With a firm nod, she asked, “Would you like to clean up before?—”
“No.”
One of her brows lifted in a look that said she dealt with difficult people all day and wouldn’t hesitate to call security. “I’ll rephrase, Mr. Monroe. You’re going to clean up before you go back to see your wife.”
I didn’t correct her on the name. It wasn’t important right then.
Besides, if Mallory—when.WhenMallory pulled through this, I knew she’d never let me live it down that the hospital staff gave me her last name.
“Where?” was all I asked as I started toward the nurse, barely taking the time to glance over my shoulder and nod when Thatch slapped the back of my shoulder and called out, “Tell our girl to fight.”
Following the nurse’s quick, sure steps down halls that were too bright, too clean, and too loud, I forced myself to focus on the pained beats of my heart instead. The way each one felt like a wrenching limp—an incapacitating crawl. Mocking me for having a pulse at all, as unstable as it currently was. A pulse that was faltering because every part of me was worried about what I was about to walk into. And like my heart was already shredding in dreaded anticipation.
As I scrubbed my arms and hands clean, I didn’t let myself think about whose blood was being washed down the drain. I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure I’d ever make it away from the washing station if I did, and I needed to so I could make it to Mallory’s recovery room. So, I focused on other things, like the fact that the knuckles of my right hand were split and throbbing, but I couldn’t remember punching anyone or anything. Or how I’djustlearned Mallory softly inhaled every time I trailed my fingers along her palm, and I hadn’t had enough time reveling in that sound.
Once my arms and hands were clean of the red stains, and I’d dragged my blood-soaked shirt off and switched it out with a stiff scrub shirt, the nurse led me down one last hall, talking as she slowed.
“She might not be awake yet, but that doesn’t mean anything,” she said, her voice soft, like she was afraid of waking Mallory from where we stood in the hall. As if there weren’t so many sounds in this hall alone. Beeps and cries of pain, conversations and the low murmurs from TV shows. “She’s still sedated from the surgery, so that will take time to wear off anyway.”
I nodded as anxiousness coursed through my body when she finally stopped in front of a door and reached for the handle.
I’d never wanted to go into a room so much in my life. I’d also never wanted to run from one.
Because the girl inside was the strongest person I knew, and I’d already held her while she’d died. I wasn’t sure I could handle seeing her lying still in a hospital bed, fighting for her life.
Maybe that made me a coward, but it was the truth. Still, whether I was terrified to see her that way or not, nothing would keep me from her.
No matter what happened in the end, nothing would keep me from being by her side.
I pushed into the room as soon as the nurse cracked the door open and felt my steps falter when I saw Mallory. Too still. Too peaceful.
Mallory didn’t sleep like that.
Even in sleep, Mallory was tense and on guard, unless she was in my arms. Again, something I’d only gotten to experienceonce. Well, twice...but I still had no memory of that.
I was at her side before I realized I’d finished crossing the small room. But then I was gripping her hand in mine. My eyes scanned her face and the bandages around her neck before trailing down the hospital gown she was in to the IV lines attached to her arm and the monitor wires snaking out from beneath the blanket tucked in around her.
“These are your wife’s vitals,” the nurse said, and I reluctantly dragged my attention to where she was pointing at one of the monitors, my stomach dropping like a weight when I saw the numbers there. She didn’t bother saying anything about them, just gestured to the next monitor. “This was your baby’s heart rate when we last took it. I’ll check it again in another hour.”
For how many babies I was always around between my sisters and cousins, I didn’t understand if the heart rate was a good or bad thing.
But I understood all of Mallory’s vitals.
They were dangerous.
Clenching my jaw when it shook, I dropped my stare back to her and forced myself not to acknowledge the words that were swirling around and around in my head.
Because I’d known I was going to lose her. I’d known it, but I refused to admit it.
The nurse walked around the room, pointing out things and telling me to call for her if we needed anything. But I didn’t respond to her or look away from my wife until the nurse stopped directly at my side and held something out in front of me.
Ultrasound photos.
“We were able to get these,” she explained as I shakily took the photos from her. “We thought you would want them.”
I didn’t say anything.
Once again, I couldn’t. Not when emotion gripped my throat, choking me, as I stared at the grainy image of a baby we hadn’t even known about until today.
