by Amanda Aksel
“Why didn’t you tell me before?”
“I don’t know. I was afraid, I guess.” I can’t blame her for that. Having a baby in general is a big bloody deal. But having a baby with someone you hardly know, even if you want to get to know them, is scary as shit.
Be-beep. Be-beep.
My pager buzzes against my black leather belt. It’s a 9-9-9. “I have to go.”
She steps closer. “Is it my dad?”
I tuck the pager away, and a drop of cold rain lands on my nose. “No. I’m sorry. We have to talk later.” I wipe a few more fresh droplets off my face and rush into the hospital toward the emergency room. My feet pounding against the linoleum floor is not nearly as loud as the voice in my head screaming, You’re going to be a fucking father! It’s big. It’s the biggest thing she could have possibly said to me. And for the first time since my wedding, I have no idea what’s going to happen next.
The moment I turn the corner to the bed where I was paged, Dr. Claude is standing over the patient—a young man about my age sprawled out and gasping for breath. His body writhes and his eyes roll back. The monitor beeps like an alarm. It’s my least favorite sound.
“He’s coding!” Dr. Claude yells and finally sees me. “Bonnaire, grab the crash cart!”
Springing forward several feet, I touch my hand to the cold metal machine, and push it over to the patient. “Charge one fifty!” I snatch the paddles and press them to his chest. “Clear!”
Claude and the nurse take their hands away. An abrupt pump and shock beneath my hands gets my heart racing. The beeping persists. I cannot lose this patient. Not right now. “Charge two hundred!”
“Two hundred!” the nurse shouts over the commotion.
Another shock penetrates the patient’s body, and the dreaded alert from the monitor subsides. The beeping normalizes, but the patient is still unconscious. I grab the EKG report. This man needs surgery if we’re going to save his heart. “Let’s get him to an OR stat!”
“Right away, Doctor,” A resident says, raising the bed handles.
I turn to Claude, catching my breath. “How old is this patient?”
“Thirty-four,” he says. Jesus. I’m thirty-four too. “He’s all yours. Let’s pray we don’t get in any more like him today.”
“Please do.” I pat Claude’s shoulder before following the small team of doctors toward the elevator.
***
I hate to say that this guy’s heart attack is a much-needed distraction, but it is. After Davina, I got really good at distracting myself. Performing heart surgery, one of the most intense jobs, definitely helps. I used other distractions too. Several nights a week, I’d go to the pub after work to meet a new woman. A shiny, new woman who hadn’t tainted anything, but also someone I’d never allow to get close enough to do any real damage. And that’s how I’ve been operating for the past year.
That moment when I witnessed Davina’s legs wrapped around another man’s body as he pounded into her up against a tabletop, something happened to me. It was as if my heart stopped beating. I was dead. Emotionless. Lifeless. On the outside, I put on a smile, especially for the ladies at the pub, but the inside grew cold and emotionless. It wouldn’t have surprised me if someone had opened up my chest and found cobwebs hanging from my ventricles.
When Beau came to my room that first night in New York, asking me to undo her dress, something stirred inside of me. But when I didn’t hear from her after that night, everything was inert again. I thought it was a fluke—finding someone I wanted to see again. But I also knew that just by wanting her so badly, I was setting myself up for a potentially bad outcome. So I let it go, only thinking of her but never pursuing anything. I resigned myself to my shallow life again. No matter how cold it was.
But now there’s a baby. My baby. A baby whose tiny little heart is beating inside Beau’s body at this very second that I’m holding someone else’s son’s heart in my hands. The thought of bringing life into this world, even though it’s not at all how I imagined it, gives me . . . hope. I can almost feel a thump in my chest, stirring the cobwebs again, like Beau did in New York.
This thirty-four-year-old man on my table needs valve repair. Thirty-four years old and his heart is physically shutting down. It makes me wonder what happened to cause his heart to break at such a young age. At my age. I’m assuming degenerative genes turned on by stress. But I won’t know until he wakes up. And I’m going to make sure he wakes up. Maybe he has a wife and kids. Maybe he’s always wanted a family but is too busy working to commit to anything else. And if he’s like me, maybe he was betrayed so badly that his heart closed itself off and has been dying a slow death ever since.
He’s too young to have this kind of condition—physically, emotionally, or psychologically. And so am I. Life’s too short. Just as I’m repairing this man’s heart, perhaps this baby will repair mine.
After a very long surgery, my patient is quietly recovering. I take another shower and dress in slacks and a button-down shirt and head over to see David Donovan. The sound of Beau’s sweet laughter escapes the room. She sits on the edge of the bed, holding a fan of cards. Suzanne, on the other end of the bed, holds her own set of cards.
David looks up. “What’s up, Doc?”
My stare shifts toward Beau, who lowers her cards to her lap and looks back at me with wide eyes. “Just doing my rounds before I head off for the night. How are you feeling?” I walk over to the bed and position my stethoscope in my ears. Beau gets off the mattress and takes a step back.
I glance at her one last time before pressing the scope to David’s chest. His heartbeat is bold, much stronger than before. The spread of cards on the tray table catches my eyes as I listen. “Playing blackjack?”
“Yeah,” David says. “You play cards?”
“Of course.” I pull the stethoscope off of him and place it in my coat pocket.
He raises his brow. “You any good?”
“I’ve never walked away from a blackjack table empty-handed, but I’m better at repairing hearts.”
“I bet you’re good at poker too.” He looks at Beau. “Doesn’t he seem like he’s got a good poker face? No idea what he’s really thinking?”
She nods. “Yep, he does.”
“I bet you’re thinking it’d be all right if Suzanne got me a steak from a decent restaurant,” David says.
I shoot him a wry look. “I don’t think so. Actually, I was wondering where Kate and Drew are.”
“They left,” Beau finally speaks up.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I was kinda hoping I could catch a ride back with you. If that’s okay.”
I smile at her, and it seems to melt the tension in her shoulders. “Of course it’s okay. Are you ready to leave in a few minutes?”
“Ready when you are,” she says.
“Okay.” I jot a few notes on the tablet, feeling somewhat grateful to finally get to talk to Beau alone.
“Hey, no gallivanting, you two,” David calls out with a chin nod, giving me that protective father glare.
Beau knits her brow. “Gallivanting? I’ve never heard you say that before.”
David narrows his eyes at her, then at me. “My mother used to say that. Just make sure you take her straight home, okay, McDreamy?”
“Dad!” Beau hisses, and I hold in a chuckle. I could think of worse things to be called by my future child’s grandfather. Blimey. David Donovan will be my son or daughter’s granddad. I shake the thought away.
“Yes, I’ll take her straight home. I promise.” I turn to Suzanne. “No red meat. I’m leaving you in charge, all right?”
Suzanne salutes me. “You got it, boss.”
“Hey, I’m the boss,” David says, pointing a confident finger at himself.
“The doctor just left me in charge, so it looks like I’m the boss.” Suzanne’s words are playful, not exactly the way you’d talk to your employer. Unless . . . nah, never mind.
With her suitcase sta
nding at her side and a duffle over her shoulder, Beau waits patiently near the door. “Goodnight, Daddy.”
He smiles. “Goodnight, sunshine.”
“Night, Suzanne,” Beau bids them farewell with a wave.
“Let me get that for you,” I say, grabbing the handle of her light blue suitcase. The same one I got off the belt at JFK two months ago.
“Thanks,” she says, smiling.
We walk out into the hall, and I ask her to wait for a moment while I turn in my tablet and give the on-call staff instructions about my patients. Beau and I walk in silence down the hall toward a crowded elevator. Part of me is relieved that we can’t pick up our conversation yet. I really don’t know what to say to her.
We approach my car, and I pop the trunk with the touch of a button.
“My dad has one of these,” she says as I open the door for her.
“An Aston Martin?”
“Yep. He got it after his second divorce.”
A breakup is definitely responsible for this purchase too. I close the door and put her luggage in the tight trunk. When I hop into the driver’s side, my car, which usually smells of warm leather, is filled with the scent of jasmine perfume. I inhale deeply as the engine roars, echoing throughout the garage.
Beau’s fingers fidget on her lap. “Can you please say something? I can’t take it anymore.”
I turn, slightly slack-jawed. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Are you upset?” she asks with a wrinkled forehead.
“No,” I let out with a small laugh. She raises her brow and folds her arms. “Honestly, I’m not upset.”
She relaxes back into the seat and buckles her seatbelt. “That’s a relief.”
I pull out of the space and make my way to the dark street. The roads are still wet from the earlier rainfall. The sky seems clear, but the moon is nowhere to be found.
“So, you think I should keep the baby?” Beau asks.
I whip my head in her direction. “Were you considering not keeping the baby?” Why wasn’t that even a thought in my mind? In our situation, why wouldn’t she consider it?
“Yes. I mean . . . I’m not sure. Do you want me to keep the baby?”
I hadn’t really thought about it until now. But I remember being raised by a secretly feminist nanny. I say secretly because my father had no idea since she was so subservient toward him. Mum and Dad really left the more uncomfortable matters to her—like the sex talk. No kid wants to talk about shagging with an adult, especially your mum or your nanny. But we reluctantly had that conversation. Several times. Especially since she repeatedly caught Drew making out with some girl in the pantry. But she told all of us that if we were ever in this kind of situation, we should respond accordingly. “That’s up to you,” I say. Her body. Her choice.
“Does that mean you don’t want me to keep it?”
“No, that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what do you want?”
“I want what you want.” The truth is, I know what I want, I’m just not sure that’s the best thing. She lets out a frustrated sigh. None of my answers are satisfactory. “Should we get married?” I almost slap my hand against my mouth. What the hell did I just say? That isn’t what I want. Is it?
She stares at me, and I glance at her quickly enough to know her cheeks are baby girl pink. “Married?”
I shrug. “I know, never mind. That was an insane idea.”
“Exactly,” she says, her voice much smaller. “We hardly know each other.”
“Right, good point.”
“And it’s not 1960.”
“That too. I’m sorry. I guess I’m still a little shook up from the news.”
“Me too.”
“Then let’s not make any decisions yet.”
She nods. “That’s a better idea. Listen, when we get to your place, Kate is going to want to know if I told you. But let’s not make a big deal about it.”
“Does anyone else know?” I ask.
“Yeah, my dad, remember? He thinks it’s a donor’s baby.”
I cringe, having completely forgotten about that. “I suppose that’s my fault.”
“No, it’s mine.” That is more accurate.
“For his sake, I wouldn’t say anything until we figure this out.”
She looks at me and parts her pretty lips. “We will figure this out? Together?”
Without thinking, I place my hand over hers and caress her skin with my thumb. “Yeah. Together.”
Our eyes fall to our joined hands, and we slowly look back at one another. I pat her hand and quickly retrieve mine. No one says a word for several minutes, but both of us seem to be holding our breath while Damien Rice plays softly in the background.
“You know,” she starts, “a two-seater isn’t great for a baby.”
I smirk. “I have other vehicles.”
“You’ll have to install a car seat.” It’s almost like she’s testing me. Trying to find out if I’m father material.
“That won’t be a problem.”
16
M ICK PULLS INTO THE LONG DRIVEWAY toward his humble abode. Trimmed hedges line the gravel along the lit driveway until the path opens up, leading to Mick’s grand manor. Uplights beam from the ground to the top of the steepled roof. It’s about as understated as his luxury sports car.
My jaw practically hits the ground. “You live here by yourself?”
“Not this week.”
He parks the car, and I step out. A cold breeze chills my face. The air seems fresher out here than in the midst of the city. And definitely fresher than at that stale hospital. A gentleman in a gray suit and tie swiftly exits the house.
“Good evening, Mr. Bonnaire,” the man says with a polite nod.
“Good evening, Earl. This is Ms. Beau Donovan. She’ll be staying with us awhile.”
Earl gives me a slight bow. “Lovely to meet you, Ms. Donovan. Happy to have you staying at the manor. Please let me know if I can be of service.”
“Thank you.”
“Heads up,” Mick says, and Earl looks up as my host tosses him his car keys. “Her things are in the trunk. Can you please take them to the suite in the east wing?”
“My pleasure.”
“Thank you.” Mick nods to Earl, then gestures for the house, or mansion rather. “Shall we.”
Inside the manor, I don’t even get a chance to look at the place before I see Kate standing in the hallway with her arms crossed, tapping her foot. Drew’s next to her with his hands in his pockets, seeming a lot less concerned.
“So, how is everything?” Kate flashes her blinding smile.
Mick shoots me a sideways glance before addressing her. “Yes, Kate. She told me.”
Kate’s head rolls back and her arms fall to her sides. “Oh, thank God.”
“So, does this mean I’m going to be an uncle?” Drew’s mouth turns up into a grin.
Kate squishes her perfectly defined brows together. “Wait, you want to be an uncle?”
“Are you kidding? I can’t wait to be an uncle. I’ll definitely be a way better uncle than Kent. He doesn’t even really like kids that much. I can teach him or her how to ride a bike and then how to ride a motorbike.”
Kate stares at him in awe, as if she’s learned something new about her husband. I guess that’s what happens when you marry someone after only a year. Mick and I look at one another, and I know we’re both thinking the same thing—there’s no way our son or daughter is getting on a motorbike. Even if it is with Uncle Drew.
“Actually,” Mick starts, “we haven’t decided whether or not we’re keeping the baby.”
A twinge of guilt, or pain, twists in my chest at his words. Yes, that’s what we agreed on, but in this moment, I’m not so sure about the whole abortion thing.
“Told you,” Kate says to Drew. He opens his mouth to speak but just nods instead.
Finally, I stare up at the walnut-lined double staircase curving up to the second floor. The white
marble floors and matching walls glint from the ambient light of the chandelier. I’ve been in some of the most beautiful homes, but there’s something special about this place, something warm and inviting. Maybe it’s the scent of wintergreen wafting through the air.
“You must be tired,” Kate says, reaching out for a hug. I embrace her, touching her silky dark hair.
“Yeah. It’s been a long few days.”
“I’ll show you up to your room,” Mick offers.
“Thanks,” I say, and he heads up the left staircase. “Goodnight.” I wave bye to Kate and Drew.
The hallway seems endless, not much different than the hospital. But unlike the hospital, it’s very dim. The walls are bare with the exception of silver sconces lighting the way. “Is this hallway always this dark?”
“I can turn on the overhead lights if you’re having trouble seeing.”
“No, I can see. I can see there’s no art on the walls.”
“Oh, yeah. I haven’t had time to redecorate.”
“Redecorate?”
“Yeah . . . after I inherited the house.”
I nod.
“This will be your room.” Mick opens the door and flips on the lights. So many lights—pretty floor lamps, crystal table lamps, recessed lighting. And there are no less than six curtained windows that line two of the walls. With the fluffy white bedding and plush white carpet, the room looks like a bright, heavenly cloud. My luggage is already sitting on a bench near the dresser.
Mick opens another door. “Here’s the closet.” I peek inside the empty walk-in with a hundred hangers just waiting to be dressed. Mick goes to the other side of the room and flips on another light. “And this is the bathroom.” I glance over his shoulder. This place definitely beats the hospital.
“This is great. Thank you for letting me stay here.”
“Of course.” He smiles. “After all, you are pregnant with my child. Whatever you need, it’s yours.” The ironic thing is that he has so much wealth to give. But I can financially take care of my baby and myself a thousand times over. To get through this pregnancy, assuming that’s the way we go, I’m going to need a different kind of support. I’m going to need love.
