Everlasting Light

by Shey Stahl

  Taking my hand, Tabitha said, “Bentley, this is the best hospital for you to be at for your situation, and if you leave now, you may jeopardize your own life as well. You may think at this moment Dr. Doushan, is a douche, but he is one of the best.”

  “He said my baby won’t make it. Obviously he’s not the best if he can’t save her.”

  I didn’t know if it was my crying, but something went wrong and the monitors went off, alarms whistling through the room.

  I panicked, feeling pressure in my stomach. “What’s happening?”

  “Her vital signs are dropping.” Tabitha turned to another nurse. “Page Dr. Doushan!”

  The door to my room swung open and following a string of four nurses was Beau, eyes wide and glaring as if he’d been through hell trying to get here.

  “Bentley!” He gasped when he took in my appearance. Immediately he was beside me, one hand on my cheek, the other over my stomach. “What happened?”

  “I’m so sorry, Beau.” I sobbed into his chest, fisting his jacket in my hands. “I did something wrong. She’s not moving around.”

  He snapped back. “What?” His sudden hostile glare moved to the doctor who came in. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong with my daughter?”

  He wouldn’t answer him at that moment.

  “Tell me she’s fine.” Beau began pacing the room, maybe in attempt to keep from hitting him. Watching him, I drew in a shuddering deep breath. “Tell me she’s okay and that she’s going to be fine!”

  “Now is not the time for us to discuss this. The baby is in distress and we need to get her out or we could lose the both of them.”

  That set Beau off completely. Tears pooled in Beau’s eyes, but they didn’t let go, grief and despair seemed to be holding them off. “What happened? Someone better tell me, because two days ago, she was fine, and now you’re saying my daughter is dying?”

  “Ms. Schow came in cramping and bleeding. She had what we call a premature rupture of the membrane. The baby has the cord wrapped around her neck and she’s suffocating. So you tell me, Beau, would you like to talk about this or would you like me to try to save your daughter? It’s up to you.” The doctor crossed his arms.

  I looked at Beau through my crying. Taking in a deep breath, I held it in for a moment. “Meet Dr. Douche.”

  I don’t know why I said that, maybe to try to calm Beau down because I wanted him here with me, not in jail where I was sure he was going to be thrown out for hitting a doctor any minute.

  It was then Beau finally drew his eyes back to mine and realized how bad I was freaking out. “I’m sorry, Beau. I came first thing this morning. I didn’t…I should have…” I burst into another wave of tears, my body shivering though my skin was burning up.

  Beau looked at me and then the floor. And back to me. His eyes spoke volumes for what he couldn’t say with words. Confused, hurt, angry.

  And then it hit him, hard, pounding him into the ground like it did to me.

  “Baby, you did nothing wrong,” he whispered, kissing my tear soaked cheeks, both of them, and then my lips, forcing me to look at him. “This is not your fault.” Tears were falling down his cheeks, one after another.

  “But it is. I’m her mother. It was my job to keep her safe inside of me and I didn’t do that. What if it was the ice cream I ate last night? Maybe she doesn’t like ice cream.”

  “It’s nothing you did. Sometimes things happen without any explanation,” the nurse tried to assure me, again.

  In a rush, they prepared me for delivery.

  When the doctor finally spoke, I wished he would have kept his mouth shut because the words he spoke weren’t ones I ever expected and hadn’t prepared myself to hear. “If she is breathing when she’s born, she won’t make it long. I’m sorry.” He ordered nurses around and it was a blur as the prepared to do everything they could to save our daughter. “I need to know if you want us to try and save her, or if you want to hold her.”

  With every word, blood pounded in my ears as I shook my head violently. I refused to accept it, refused to listen to his words. Fire pushed through my veins, stealing my breath, landing in my heart and constricting it.

  How the fuck did this happen? HOW?

  My heart was sinking fast, fearing the worst, but holding onto the possibility there was no way this was happening. It couldn’t be. Not to us.

  Maybe they were wrong.

  Maybe.

  Please, God, give me a maybe. You gave me Beau, please give us our baby.

  Please.

  “I. uh…”

  “I need to know right now what you want me to do.” The doctor between my legs barked only to have Beau snap back at him.

  “Don’t fuckin’ talk to her that way,” he warned.

  The doctor returned Beau’s glare. “I’m trying to either save your daughter, or give you a chance to hold her. You might not ever have the chance if she doesn’t decide right now, and if she doesn’t start pushing right now, Bentley could die.”

  It’s just a dream. It’s not happening. You’re going to wake up and this nightmare will be over and she’ll be fine.

  The problem was it wasn’t a dream.

  My heart felt crippled, suffocated by his words. I couldn’t breathe; the ceiling felt like it was collapsing around me.

  “Save her,” I cried against Beau’s shoulder, feeling the need to push again.

  They wanted me to have an epidural, but I refused. I wanted to feel this pain, any pain but what I was feeling in my heart. In the end, I had no choice. They made me get one in case they had to rush me to surgery.

  I felt nothing now.

  No pain but the crushing suffocating feeling biting at my lungs.

  Beau said little, because really, what could he have said? Nothing would have helped me, or made this okay.

  As I pushed, he looked livid and on edge, his hands shaking, as if any word by someone would have set him off. This was his baby too. I couldn’t discount that. He was in pain as well knowing she might not live.

  Might.

  A maybe.

  We were holding onto a maybe.

  “You can change your mind at any time,” Tabitha whispered. “If you decide you want to hold her, just tell him.”

  Unfamiliar voices and a series of images haunted me as I pushed and cried. I tried to lift my head, but I was too weak. All I could do was stare at the wall, watching the clock, second after excruciating second.

  A wave of nausea hit me so strong I thought I was going to vomit all over Beau. I looked at him, the worry evident in his face.

  The room was quiet and Beau was watching me.

  Waiting.

  My throat felt dry, like sandpaper, my lungs so heavy I feared drawing in a breath would hurt and never be enough.

  Anger flickered in Beau’s eyes, knowing how painful this was, his jaw clenching, narrowing his stare at the doctor between my legs.

  A pressure built in my hips, the doctor and nurses around him moving quicker. “Give me one more push, Bentley.”

  Looking up, my eyes were drawn lower, gripping Beau’s hand so hard I was sure I was hurting him.

  And then she was born, blue and not moving, her body limp. “She’s breathing…” the doctor mumbled, to a nurse.

  They were going to take her away and I knew right then there was no saving her.

  Something inside me snapped seeing her in the arms of someone else. If she was alive, this second, we had her for a moment.

  A moment is all we were going to have, I knew it in my heart.

  “Give her to me!” I screamed, holding out my arms, crying out in utter devastation, my body pulsing in wrenching waves of pain. “Don’t take her away. Give her to me!”

  The doctor looked to Beau for confirmation and he nodded, knowing we didn’t want to prolong her suffering or put her through anything unnecessary. Trying to save her for the sake of our own wants wouldn’t give us a healthy baby.

  We could, however, enjoy her final
breaths.

  They had Beau cut the cord, with shaking hands. Our eyes locked on one another and then the baby.

  Placing her motionless body on my chest, so tender and true to what she was, a precious angel given to us if even just for a moment. Her eyes were closed, her color a pale blue, but she looked healthy, with little rolls around her wrists and thighs.

  Beau climbed into bed with me when they handed us a blanket to place around her, his right arm around my shoulders, his left around our daughter.

  She was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful and perfect in every single way.

  I memorized everything I could about her in those seconds, everything from her perfectly sweet pouty lips to her nose, eyes, tiny delicate fingers that wrapped about Beau’s pinkie when he touched her.

  And then she breathed, once, her chest rising slowly, labored, letting go.

  I breathed in deeply, for her maybe, because she couldn’t.

  She looked identical to Beau with his dark hair and my nose. Even though her eyes were closed, I knew they’d be his bright blue, something deep inside told me so.

  I knew Beau was crying; his chest shook mine as he wrapped his arms around the two of us, trying to hold on. “She’s beautiful, pretty girl,” he whispered, his words shaking and breaking.

  Blaine, who had been in the room the entire time, holding my hand right along with Beau, let out a sob, covering her mouth as she stared down at the baby. “I’m sorry,” she breathed, making her way out of the room, unable to hold the emotion back any longer.

  There was heartache, and then there was devastation in this world. My happiness in those moments with her was marred by the fact that those would be my only moments.

  I no longer had a maybe.

  I had a memory.

  Nothing could have prepared me for the way that would feel.

  The pain, the loss, the remorse I felt for thinking it was something I did wrong.

  I was her mother, I was meant to protect her and keep her safe even inside me, and I didn’t do that.

  She was there, our baby girl, with us, until God took her back, giving us at least that much, her touch.

  I guess, as awful as it felt, I was thankful for that, the breaths she did take, the touches she did give, and that feeling, the one of knowing what it would be like holding her.

  “Please, wake up, baby girl…please wake up for us…open your eyes…” I begged through my tears, unable to accept it.

  Only she didn’t.

  I knew the moment she stopped breathing.

  I felt it in my chest, like my breath was sucked from me all at once.

  Make it stop.

  Make time stop.

  Make the pain stop right now.

  Give her life. Take mine. Give it to her.

  I’ll sacrifice the very breath in my lungs, if you just please give it to her.

  My baby was gone.

  BEAU AND I SPENT hours holding her. Blaine held her. Gale held her, and finally, Beau held his daughter. It was the first time I’d seen him sob as if nothing in the world could capture his pain. I knew the feeling.

  A photographer came in and took some photographs of her. We were able to bath her, hold her, kiss her, and I apologized endlessly to her for not being able to help her. It was my fault, I was sure of it. I had done something wrong to cause this, to have her taken from me.

  “What should we name her?” Beau asked, his words breaking at the end, the pain evident in his voice, his face blotchy and red from crying.

  Taking in a deep breath, I held it for a moment and then kissed her cold forehead. “Dixie Mae.” I loved the name when Beau suggested it not long after we found out we were having a girl.

  At the mention, my mind flooded with memories, one right after another, flowing into the next of the last eight months and all the wonderful memories we had preparing for her.

  And now this.

  Why?

  What had I done for this to happen?

  “It’s perfect.” Beau kissed my temple. “It’s perfect for her.”

  They said I could stay the night in the hospital, but I saw no need. I didn’t want to be there any longer.

  I also couldn’t bear to leave Dixie, in that hospital, alone, without me.

  The longer we waited, the more her body deteriorated in my arms. I wanted to die with her. I no longer wanted to live if I couldn’t have this, her, us. My life had ended when she stopped breathing.

  As the nurse took her out of the room, away from me, I sat there, drowning in a horrible, agonizing grief, after holding my dead daughter and cursing God and everyone else for taking her from me.

  It wasn’t fair.

  It never would be.

  Dixie Mae Ryland breathed in one precious breath, and then never again, as though she granted us that one, as if it was her gift to us.

  She wrapped her tiny hand around my finger like she was pinky promising me, something, only I didn’t know what.

  As Bentley cried in my arms, begging her to breathe, I wanted to tell her it was going to be okay, that I would make it better, but there was nothing I could do for her, or Dixie.

  They discharged Bentley around midnight, six hours after our daughter was pronounced dead. They wanted her to stay overnight, only she wouldn’t. She didn’t want to be in that hospital another minute if Dixie wasn’t with her.

  As I we made our way out, we passed by the lobby where our family had been waiting.

  Bentley didn’t speak to anyone and cried in her hands as I wheeled her to the automatic doors.

  Pausing next to Blaine and Gavin, I wanted to thank everyone for waiting.

  Miles looked up at me and then to Gavin. “I’ll catch a ride with Gavin and Blaine…do you guys need anything?”

  “No, I’m just going to get Bentley home.” My voice was low and raspy.

  Blaine cleared her throat. “Do you want me to come over when we get back?”

  “No, not right now.”

  As we left the hospital, I was quiet.

  So was Bentley.

  We walked slowly to the truck, trudging through the thick bank of snow I parked on, I think we were both waiting for the other to say something.

  Anything.

  Or maybe…nothing.

  Maybe nothing needed to be said right then.

  After helping her inside the truck, I blew into my hands, trying to warm myself up. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the tears streaming down Bentley’s cheeks.

  Why?

  Why had this happened?

  The lump in my throat rose, the tears fell slowly, quietly, as if nothing I could possibly do would stop them at a time like this.

  We had just gotten on the highway, the blizzard raged on, a silent storm of screaming silver. The roads were quiet, and white oversized flakes that looked like crystals fell heavily like our tears, obscuring my view completely.

  It had taken over four hours for me to get to the hospital this afternoon from Nashville, and I had a distinct feeling the twenty-minute drive to our house would take over an hour.

  Bentley let out a sob, clutching her stomach with her arms wrapped around her. “Why can’t we...I want her back!”

  I jerked the truck over, skidding to a stop on what I assumed was the shoulder of the road and unbuckled my seatbelt. It was more than likely dangerous, but I didn’t care in that moment.

  Unlocking her seatbelt, I slid her across the seat over to my side.

  “Don’t, Beau, please. Don’t touch me or hold me…Don’t!”

  I wouldn’t listen to her. I couldn’t.

  Roughly, I grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her to my chest, trapping her in my embrace. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t.” In her anger, she slapped me. “I don’t want you to hold me!”

  I felt nothing, though I glared back at her. “I’m sorry,” I repeated, wondering when she was going to see I was hurting too; it wasn’t just her.

  She fought me for a while, and then s
he gave up, her weight sagging into my chest, finally allowing me to be there for her.

  Bentley cried as if there was no controlling it.

  I felt her pain, swirling like the blizzard outside, unable to make sense of anything as the angry wind picked up. She was clinging to the idea that maybe this was all just a horrible nightmare.

  I was too, but I knew it wasn’t.

  “Make the pain stop,” she cried, over and over again. “Please make it stop. It hurts so much.”

  Make it stop.

  I wanted to.

  Fuck, I wanted to take her pain away so badly.

  I desperately wanted to.

  “I wish I could, baby. I want to.” I could barely get the words out I was trembling so badly.

  Nothing I did, said, or felt was going to bring her back.

  I didn’t know loss, and certainly couldn’t understand it until I loved her, a baby who I’d never even felt the softness of her touch until a few hours ago. You don’t understand that kind of pain until you’ve seen it firsthand, had it ripped from you without so much as an answer.

  That was devastation.

  That was loss.

  For an hour, she let me hold her alongside the highway.

  When my body began to grow tired, my arm tingling from where she was laying on it, Bentley moved, focusing on the obscured windshield and the white reflecting off it.

  Looking at me, her eyes were threaded with scarlet, her body limp against mine. “I want to go home, Beau.”

  Kissing her once more, I then pulled back, searching watery eyes. “We’re gonna be okay, pretty girl.”

  She didn’t answer me.

  I guess, I wasn’t sure if that was the truth.

  Maybe we wouldn’t be.

  When I had Bentley back at home, she wouldn’t leave the bathroom that morning.

  Wouldn’t let me hold her again.

  Wouldn’t let me do a damn thing.

  I sat on the porch, staring off at the white blanket of snow covering the driveway. Blaine came out of her apartment and sat down beside me in sweats and black boots that crunched against the ice like breaking glass. “Is she okay?”

  “No,” I took in a deep breath, wishing it was enough. “She’s not okay.” Turning, I looked at my sister who’d been there for me through everything before today, and here again if I needed anything. “I don’t know what to do, Blaine. Everything happened so fast last night. We had her and then we didn’t. I don’t even know how to comprehend this and I can’t take her pain away.” The tears flowed now, knowing my sister would never judge me for crying in front of her.