Here to Stay (34 page)

“Don’t we all?” Will pushed off the side of the car and raised a hand. “Always a pleasure, Fish.”

“Hey,” Erik said. “Look, I… I mean…”

Will laughed. “I love you more than can be discussed in a civilized manner,” he said, opening the driver’s side door. “Now get out of here. And no texting me later asking me if I’m all right. None of that shit. We had a moment, that’s all.”

He drove out of the parking lot, a single toot of the horn in his wake. Erik put his forehead on the steering wheel and took a few shaking breaths before he started the engine and drove home.

“WHAT HAPPENED?” DAISY SAID, before he’d even put his keys down.

“Nothing.”

“You’re shaking.”

“He told me about Germany. I’m a little…upset. That’s all. Are you all right?”

“I’m so tired,” she said. “I haven’t felt like myself all day. Either I’m anxious or I’m coming down with something.”

He ran his hand over the hard curve of her belly. “I feel a little unsteady myself. Maybe you’re picking up on my shit.”

She smiled and went into his arms. “Don’t know where I stop and you begin.”

He took her face in his hands and kissed her. “I’ll make dinner. Go lie down a bit.”

He threw together some pasta, keeping a portion plain for her. Now in her eighth month, it seemed anything rich or spicy gave her heartburn. Wiping his hands on a dishtowel, he went out to the living room where she was asleep on the couch. She looked so thoroughly out, he decided to let her sleep. She could eat later. But as he went to cover her with a blanket, he felt the heat radiating off her.

“Dais?” he said, reaching a hand to her face. It was flushed and she was hot. “Dais.” He crouched down, gently shaking her shoulder.

“Wha…”

“Honey, you’re so hot. Are you running a fever?”

She picked up her head, put a hand to her cheek. “Am I? Oh. I am hot.”

“You feel all right?”

“I just feel so tired.”

“Go upstairs,” he said. “Get in bed and I’ll call the doctor.”

“It’s probably nothing.”

“Indulge the daddy-to-be,” he said, kissing her flushed face.

The on-call nurse didn’t seem over-concerned. He asked if Daisy was experiencing any bleeding or contractions. She wasn’t, just the 102 temperature and the extreme fatigue.

“Is the baby moving?” the nurse asked.

Erik relayed the question.

“He’s not moving now,” Daisy said, her hand going to her belly. “But he was kicking me all day. Even when I was driving home, a couple hours ago.”

“Then take two Tylenol and go to bed,” the nurse said. “Rest. Plenty of fluids. Likely it’s just a cold or virus, but if the fever persists into tomorrow, come in. Any bleeding, any cramps or contractions, go directly to urgent care.”

Erik ate alone at the kitchen counter. He cleaned up then went upstairs. His mood was still anxious and he bit half a Klonopin into a sloppy quarter and swallowed it. Just to take the edge off. Or give him a placebo effect.

No sooner had the bitter taste left the back of his throat when his phone pinged. It was Will.

You OK?

Erik gave an eye-rolling grin.
I thought we agreed not to do this?

You agreed, not me. And you’re answering, aren’t you?

Fuck you.

Didn’t see THAT coming, didya?

Erik chuckled in his chest.
Get out of here.

Don’t fucking call me.

Erik set the phone back on the bedside table. “My life is so weird sometimes,” he said.

Daisy made a noise in her throat.

He stacked the pillows against the headboard and opened his book. Daisy rolled and curled against his legs.

“You all right?” he said, stroking her hair.

She made a small sigh but said nothing. He laid his hand on her cheek. It was warm, but not as viciously hot as before.

He read. Time dripped by, measured in pages. The knot in his chest and stomach loosened. His eyes began to feel a little heavy.

“I don’t feel right,” Daisy said, startling him. She sat up, pressing the backs of her hands into her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Erik said.

“I have to pee.” She got up, tired and clumsy. She stretched, pressed her hands into her back. She walked three steps and then let out a gasp, then a cry, and lurched into the dresser, clutching its edge.

He was out of bed and moving to her. Warm, stringent liquid ran down her legs, making a puddle on the rug and spreading onto the hardwood floor. Clear at first. And then tinged pink. Then red.

“Oh God,” Daisy said. “What’s happening?”

DAISY LAY ON A bed in an exam room of the ER, her bared belly glistening with gel. Erik sat in a chair next to her. The sonogram technician stared at her hands. Frozen on the monitor in black and white was the baby. Whole. Perfect.

“Are you sure?” Daisy said again. “He was moving all day. Moving and kicking.”

“I’m sorry,” the technician whispered. “Something must be wrong with the machine. Let me get someone.”

She got a lot of someones. The attending doctor came in, followed by a social worker and a pediatric nurse. The room filled with an ominous, heavy energy as the doctor pulled on gloves and set the ultrasound wand down on Daisy’s stomach again. The image on the screen morphed in and out of view. Settled back into focus and held still. Erik’s eyes volleyed back and forth, looking from one grim expression to the next, waiting for an answer that wasn’t coming.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “What is happening?”

“Is there someone we can call for you?” the social worker asked.

Erik looked at her as if she were speaking another language. “We called
you,”
he said stupidly.

“Madame Fiskare,” the doctor said. Tall and black, he looked no more than nineteen in Erik’s bewildered eyes. His dark blue scrubs barely reaching his ankles. Gangly arms and knobby wrists emerging from a too-short white coat. A strong accent garbled his French into a soup as he said, “Je suis désolé. Je ne peux pas trouver un battement.”

“Speak English,” Erik said, his voice cracking through the dense air.

The doctor’s high cheekbones winced. “I cannot find a heartbeat, sir. I’m sorry.”

“No,” Daisy said, reaching fingers toward the screen. “No, he’s right there. He’s right there. He was here all day. I felt him.”

Erik stood up and put his arms around her. She fought through them, actually slapped one of his hands away.

“You’re wrong,” Daisy said.

Erik turned his head, looked at the wall and wished to disappear.

“He’s right
there,”
she said.

“Madame Fiskare,” the doctor said. “I am truly sorry. Under different circumstances, I could let you go home and take your time with the decision. But look here. Please. The sonogram shows the placenta is beginning to detach. You are running a fever and this can only get more critical.”

“What are you saying?” Erik said, turning around, unable to grasp what this
kid
was telling them. “I don’t understand.”

The nurse moved closer to the bed and took Daisy’s hand in both of hers. “You’re going to have your baby,” she said, speaking slowly and clearly. Her soft voice full of kindness.

She looked at Erik. “We’re going to put her into labor. She has to deliver.”

“But the baby is…” And finally it clicked. His head spun as realizations crashed one into the other like a multi-car pileup on the freeway. It wasn’t going to disappear, be absorbed back into Daisy’s body or bleed quietly out of her. It wouldn’t just
go away.
It was a thirty-week pregnancy. It was a baby. The baby was dead.

And Daisy had to bring him out.

She has to deliver stillborn.

“I can’t.” Daisy was crying into her hands. “I want my mother,” she said, her voice squeezing through her fingers. “I want my mother. I can’t do this without my mother.”

“Where is she?” the doctor said.

“Pennsylvania,” Erik said, feeling he might throw up. He kicked one toe hard into his other calf, sending a bolt of pain up the back of his leg. He caught the sensation in his teeth and bit down.

Get. It. Together.

The nurse had Daisy’s face in her hands. “My name’s Lee,” she said. “I’m going to stay with you. I’ll help you have your baby.” Lee looked at Erik, pale beneath her copper-colored freckles but her eyes were clear and unblinking. “I will help you do this,” she said.

Erik pushed all his feeling into a far room and slammed a door on it.

Feel nothing,
he thought.
You will feel nothing.

He gathered Daisy up in his arms, gathered his strength and his wits. Over the top of Daisy’s head he looked at the black doctor, then back at freckle-faced Lee. “Tell me what’s going to happen.”

They began to tell him, but he was only half-listening. From within his heart, he heard fists pounding on a door as the cowering ball of emotions yelled for him.

You left us here once,
they cried.
We grew big and hairy in the dark. We became monsters and you thought we forgot about you. We don’t forget. Slam the door hard. We’ll still be in here. Remember.

He remembered.

He cracked the door, let the hallway light shine a little inside.

He promised to come back and feel it later.

FOR ALL HIS YOUTHFUL and gangly appearance, Dr. N’Dour, the Senegalese resident, was poised and attentive. He waved nurses away and set Daisy’s IV port himself. His giant hands were deft and sure, his thick French soft and hypnotic. The sonorous voice seemed to fold Daisy into an envelope of shocked calm. Her weeping hushed into chopped, hitching breaths and her swollen, stunned eyes went far away.

While they were getting Daisy settled and prepped in a room on the maternity ward, Erik stepped into the hall with his phone. It was one in the morning now. People needed to be woken up.

Will’s cell rang twice. A scrape and scrabble and a thick inhale of half-asleep breath. “Hey…”

Erik opened his mouth and tried. Failed.

“Fish?”

Erik tried again. “The baby died,” he said, a hand over his face, screening the world away.

“What?” Will said, his voice coming into focus.

“We lost him.”

“What the f— Where are you?”

“At the hospital.”

“Oh my God. Fish, what happened?”

“I don’t know. She started running a fever. Her water broke. They couldn’t get a heartbeat. He’s gone.”

“Jesus fuck, are you kid— Fish, I’m so sorry.”

“They’re putting her into labor. She’s going to deliver in the next few hours.”

“Oh God. Fish, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“She has to deliver stillborn.” His voice was rising up and getting away from him. He swallowed hard, pulled a long breath through his nose to keep it all back.

“Where are you?” Will said, sounding both awake and on his feet. “SJ Regional?”

“Yeah, I—”

“I’m leaving now,” Will said. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

“You don’t—”

“Shut up. I’m coming.” And the line went dead.

Knowing Will was coming stuck to him like a bit of armor. It stiffened his spine for the next two calls.