“And if he’s awake?” she asked.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “You can head home and I’ll catch an Uber.”
She stared at me for a moment, then she nodded. “Well, in case he’s awake, give me a hug.”
I hugged Drea and Dylan, probably a bit harder than was called for, but neither seemed to mind. I swallowed hard as I turned back to the door and gently pushed it open.
As I stepped inside, I could hear the sound of a car commercial coming from the TV that hung in the corner of the ceiling. 280 horsepower. Superior handling.
Isaac was sitting up in the hospital bed with his left leg propped up on a couple pillows. His eyes were closed. I was about to turn around and leave, when his eyelids opened slowly and our eyes met.
“Laurel?”
The haircut I’d given him a few weeks ago had grown out, his light golden-brown, sun-kissed hair sticking out in all different directions. Yet, somehow, it looked purposeful, a calculated mess to match his usual gritty appearance, which had been almost completely stripped away the moment they put him in a hospital gown. But his voice was still gruff, even a bit hoarse, maybe from being intubated during surgery. Or maybe he was thirsty.
“Hey,” I said, my voice barely louder than a whisper.
He didn’t smile. He just stared at me in silence, and it dawned on me he was probably contemplating telling me to leave. The thought of Isaac being angry with me hadn’t even occurred to me, but now it seemed like a completely logical reaction. A dark sadness washed over me as I turned to leave.
“Where are you going?”
I spun around, and the smile on his face was both welcoming and heartbreaking. It wasn’t a real smile, like the eye-crinkling grin I’d grown accustomed to. But, like me, he was trying.
I closed my eyes as another wave of sorrow crashed over me. Despite his injuries, mental and physical, Isaac was trying not to blame me for something that was out of my control. This was more than I could say for Jack.
I took a few slow, measured steps in his direction. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Chapter 4
Isaac
One moment, you think you know what your life is going to look like for the next thirty or fifty years. The next moment, you’re moving halfway across the country to get away from your flesh and blood.
Three years ago, I thought I’d finish my third tour and come home to marry my fiancée. We’d pop out a few kids and settle down in a suburb not far from where I grew up in Stillwater, Minnesota. Not that popping out a few kids was an option anymore. And I sure as fuck never expected to come home from Afghanistan and find my twin brother had gotten my fiancée pregnant. I sure as hell didn’t expect Dane to commit suicide over the guilt of betraying me. But never in a million fucking years did I expect to find happiness in the humbled gaze of a beautifully broken married woman.
The joy and sadness in Laurel’s brown eyes didn’t belong to me, but it sure as hell felt like it did. Something felt different today. The reticence in her eyes was gone, replaced by contrition. It reminded me of one of my favorite sayings: It’s better to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
I smiled at this thought, and her eyes lit up. “Have a seat,” I said, motioning to the chair next to my bed.
She flashed me a warm smile as she took a seat. “I wanted to see you to apologize for… your leg,” she began, her eyes focused on her hands, which were clasped in her lap.
“No need to apologize. Unless you’re the one who shot me. Did you shoot me?”
She finally looked up and narrowed her eyes at me. “Do you really not remember any of it?”
I bit my lip as I took in the feisty look in her eyes. “Not a single bit of it,” I replied. “Though, it seems like we must have had some fun.”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
I laughed at the look of pure terror on her face. “I mean that it must have been a helluva wild time if I ended up in the hospital.”
She clutched her chest as she let out a sigh of relief.
“Wait a minute,” I continued. “Are you telling me you don’t remember anything that happened, either?”
She focused her gaze downward again, almost as if she were ashamed, then she shook her head. “I just remember seeing… seeing them trying to hold you down and then I just… blacked out and woke up in the hospital. But…”
I waited a moment for her to continue. “But what?” I finally asked.
She looked up again. “Dylan sort of filled me in on the rest, and he told me…” Her eyes were locked on mine, as if she was waiting for me to interrupt her and finish her sentence, but I had no clue what she was going to say. She opened her mouth again, pausing for a moment before she said, “Dylan told me you said something to me when they put you in the ambulance. You said… I love you.”
The mild amusement I’d been feeling, the joy at seeing Laurel’s glowing face, vanished in an instant. But not because I was embarrassed by this information or worried that my ill-timed confession might cause problems between Laurel and her husband. I was afraid Laurel was here to clarify that she would never feel the same way.
“I don’t remember that,” I replied.
My next instinct was to apologize for any trouble I may have caused. But that would be disingenuous.
I didn’t want to cause Laurel any pain, especially after everything she’d been through. But what little I’d learned about her over the past two months told me that she might be better off without Jack. Though, I conceded I probably didn’t know either of them well enough to make that sort of judgment.
Maybe it was selfish, but I didn’t want Laurel to end up like me. I sure as hell wished someone had warned me about Nicole before I planned a future with her. I wished someone had the guts to tell me about her betrayal before I walked right smack into the center of it.
“I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble with… with your husband,” I began, forcing the word husband out carefully. “I hope I didn’t make things worse for—”
I stopped mid-sentence when a silhouette appeared in the doorway. Speak of the fucking devil.
Laurel opened her mouth to say something, but she quickly noticed my gaze fixed on something behind her. As she turned her head, I savored the look of surprise on Nicole’s face.
Did she know what had happened at Laurel’s house last night? Did she know I’d told another woman I loved her? Did she know that woman was sitting at my bedside?
I hoped to God the answer to all those questions was a resounding yes.
“I’ll come back,” Nicole said, her voice breaking on the last syllable.
Laurel stood up quickly. “Oh, no. You don’t have to go. I was just about to leave. Please come in.”
Nicole took a few careful steps inside as my nephew, Ethan, slowly lifted his head from her shoulder. “It’s okay, sweetie. You can go back to sleep.”
“I’m thirsty, Mommy,” Ethan said in his tired toddler voice.
My eyes flitted toward Laurel’s face to see her reaction to this intrusion. I’d told her enough about Nicole for her to guess who this visitor was. The painfully forced smile on her face as she watched Nicole straightening the front of Ethan’s striped T-shirt broke my heart.
“He’s beautiful,” she whispered to Nicole as she made her way to the door.
“Laurel, wait,” I called out as she stepped out into the corridor, but she didn’t stop.
“Damn,” I muttered, shaking my head.
“I’m sorry,” Nicole began. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I—”
“It’s fine. It’s not your fault. It’s…” I sighed as I realized I couldn’t tell Nicole about how Laurel had lost her little boy. It wasn’t my story to tell. “It’s fine. Why are you here?”
She looked offended by my blunt delivery, but she quickly checked herself. “Look, this is not easy for me either.”
She paused for a moment as she pried Ethan’s hand off the pendant hanging from
the necklace around her neck. The necklace I gave her when I apologized for cheating on her after my second tour. I didn’t think she’d worn it on purpose, as an attempt to manipulate my emotions by reminding me of my own indiscretion. In every photo of Ethan my mother had sent me over the last two and a half years — through Emily’s text messages — Nicole was always wearing the necklace.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re here?” I said, desperate for her to get to the point.
She took a few steps until she was standing at my bedside. “I wanted you to meet your nephew,” she said, shifting Ethan so he was balancing on her hip as she turned him to face my bed. “Ethan do you know who that is?” She turned back to me. “He’s seen lots of pictures of you.”
“Daddy!” Ethan exclaimed.
Nicole shook her head adamantly. “No, sweetie. This is your Uncle Isaac.”
Ethan stuck his hand out toward me and turned it from side to side in a clumsy wave. “Hi, Daddy.”
I pressed my mouth into a hard line to try to keep from laughing, but it was no use. I covered my face and squeezed my eyes shut so Ethan wouldn’t see me holding in my laughter.
“I’m sorry,” Nicole said, and I could hear the nervous laughter in her voice. “I don’t know what I expected. I’m sorry.”
I shook my head and opened my eyes as I let out a short burst of laughter. “It’s fine. You can’t expect a two-year-old to understand the concept of identical twins. It’s just…”
I couldn’t stop myself from laughing. Maybe it was whatever pain meds they were pumping into me through this IV drip, but I was suddenly beginning to realize how soap opera-ish this whole situation with Nicole and my twin brother Dane was. And it was tragic, but also strangely surreal, that my brother’s son was now mistaking me for his dead father.
I took a moment to compose myself and take a few deep breaths. “Sorry. I think they’ve got me hooked up to some happy drugs. I shouldn’t have laughed at that.”
She smiled and shook her head. “It’s okay. I totally get it. It’s kind of funny and weird. But that doesn’t make what I did right. I’ll never stop regretting how I hurt you.”
I let out a deep sigh. “I was gone a lot and Lord knows I made my own mistakes. I wasn’t exactly the easiest person to love. I know that.”
She nodded. “I’d better go get him something to drink. Do you need anything?”
“I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
Her full lips stretched into a tight smile. “Your parents are going to stay at your house with your dog, but I’ll be staying at a hotel. I know you probably don’t want me there.”
I shook my head. “That’s nonsense. Don’t waste your money on a hotel. Just stay at the house with Mom and Dad. I’m going to be here at least another three or four days, according to the doctor who came in to prod my nut sack an hour ago.”
“Are… Are you sure?”
“Positive. I don’t want my nephew staying anywhere else.”
She flashed me a genuine smile this time. “I hope you get better soon,” she said, readjusting Ethan in her arms. “And if that girl who was here is the one you want, I hope she knows how lucky she is.” She grabbed Ethan’s hand and waved it at me. “Say bye, sweetie.”
“Bye, sweetie!” Ethan said.
I laughed as I waved back and watched them disappear into the corridor.
Chapter 5
Jack
May 10, 2015
Stay with me, baby,” I murmured as I stroked Laurel’s hand to keep her from falling asleep. “You realize our son is going to be born on a very special day.”
Her eyes rolled back in their sockets as another contraction hit. “What?” she groaned.
I had been trying to keep her mind distracted from the pain with idle conversation about the things she most liked to talk about. So far, I’d engaged her in a wide array of topics: Stoic philosophy, ridiculous names for baked goods, inappropriate wedding songs, and her favorite topic, names for baby boys.
“His birthdate is going to be May 10, 2015. In numbers, that’s five, ten, fifteen.”
She managed to groan and chuckle at the same time. “You’re so American. The rest of the world would say it’s ten, five, fifteen,” she said. She breathed in and out a few times through pursed lips before she continued. “Drea would make fun of you if she heard you say that.”
“It’s a good thing Drea’s not here then.”
As soon as I said the words, I wanted to take them back. I didn’t want to bring attention to the fact that, besides Drea, Laurel’s mom also was not here.
As if on cue, Laurel asked, “Where’s my mom?”
I squeezed her soft hand, which seemed to be getting colder. “She’s stuck in traffic, baby. There’s an accident. But she’s trying to get here as soon as she can.”
I didn’t have to lie for Beth. I had to lie for Laurel. I didn’t want her to worry that her mother was abandoning her in her time of need. This was probably the most important day of Laurel’s life, and her mother couldn’t be bothered to come when called.
Beth insisted this was a private moment for Laurel and I to share. According to her, most grandmothers weren’t in the labor and delivery room to see their grandchildren born. That was the parents’ “job.” She insisted she would get here as soon as the baby was born.
The fact that Beth referred to what I was doing at this moment as a “job” only made me angrier. I wasn’t here with Laurel because it was my job to be here. I was here because I loved Laurel, and this was where she wanted me to be. If Laurel told me to leave, I’d leave. She was the one making the decisions today, not me or Beth or the fucking Dalai Lama.
The midwife came into Laurel’s room just as the baby’s heart rate monitor began to beep loudly. The swift, hollow tap of our baby’s heartbeat had slowed to a slow, muffled thump. The midwife’s black eyebrows shot up as she raced to the monitor to get a better look at the flashing red numbers.
“What’s happening?” Laurel asked, but her eyelids were only half-open as her voice trailed off. “Is the baby… Is the baby okay?”
Maisie, Laurel’s Filipino midwife, lifted the sheet covering Laurel’s legs and her dark eyes became as wide as planets.
“What is it?” I demanded as the doctor rushed in.
“Get Florence and tell the others to get the OR ready,” the doctor ordered Maisie, who quickly disappeared into the corridor.
“Dr. Eastman, what’s wrong?” I demanded.
But as my words fell like stones at our feet, Laurel’s hand went slack. Suddenly, four nurses raced into the room and shoved me aside as they locked the side rails on Laurel’s bed and systematically disconnected her from various machines.
My stomach went sour as they rushed her out of the labor and delivery room to the operating room. As I followed closely behind them, I felt as if I were having an out of body experience. I was watching these medical professionals pushing a gurney with someone else’s unconscious wife. Maybe I’d fallen asleep in the chair in Laurel’s hospital room and this was all a nightmare.
But when we arrived at the double doors to the OR, someone grabbed my arm to stop me from entering. That was when I knew this was really happening.
Before the doors swung shut, I caught a glimpse of three more nurses inside the operating room. They appeared to be hanging bags of blood on IV stands and prepping instruments.
“She’s hemorrhaging,” Dr. Eastman finally said, as I watched what was going on through the windows in the double door.
“What do you mean? How? Why?” I replied as I watched two nurses wheel Laurel’s bed into the center of the OR.
“Mr. Stratton, please look at me.”
I spun toward the doctor and the grave look in his eyes sent me into a spiraling panic. “What’s going on? Tell me what the fuck is happening to my wife!”
“Do you remember at a previous sonogram when I said we would have to do sonograms every three days instead of every week, to keep an eye on the p
lacenta?”
I nodded vigorously. “Just cut to the chase and tell me what the hell is happening to my wife.”
Eastman sighed. “The placenta was not over the cervix at the start of labor, but it seems the contractions have moved it down and Laurel’s losing a lot of blood. We’ll have to deliver the baby via C-section.”
I tried to follow a nurse into the OR, but Maisie and Dr. Eastman stopped me again. “I have to be in there!” I shouted.
“We need to scrub before we can enter the surgical suite,” Eastman said. “Follow me.”
In the washroom, Eastman introduced me to the anesthesiologist, Dr. Brunei, who was already washed up as a couple nurses helped him slip into a fresh pair of scrubs.
“Doctor, I need you to be straight with me,” I said as I set down the disposable nail brush and proceeded to rub the red Hibiclens soap all over my hands and up to my elbows. “Should I be worried?”
“Hemorrhaging in labor is not ideal, but it’s not uncommon. It’s a situation we’re always prepared for, especially with what we saw in the previous sonograms. You’re in good hands today. We’re going to deliver your baby and replace the blood your wife lost. I just need to verify that neither you nor your wife have any religious objections to receiving blood transfusion?”
I shook my head as I held my arms under the running water. I couldn’t speak. This couldn’t be happening.
When Eastman and I were gowned and gloved, we entered the surgical suite in time to see the nurses using a sheet to hoist Laurel’s limp body off the hospital bed and onto the operating gurney, her arm flopping over the edge of the mattress.
Her skin was drained of the usual golden-peach glow. Her fingers were blue.
No. I shook my head, unwilling to accept what I was seeing.
“Mr. Stratton?”
I turned my head to the right and found four-foot-eleven Maisie staring up at me.
“You’re very pale, Mr. Stratton. You should sit,” she said, motioning to a chair on the other side of the room, closer to Laurel.