They come as a cadre. An attending physician, two residents, and two nurses. Blaise, having returned to his default, is shirtless with Donovan in just a diaper curled up on his chest, patting his butt far more vigorously than he usually does. Desperate times call for desperate measures. And I guess since step one of taking care of an infant was skin-to-skin that very first day, it’s just where Blaise feels like he’s doing the most. Donovan isn’t fully screaming like he was yesterday, but he’s whimpering and sobbing in this exhausted way, like he’s the most frustrated out of all of us.
Blaise is 100% Blaise Sinclair. There’s no privacy in this wing. He’s not doing anything to hide his identity. The entireteam of medical staff is exchanging quick glances, communicating with their eyes what’s plain as day because Donovan’s last name is Sinclair and this guy has not only the look but the hubrisandinsanity of Blaise Sinclair. No one needs to say his name to confirm his identity.
“No, you don’t need to hold him!” he yells at the doctor, but he manages to do it in a way that has the staff smiling. Even Donovan looks up at him with eyes that maybe aren’t happy but seem relieved. “This is his safe spot. This is where he goes. These are the arms that hold him.”
“Mr. Sinclair,” the doctor says calmly. “I promise he is safe in my arms as well. I just need to examine him.”
“You can examine him in these arms.”
“It will be much more efficient if I can hold him and then put him back in the crib.”
“Okay, yeah, and what happens if a defensive lineman suddenly plows through here, huh? Shaunessy is on the opposite end of the hospital; he is not going to be able to protect us. And I can tell you that between you and me and the crib, I am the one who is best trained to hold him!”
He’s spiraling. I see it. He does it enough. I don’t know what’s ever going on in his head when it happens, but I know how much effort it takes to calm him down when he gets worked up like this. It’s probably something that’s been fostered, that does well for him on the field. And I know the doctors aren’t going to be able to reason with him, so I do the best I can, with a gentle hand on his shoulder. He calmed me last night; now I’ll calm him.
“Blaise? Honey? We need to do what’s best for Donovan, right?”
I see the shift in his pupils, the rise of his chest, the sink of his shoulders. “Yeah. This is what’s best.”
“No, baby. He needs the doctors to help him this time. Just like I needed the doctors before, so you made me go, right? Remember when you forced me to go to the hospital because you knew the doctors would take care of me?”
“I just want him happy.”
“I know.” I kiss his shoulder because he’s too tall for me to do better. Perhaps it’s too intimate a moment in front of the doctors, but it’s enough that Blaise relinquishes Donovan.
It’s another five excruciating hours before the results come back. We’re taken into an office, so very similar to the office I was brought into two years ago for my cancer diagnosis, even though it wasn’t even the same country, and the doctor asks us to sit down. I haven’t ever held hands with Blaise before, and I know his hands are full with Donovan, who’s thankfully asleep, but I still reach out and put my hand over his, over Donovan.
He twists his wrist to lace our fingers together.
I was alone in that chair in that hospital in the Maldives, and I had this sick sense of dread because I’d never been called into an office to get the results of a medical test before, and I told myself it was because I was so far from home, but I was sick.
I was sick.
Now Donovan’s sick.
I squeeze Blaise’s hand just to steady myself, and he squeezes back before lifting it to kiss the back of my hand. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs. “Whatever it is, it’s going to be okay.”
“It is going to be okay,” the doctor confirms, but he’s nervous. “It’s well, first of all, I’d just like to apologize to you, Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair. Oh, ah, Ms. Washington.”
It happens whenever I’m with Blaise. I tell myself to be bothered by it — Joss has vented a couple times about gettingcalled Mrs. Shaunessy when they’re not married and she’s not planning on taking his last name when they do — but I’m not. I’m okay with Mrs. Sinclair. I’m more frustrated with the way the doctor is looking right at Blaise, and I feel like this apology is going to be something that I would never get otherwise.
“You had Donovan at our sister hospital in Midtown, correct?” the doctor asks Blaise, like Blaise himself produced Donovan from the ether. But Blaise nods, letting it slide, just to keep the conversation going. “We see in the records that blood samples were drawn for Donovan, but the results were never put into the system. I assure you this would never happen at this branch.”
Bullshit, I want to say, because I was literally given the wrong patient’s info and nearly got examined for rectal cancer the last time I was at this branch, but I hold my tongue.
“Based on the genetic panel and the symptoms currently presenting, it’s likely Donovan has sickle-cell anemia. It’s a genetic disease that . . .”
He gives the explanation I don’t need as the breath leaves my body. My grandfather had sickle-cell. One of my aunts has it, too. There’s a lot of it in my dad’s family; that’s just how it is. I always knew that there was a 25% chance I’m a carrier, way too likely to brush off. I would have gotten the panel done when my sister, Camilla, got hers, but there are other things on that panel I didn’t want an answer to. And since Donovan’s father is Black, there was a not-insignificant chance he was a carrier. That’s just how genetics works. I don’t know if I would have made a different decision about how I handled my pregnancy if I did know I was a carrier, but . . .
Thisismy fault.
I don’t need to hear what the doctor has to say. I remember the pain my grandfather was in when he had flare-ups. Aunt Jo never got really sick that I can remember, but I don’t know how she’s doing now. I know exactly how bad this could be; I don’t need the doctor to tell me.
I only focus back in because Blaise says, “Okay, let’s go ahead and start tests on me now.”
I blink, pulled back into the conversation by Blaise’s ridiculous request, and shake my head. “It’s not contagious.”
“No, for the bone marrow transplant.”
