“Call ahead,” I urge the EMS technician. “Make sure there’s an ultrasound ready. I think she’s bleeding internally from either her uterus or her intestines.”
“Load her up! Doc, you’re riding with us.”
Quickly, I scramble into the back of the ambulance, getting out of the way of the EMTs. Holding Grace on my lap in her car seat, I mentally urge Mary to hold on, to keep fighting.
The heavy doors slam, and soon we’re in motion toward Danbury Hospital.
Grace begins to fuss with the wail of the sirens. Even as I root around for her pacifier—which thankfully is clipped to her warm puffy outerwear—I listen for a moan, some indication that Mary’s in pain. Instead there’s no sound other than the equipment the EMT is using to keep her alive until we reach the hospital.
I slip the pacifier in Grace’s mouth, and her little mouth takes root. The soft sucking heightens the desperation in the small space as the fight to keep this mother alive begins.
A shudder runs through me, caused by much more than the winter cold.
* * *
Ten hours later,I stagger into the front door of my home with Phil, utterly drained.
Mary didn’t make it. The internal bleeding was too intense.
I was there when they told her fiancé, Joseph Bianco. In hours, he went from being a proud new daddy to a single father of a baby girl. I was there when he broke looking down at his daughter and whispered, “But I don’t know what do without her.”
And I was there when, as so many grief-stricken people do, he blamed me for not doing things faster.
“How could you be right there and not manage to save her?”
Those words might haunt me for some time. Too often patients come in, and the time between when they wreck or when they make the decision to go to the ER makes it impossible to save them. Today, I was right fucking there, and I still couldn’t do it. I couldn’t save her.
I couldn’t pull off a miracle.
Even as I was assuring the safety of her child, she was slowly bleeding to death.
Intellectually, I know there was nothing I could have done.
But try telling that to my heart.
Leaning against the wall, I slide until my ass is resting on my heels. Burying my face into my hands, I rub hard and fast, trying to scrub away the pain.
“Jace.” The most beautiful sound in the world.
My head snaps to the side, and he’s there. My redemption. I called him earlier when Mary was in surgery to let him know what had happened. He told me to take care and that he loved me. I know he can see the outcome in my face. We’ve been together for so long, I don’t have to say a word.
This is what finding your soul mate is like.
And my heart breaks all over again, knowing that for Joe and Grace, their souls were permanently shattered.
“Come with me, sweetheart. Let me take care of you.”
Pushing myself to my feet, I reach for my husband’s hand, letting him shower his endless love on me even as he bathes the aftermath of the day from my skin and my soul.
2
Iwake up the next morning feeling less bruised and battered. Judging by the winter sun in the sky, I know I’ve been left to sleep late. Since I have nowhere to be, I luxuriate in the softness of the sheets I so rarely get to enjoy. I’m shocked when my foot brushes up against something in the bed.
“Jesus, Phil. You’re late!” I fling back the covers and swing my legs over the side of the bed before I’m hauled back in, up against my husband.
“Relax, babe. I talked with my sisters last night. I don’t need to be in for hours.” He strokes my back as our bodies naturally ease together, each groove and hollow finding their perfect resting place. I hear Phil’s heart beat against my ear and know in a symphony of sound, there’s nothing that compares to that of the one of love.
I know he’ll have to spend an ungodly amount of hours racing around trying to finish up everything in time for the holiday now only two days away. But he’s here with me after a hellacious day and night. I’m about to speak when I feel long fingers graze along my hip. My cock stirs. “Jesus,” I whisper, unable to control my body’s response to him after all these years.
