dying is that everyone wants to erase her—the real Cora. They talk about her as though she were perfect. She wasn’t. ‘Don’t talk ill of the dead,’ people say. But if we aren’t truthful about who our loved ones were, then we aren’t really remembering them. We’re creating someone who didn’t exist. Cora loved you. She loved me. But what she did was not okay. And I’m pissed off about it.”

  Mercedes reeled back, stunned. “Geez, Noah. Tell me how you really feel. She still deserves our compassion,” she rebuked.

  He nodded. “Everyone deserves compassion. And I know suicide isn’t always a conscious act. Most of the time it’s sheer desperation. It’s a moment of weakness that we can’t come back from. But regardless of illness or weakness, if we don’t own our actions and don’t demand that others own theirs, then what’s the point? We might as well give up now. We have to expect better of ourselves. We have to. I expect more of my patients, and when I expect more—lovingly, patiently—they tend to rise to that expectation. Maybe not all the way up, but they rise. They improve because I believe they can, and I believe they must. My mom was sick. But she didn’t try hard enough to get better. She found a way to cope—and that’s important—but she never varied from it. Life has to be more than coping. It has to be.”

  Mercedes nodded slowly, her eyes clinging to his impassioned face. She’d struck a nerve, and he wasn’t finished.

  “I know it’s not something we’re supposed to say. We’re supposed to be all-loving and all-compassionate all the time. But sometimes the things we aren’t supposed to say are the truths that keep us sane, that tether us to reality, that help us move the hell on! I know some of my colleagues would be shocked to hear it. But pressure—whether it’s the pressure of society, or the pressure of responsibility, or the pressure that comes with being loved and being needed—isn’t always a bad thing. You’ve heard the cliché about pressure and diamonds. It’s a cliché because it’s true. Pressure sometimes begets beautiful things.”

  Mercedes was silent, studying his handsome face, his tight shoulders, and his clenched fists. He was weary, that much was obvious, but he wasn’t wrong.

  “Begets?” she asked, a twinkle in her eye.

  He rolled his eyes. “You know damn well what beget means.”

  “In the Bible, beget means to give birth to. I wouldn’t mind giving birth to a diamond,” she mused.

  “You ruin all my best lectures.”

  There was silence from the kitchen. Silence was not good.

  “Gia?” Noah called.

  “What, Daddy?” she answered sweetly.

  “Are you pooping in your new princess panties?”

  “No. Poopin’ in box.”

  “What box?” His voice rose in horror.

  “Kitty box.”

  Noah was on his feet, racing toward the kitchen. Mercedes followed.

  Gia was naked—her Cinderella panties abandoned in the middle of the floor—and perched above the new litter box.

  “No!” Noah roared in horror, scooping her up and marching to the toilet.

  “Maybe it won’t be a turd, Noah. Maybe Gia will beget a diamond,” Mercedes chirped, trying not to laugh.

  “I blame you, Mer!” he called from the bathroom. “She was almost potty-trained, and now she wants to be a cat!”

  * * *

  A guilty conscience and a kitten that was more up to date on his shots than his two-year-old, had Noah making an appointment for a well-child check with Gia’s pediatrician. Noah had looked through the filing cabinet and found Gia’s immunization record—she’d had a well-check exactly one year before—and bundled her up, feeling compassion for his wife, who’d gone to every checkup without him and cried her heart out over the pain she’d inflected on their daughter.

  Cora had been worried about side effects and had monitored Gia zealously in the days after her immunizations, calling Noah at work several times a day for reassurance. Noah had decided she worried enough for both of them, and hadn’t worried about the vaccinations at all.

  He was nervous now. Maybe it was the fact that he felt so unprepared and awkward. He’d never taken Gia to the pediatrician. When she’d had an ear infection, he brought her to the Emergency Instacare at Uni, and they had him in and out with a prescription for antibiotics in ten minutes flat. It paid to know people. He didn’t know what to expect or how to act at a well-child check. Or maybe he was just nervous because inevitably questions would be asked. They always were.

  “Where’s her mother? Are you on duty for the day? What a good daddy to give Mommy a break!”

  He would have to tell someone—the receptionist, the nurse, the doctor—that Cora was gone, and he would have to endure the mournful eyes and sincere condolences as the word spread through the office.

  His dread was unfounded. Everyone was nice, and everyone already knew, which was a relief. He’d told Mer once that a hospital was like a small town, and gossip spread faster than germs. Apparently, that extended beyond the walls of the hospital to the entire medical community. This time he was grateful for the lack of privacy. He didn’t have to explain himself or ask for things to be explained to him. They just assumed he was clueless.

  They weighed and measured Gia, who had managed to stay dry in her Little Mermaid underwear, though Noah asked her every ten minutes if she needed to go potty. They measured her head circumference, tested her motor skills, and asked her a few questions, which she responded to in full sentences, surprising the nurse and making her laugh. The nurse asked Noah some questions too—any allergies, any concerns, any recent colds, when was the last time she was on an antibiotic—and he was able to answer them all. Dr. Layton came in and listened to Gia’s heart and lungs, checked her ears—Gia hated that—and looked at her teeth and her throat. Gia hated that even worse and began climbing Noah like Oscar (Mercedes had lied about the furniture) climbed the living room curtains. The doctor laughed and pronounced Gia perfect.

  “Do you have any questions for me, Dr. Andelin?” she asked Noah.

  Only a million. But he settled on two. “I know Gia had her one-year immunizations, but she didn’t have her 18-month visit. Life was a little crazy, and it got away from me. What shots do we need to do today?” Noah asked.

  Dr. Jill Layton was a pretty woman in her early fifties. Noah knew her name and her reputation, but he’d never met her before. She was well liked and respected, and she was comfortable with both him and Gia, which he appreciated.

  “She needs a DTaP, her second hepatitis A, and the varicella today. I’ll have a nurse come back in and administer those last.”

  Noah nodded. Three shots wasn’t too bad.

  “I feel like I’m playing catch up . . . I am playing catch up,” he confessed. “I was in Afghanistan when Gia was born, and I’m afraid there are things I should know that I don’t. And my wife isn’t here to tell me.” He cleared his throat. “Just looking at Gia’s file, can you give me a rundown on her history? Is there anything I should be aware of?”

  Dr. Layton smiled, her eyes kind, and she opened the file in front of her once more.

  “Well, let’s see.” She turned a page and read silently for a minute, nodding. “She was a good size at birth—eight pounds, twenty-one inches long. She was jaundiced, but nothing serious.”

  “That was due to the Rh incompatibility, correct?” He remembered Cora mentioning it.

  “Probably, but not necessarily. Jaundice is fairly common. We put Gia under the lights and monitored her. With first babies,
the Rh incompatibility is usually not as severe—it’s a little like someone with an allergy to bee stings. It’s not until they get stung the second time that there’s a problem. Cora’s second pregnancy would have been at much higher risk.”

  “I remember the basics,” Noah said, nodding.

  “Because of Cora’s blood type—O Negative—we tested Gia right after she was born. Gia is A Positive. One benefit of the testing is that you now have that information. Most parents don’t know their child’s blood type.”

  “What?”

  “Knowing your daughter’s blood type could be helpful,” the doctor explained patiently, as if he hadn’t heard her.

  “I agree, but what type did you say Gia was?”

  “She’s A Positive.”

  “She can’t be,” Noah countered calmly.

  “She is,” the doctor retorted.

  “I’m O Positive. Cora was O Negative. Two O’s can only make another O.”

  Dr. Layton looked down at the record and back up at Noah. A deep crimson flush was climbing up her neck, but her eyes were steady on his.

  “You’re sure you’re O?” she asked.

  Noah pulled his dog tags from beneath his shirt. Old habits die hard, and he always wore his tags. “Positive.” It was there, stamped beside his name and his religion on the little metal plate, still warm from lying against his skin. The doctor peered at the tag longer than was necessary. Oddly enough, the obvious answer had not occurred to Noah. His heart wasn’t pounding. His thoughts weren’t racing. He just wanted to correct the medical record. Gia was O Positive—she had to be—and a mistake had been made, which alarmed the clinician in him. Mistakes like that could be dangerous.

  “We’ll retest. It’s easy enough, and your insurance will pay. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to retest too, Dr. Andelin. The military can make mistakes.” She began scribbling an order for lab work, not looking up at him.

  “I’ve been tested twice. Once in high school and once when I enlisted,” Noah said quietly.

  “Okay. Well.” She finished writing and handed him the lab order. “Gia is a perfectly healthy, beautiful two-year-old girl. You’re doing just fine, Dad. I’ll send the nurse in to catch her up on those shots. Tylenol or Motrin every four hours if she needs it.” She reached out and took his hand, shaking it firmly. “It was so nice to meet you, Dr. Andelin. And I’m very sorry about your wife.”

  She practically ran from the room.

  ***

  Ten

  1989

  “Put some alcohol on the cotton ball. Take the lancelet and prick your finger. If you don’t want to prick your own finger, your partner can help you,” Mr. Ward droned.

  “Two students threw up already today,” Noah told Cora cheerfully. “One of them was in Mer’s class. She said it was awful.”

  “Once you have pricked your finger, and have a good-sized droplet of blood, press your finger down on the glass in three separate places, so you have three separate drops of blood on the slide,” Mr. Ward explained.

  “No one’s listening,” Noah said, annoyed. “They’re all going to screw it up.”

  “I will be coming around to apply a dropperful of the monoclonal antibodies to your slide. You will mix each antibody—Anti A, Anti B, and Monoclonal D—with one drop of your blood on your glass slide. Make sure you use a different toothpick to mix each one. Once your blood is mixed with the antigen, look at your worksheet to determine what is happening with your samples. That will tell you which blood type you are.”

  “I can’t prick my finger, Noah,” Cora whispered. Her eyes were squeezed shut and her face was so pale, her freckles looked like ink blots.

  “Are you afraid it will hurt?” Noah asked gently.

  “No. I don’t want to see the blood,” she whispered, jaw clenched.

  “Okay. I’ll do it. Don’t worry.”

  She didn’t flinch when he stuck her finger, but her hands were clammy and her fingers rigid.

  “You good?” he murmured.

  “Fine.”

  He pressed her finger along the slide, three perfect dots of deep red, and then proceeded with his own slide. Cora sat beside him, her eyes still closed. He wondered if she would stay like that all hour. She shouldn’t have come to class. Noah could have explained to Mr. Ward. He would have understood. Since her dad died, Cora and blood were a no go. She had fainted last week when Noah got hit in the face with the basketball and his nose bled.

  Mr. Ward applied the antibodies to the slides, nervously eyeing Cora. “If you feel sick, you can go, Miss McKinney.”

  “I’m fine as long as my eyes are closed. Noah can tell me which blood type I am.” It kind of defeated the purpose of the lab, sitting blind while your partner did all the work, but Noah didn’t mind. He watched as the blood on the two slides reacted to the antibodies.

  “You’re O, Corey. So am I,” he said after a moment.

  “We’re the same?” she breathed.

  “Almost. But I’m O Positive, and you’re O Negative.”

  “Is O Negative . . . bad?”

  “It’s blood, Corey. It can’t be bad or good. It’s definitely rarer than O Positive. According to this chart, in one hundred donors, only seven are typically O Negative.”

  “What was Sadie? Did she tell you?”

  “She was A Positive. Very common. She was disappointed.” He laughed. “I think she was hoping to discover a whole new type.”

  “I would think Sadie would have the rarest type,” Cora said.

  “Why?”

  Cora shrugged. “Because she’s so . . .”

  “Original?” Noah supplied.

  “Yeah. I wish I was more like her. She’s not afraid of anything.”

  “Everybody is afraid of something,” Noah argued. “Even Mer.”

  “Is anyone still . . . bleeding?” Cora whispered.

  “Nah. Everybody’s done. I think you’re safe.”

  “I’m not safe, Noah. I’ve never been safe. Nobody is safe.”

  They were the same words crazy John David Cutler had said to him years ago. Noah froze, stunned, and slowly turned his head to look at his partner. Cora still sat, hands over her face, refusing to look around her.

  * * *

  Noah clutched Gia to his chest as she cried in outrage at being repeatedly stabbed while her father stood by and allowed it. The nurse said something to him and handed him Gia’s updated shot record. He thought he nodded and mumbled something in return. He wasn’t sure. There was a numbness in his head that was plugging his ears and fogging up his thoughts. It crept down his throat, through his chest, and pooled in his hands.

  He slipped Gia’s pink shirt over her head and pulled her pants on, covering the three Tweety Bird Band-Aids on her stubby legs before putting on her pink boots and buttoning her coat with fingers he couldn’t feel. Then he picked her up again, his thoughts screaming while he consoled her with soft words.

  He didn’t go to the lab.

  He walked through the clinic on wooden legs, his eyes straight forward. It was the day Cora died all over again. He had the same sense of being outside of himself, of watching his life unfold from a two-way mirror. He crossed the parking lot and unlocked the Subaru without remembering a single step. He buckled Gia into her seat the way he’d done the day her mother left them. Mer had run to the store and purchased one, so he didn’t have to drive home without Gia buckled in. Gia’s other car seat had still been upside down in the creek in Emigration Canyon.

  Gia’s seat faced forward now, and her legs were longer. He’d buckled her in hundreds of times since that day. He’d kissed her cheeks a thousand more times than that. He kissed her now, an automatic response to her tears, and she grabbed his beard, curling tiny fingers into his face to keep him close.

  “Dee-uh sad,” she cried. Gia’s sad.

  “I know, Bug. I’m sad too,” he choked. And suddenly he was. Terribly, terribly sad. Distraught. Dismayed. Devastated. The grief blew through his disbel
ief and seared the fog in his head, in his heart, and in his limbs. He clenched his teeth at the sudden, ferocious return of sensation.

  “Daddy sad?” Gia asked, still clutching his face.

  “Yeah. Daddy’s sad.”

  “Daddy cwy?”

  His face was wet. His eyes were streaming. The flames continued to grow, and the heat continued to gather, and it was all he could do to extricate himself from Gia’s little hands so he wouldn’t scorch her too.

  He hurried to the driver-side door and climbed in, shaking and sick, afraid to drive, afraid to sit still. He thought of calling Mercedes. She would make him feel better. She would look after Gia while he burned. But he couldn’t run to Mer every time life got hard. He was Gia’s father, and she was his responsibility, not Mer’s.

  “I’m Gia’s father,” he choked, and realized he’d spoken out loud. Was he?

  He couldn’t call Mercedes. Then he would have to tell her what had happened. He would have to explain. He would have to face a terrible possibility.

  “Daddy go?” Gia asked from the backseat, her shots clearly forgotten. She didn’t understand why they sat in a cold car. She didn’t understand why he cried. She didn’t know his world was on fire.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yeah, Bug?” he whispered.

  “Dee-Uh hungy.”

  He turned and looked at her, sitting so patiently in her car seat, the tears still drying on her cheeks.

  “Gia’s hungry?” he asked.

  She nodded and then smiled, showing him her small white teeth.

  Feed, clothe, comfort. He could do that. He would do that. He pulled his seatbelt on and turned the key.

  * * *

  “Noah?” Mercedes called, shutting the door behind her.

  His house was silent and thankfully tidy, but no one answered her when she called. Noah’s Subaru was in the garage. His wallet, his phone, and his keys were still in the middle of the kitchen table beside the container of soup she’d left him yesterday. The soup hadn’t been touched.