Missing Beats

by K. L. Shandwick

  Walking closer to the bed, I noticed a large glass bottle standing on the floor near it. It was half-filled with bloody fluid that had drained via a clear plastic tube coming out of it that disappeared under the thin sheet covering him up to his neck. Seeing the nurse record all his vital signs while Kane lay motionless ripped my heart to shreds. Thinking back to the day of him sleeping on the sofa again, and remembering how amazing it felt to have that voyeuristic view of him in his natural unconscious state was nothing like what I stared at in that room. Watching him in his relaxed state as he’d slept peacefully was nothing like the stiff, stilted position they had laid him in on the bed.

  A chair hit the back of my legs and I realized I was visibly shaking. “Sit down, Josie. I know it’s hard to see him like this,” Dennis encouraged.

  “What happened…I mean how bad is it? Is he going live? H…he’s got to live. I never got the chance to tell him…” I sobbed as tears suddenly streamed down my face. Hesitantly, I reached out and slid my hand under his. It was warm and I decided to turn my hand around so that his hand was cupping the back of mine. The ventilator puffed in and out and I found myself involuntarily breathing in time with it.

  “CCTV shows a guy arriving at his door just before midnight. Unfortunately, he was wearing a hoodie that prevented the police from identifying him so far, but they are checking the CCTV images out on the streets for eight blocks in all directions. We are hoping that they catch the bastard.”

  “What did he do?”

  Dennis looked to the nurse taking care of Kane and she responded. “Kane has three puncture wounds and two others. Two deep in his left lung, one that narrowly missed his kidney, one that grazed his upper right arm, and we think he grabbed the weapon because he’s got a deep gouge on his right hand. His breathing difficulties are a major concern, but we’re not sure whether he has any lasting brain injuries. He had a heavy knock to the head, but they can’t see any bleeding, he just hasn’t regained consciousness. The ventilator is to optimize the pressure in his lungs at this moment in time. I’m afraid we are in the watch and wait period according to the doctors.” My heartbeat pounded as I absorbed the terrible news of his injuries as I fought the panic that came with the news of how uncertain everything was.

  “Can he hear me?” A million thoughts converged in my brain at once and I suddenly couldn’t think again for a minute.

  “We encourage relatives and loved ones to talk to patients like Kane. Sound is the last sense to go, so there is every chance that he may hear what you’re saying depending on whatever level of consciousness he’s in.”

  Staring blankly at Kane as the nurse spoke, my tears blurred my vision of him lying on the bed and I desperately wanted to tell him what I felt because I felt there may not have been another chance.

  “I know this is a lot to ask, but can I have a few private minutes with him? I may not be able to come back after today.” Rubbing my bump carefully I looked first to Kane’s uncle and then to the nurse.”

  “No, I have to stay I’m afraid,” the nurse replied assertively.

  Dennis placed his hands on his knees and pushed off them as he stood up. “Pretend she isn’t in the room, Josie. My Kane is a natural performer so he wouldn’t mind there being an audience.” Leaning over he patted Kane’s hand still holding mine. “Be right back, buddy, I’m sure you’d prefer this pretty girl’s company to mine anyway.” Kane’s uncle attempted a smile in sympathy. I didn’t deserve that. If I hadn’t been so stubborn and indecisive Kane may not have left and wouldn’t have been injured at all.

  Closing the door quietly behind him, Dennis stood at the other side of the glass and I turned and sat motionless while I tried to imagine Kane’s smiling face. I couldn’t really make out his lips or the natural shape of his mouth with the tube in place. His eyes looked the same as they did when I had watched him sleeping at my place, and I tried to focus on those to give me the courage to say what I wanted to.

  “Hi, Kane. God…” A sob choked the start of my speech and I stared at his unresponsive frame lying in the bed. He looked so vulnerable and I’d never seen him like that before. I swallowed back the tide of emotion and I tried to find the right words to say what I felt in my heart, thinking that it may be my only opportunity. I wondered at the same time if I’d left it too late. Maybe he wouldn’t even hear me, or if he did, would he remember? “I’m so sorry, Kane. Christ, I’m so desperately sorry. I wish to God that I didn’t have this stubborn streak in me, but I do.”

  I had words on the tip of my tongue and once I said them it would be a public admission of my feelings for Kane. It was time to tear down the barriers I had created to protect myself and disclose what was in my heart. “I love you. I’m in love with you. There. I said it.” I stared at him but there was no reaction. No spike of excitement in his heartbeat on the monitor like a scene in a movie. Just the constant, rhythmic puff of the ventilator helping him breathe and the same steady beeps echoing in the room.

  “I think I’ve loved you since second grade, since you let me play soccer and put me in as the goalkeeper. I know now that it was because there weren’t enough boys, by the way,” I laughed softly. “What I mean is…there’s always been this…thing. I don’t know what to call it but we had it, and when you talked about the connection we had when you came back it all felt pretty surreal. Fantasy…like white glowing unicorns and fire dragons. Anyway, I’m not going to hash over all this stuff, but I want you to understand how I feel. Twelve years, Kane. From kids to adults…that was more than half my age of time we lost. And when you came back you were no ordinary man. You were a fucking rock star…you are a rock star.”

  Glancing at the nurse I felt annoyed that she was eavesdropping on my intimate conversation. Bearing my soul is difficult enough without having someone who could repeat what I say to the press. My heart dropped to my belly with that thought and I figured none of it mattered anymore. “I know I frustrated you by turning you down. Believe me I frustrate myself. Try to understand this. In less than two weeks I had two guys I cared about. One I loved, one I could have grown to love. One who had been everything to me as a child, and one who never got the chance to be everything. We’d slept together once, Kane…once and you were asking me to run away with you.”

  A rare moment of self-pity rose from my gut and crushed my chest. “How did I get to be so unlucky? Every time you got close to me you went missing. First in Germany, then after your mom died, and now…” Another wave of emotion stole my speech and I swallowed it back. “I slept with two men twice, one died and one is fighting for his life right in front of me. I’m pregnant at twenty-two and I’ve never had a man inside me without a condom. I don’t know how that happened. And on top of all that, I’ve hurt and kept things from everyone I know. I’m heartbroken. Hell, even my baby’s heart is broken.” I sobbed again for a minute then wiped my nose and took a deep breath.

  I looked to the door to draw some strength from my brother, but both he and Dennis were gone. Looking back at Kane I knew I had to be honest about my baby and tell him the whole truth as I knew it.

  “You asked if this baby was yours. Honest to God truth? I don’t know. I don’t want to know. It wasn’t that I wanted to keep that from you, it was more about protecting you from the hurt and pain you would feel inside, knowing what I do about her. I hadn’t thought it all through properly and what it would mean to her in the future. That’s why I said it was Elliott’s. He’s not here anymore to be hurt by it. Life is going to be very different after today. Life for the Carmichael family is about to get massively complicated. I wish I had more time to tell you all the things you mean to me. I wish I had the guts to just go with what you want. I wish I could just let you love me and feel at peace about that. You made me incredibly happy and desperately sad with your offer and the way you kept telling me you wanted me. I felt you make love to me, Kane. Really felt it. I may not have the experience you do, but I can definitely tell the difference between being
fucked and what we did. You turned me on my head…my life on its head, but you snuck back into my heart again, and I have to accept responsibility for that. It’s my heart after all, it’s me that decides who to let in, right?”

  Moving my hand from under his, I reached over lifting it to my face and spread his palm across my cheek. I leaned into the soft strength of it. His touch felt familiar and I could smell his scent. Even unconscious, he managed to comfort me. “They told me my baby is sick, Kane. I’ve known for most of the time she’s been inside me. She’s probably going to be fragile all her life…if she makes it. In fact, she’s going to need major surgery and I’m scared to death that she won’t survive. She’s so sick they offered me a choice to keep going with my pregnancy, Kane. It’s the only real choice I’ve been given in my life since the day you came back. I choose her. I love you, Kane…I didn’t have a choice about that,” I sighed as the tears dripped from my face to the bedsheet staining it.

  “I wrote you an email this morning but I never sent it. That’s how fucked up I am—that I couldn’t even explain to you face-to-face how much I really care, but I feel everything about us is so impossible. Especially now. But I really need a friend, so I need you to fight hard and get well…I’ve never been in a room with you before where you’ve had nothing to say. It’s painful.” I burst into tears again, my throat closing completely and turned to see Jacob and Dennis both entering the room.

  “Josie, they want you downstairs, honey,” Jacob said softly.

  Slipping Kane’s hand from my face, I placed a long kiss in his palm and closed it. Placing it back on the bed, I walked back out to the wheelchair and sat down. I couldn’t allow myself to look at him again because I knew I’d be so overcome with grief that I may not have been able to face what I had to do next.

  As Jacob pushed me out the door, I caught sight of a policeman guarding it. I hadn’t noticed him before. He stared straight at me with a haunted look on his face and tears in his eyes, and wondered if what I’d said to Kane had been even less private than I’d thought. The orderly pushed me back to my room while Jacob walked alongside holding my hand. We never spoke and I think Jacob was thankful for that. I could see the worry etched on his face at what he’d learned earlier and the fear in his eyes about what the next few days and weeks would hold. I wondered how we were all going to get through it.

  Chapter 26

  Proud

  My mom was waiting by the bedside when I returned to the room, her tear stained face was more than I could take and I hid mine in my hands. Drained from crying so much, I had nothing left in me to say how sorry I was for all the heartache I’d caused. Everyone must hate me. What did I know about making decisions of this magnitude? If I told anyone everything that had happened in the space of the past year in my life, no one would believe me. But it has happened and I’m worried that the distress I’ve felt up until now is nothing compared to what may be around the corner.

  Soft familiar hands smoothed my hair and removed mine from my face. My mom’s eyes were forgiving and held nothing but love in them. “Josie, I feel distraught that you’ve carried the weight of this terrible situation on your own. No one should have had to do that, and the fact you felt it necessary not to tell us says something about your expectations of the advice we’d have given you. What you’ve done took real guts. You didn’t take the easy way out of this, and you protected us from worrying about you and the baby all this time. How you’ve gotten through this I have no idea. I’m exceptionally proud of you right now. Her arms wrapped around me tightly like a warm blanket as she cried softly into my hair. Instead of crumpling into a heap of pity and sorrow I drew strength from her words and straightened in the chair. My mom stepped back and looked seriously into my eyes.

  “It’s not been easy, Mom, believe me. There have been so many times when I’ve come close, but seeing Matt’s reaction back at the house, and Jacob’s and your reaction to my news today, has helped me to feel that although this is a sudden shock for everyone, it was the right thing to do. Now all of you still have the strength that I don’t to help me and my baby through this.”

  Jacob’s head turned in the direction of the door when the air in the room shifted and my doctor and Professor Miriam came into the room, followed by my dad. The doctor looked around him and then to me. “If I could just have a few minutes with Josephine please—”

  “No, they can stay. This is my family. I need them to hear what the plan is.” I sounded confident, but that’s not how I felt inside.

  “Very well, Josephine. As you are aware I have taken advice from my pediatric cardiologist colleague here and she has looked at the CTG reading of your baby’s heart from earlier. The operating theatre is booked and I understand from your brother you have not eaten anything since at least midday.” I hadn’t eaten anything since a slice of toast at 8:00 am that morning.

  My obstetrician looked at my mom. “It’s the policy of this hospital’s trust that any baby who presents with this condition is delivered by caesarean section to put the least amount of stress on the heart and to support the baby by having a team present at the time of birth. The team is to be led by my colleague here who will begin the process of managing the baby’s oxygen levels. After birth there is a valve that closes between the left and right side of the heart, taking the baby from the fetal circulation to the adult one.” The doctor saw my family’s confusion and clarified, “It’s the term used when the baby is breathing air outside the womb. By giving the baby an infusion of artificial hormone, Professor Miriam will keep the valve between the left and right chambers of her heart open and allow the blood to flow from one side of the heart to the other instead of via the circulatory system alone. This will increase the oxygen level as much as we can until the cardiologist can place a stent, via the baby’s groin, into the heart. It inflates a small balloon or shunt, and keeps the value open until surgery to correct the vessels. We expect the surgery to take place within the first week.”

  Watching my family sit silently, listening, their eyes flitting between the two doctors and me, made me feel sick. I hated that they were going through this, but glad that I had their support to face it all.

  *****

  Less than two hours later, I was gowned up, pre-medicated and wheeled down toward the operating room. My heart pounded inside my ribcage and I had never known fear or apprehension like it. I felt like I’d been plucked out of my life and had been asked to play the main character in a horror movie. I wished that at any second a hero would pounce and take me away from everything that was all too real by then.

  I Kissed Mom, Dad, Jacob, and Matt, before the anesthetist’s assistant wheeled me through to the anesthetic room. The two doors I’d been pushed through closed automatically behind me. Kind eyes stared down with concern. “Hi, am I calling you Josephine or something else?” He’d been the only person in the medical team that had asked me what I answered to. The anesthetist’s team who had asked for my consent to the surgery had referred to me as Josephine and I never corrected them. Maybe I had wanted them to be detached from me.

  “Josie.”

  “Perfect. You can call me Micky. Except you’re going to be busy…but I just thought as we were trading nicknames you should know mine.” He had no idea how much that tiny piece of normality, in my sick and frightening situation, lifted my heart. “We’ll be keeping you awake for the delivery as per the birth plan, Josie. We don’t want anything to compromise the oxygen levels. The spinal anesthetic works quickly and as soon as we take you through to the OR your baby will be born in the first five or so minutes. Depending on how you respond after that the whole operation should be completed within half an hour.

  *****

  While I was being wheeled in and transferred onto the table my whole body felt numb. The environment was eerily quiet for the number of people in the room. The anesthetist dipped his head to speak, “It looks scary, Josie, but everyone in this room is here for you and your baby—they�
�re a great team.”

  A green drape was raised like a barrier from my chest and I could no longer see anyone apart from the surgeon’s head in front of me. An obstetric nurse that had been with me from the time I’d arrived at the hospital came and sat on a stool by my head. “Okay, Josie, the team is ready, you’re about to be a mom, honey.”

  Tears trickled down the sides of my eyes and ran into my hairline under the paper cap I wore as I lay there feeling the weirdest dull sensation of someone tugging and pressing deep inside me. It wasn’t long before I felt the rough, weighty pressure of her leave my body. Seconds later there was a lot of activity and the bloody covered face of a baby was held above the drape. “Congratulations, Josephine, it’s a girl,” someone said. It’s a girl. My girl, my baby girl—Ellie.

  Listening to the hive of activity going on in the room, I knew they were already working to help her. I hadn’t heard my baby cry and my throat was slowly tightening with emotion and anxiety. I couldn’t even bring myself to ask if she was okay for fear of being told no. The poor nurse sitting next to me had no words either, and each time my eyes met hers she gave me a forced, almost constipated-like smile. Turning my head in the other direction I was surprised to see that the anesthetist wasn’t there, but seconds later he reappeared from beyond the drape.

  “I was just getting an update for you. She’s holding her own, Josie. They have the infusion going and her oxygen levels aren’t too bad, but they are going to move her via the portable incubator to the NNICU. Once you are checked over and we’ve signed you out of recovery you’ll be taken to see her. Well done, you were brilliant.” I had no clue why he thought that, I had laid on my back petrified through the whole horrible birth.