“I’ll leave y’all alone for now. Press that button if you need me.”
I wasn’t sure how long I stared at the ultrasound before a deep sob ripped from my chest as I crumpled, struggling to remain upright as my forehead pressed to the bed and my other hand gripped Mallory’s.
“Fight,” I finally said, the word a gravelly plea. “I need you to fight.”
Pushing myself up, I eased myself onto the bed beside her, careful not to jostle her as I repeatedly pleaded with her to fight. To wake up.
Not caring if anyone came in or if I was allowed to be there, beside her.
They’d have to tear me away from my wife at this point.
“I got to see our baby. You have to wake up so you can see our baby,” I said against her temple. “You—justwake up,” I choked out.
With one hand gripping hers, I carefully rested the other on top of her stomach as I forced back the tears that had been relentless ever since I’d seen her standing in her kitchen, looking like a beautiful nightmare.
“Wake up and take a swing at me,” I begged. “Wake up and paint more of those amazing scenes I didn’t know you could create. Wake up so I can buy you more of those disgusting grassy drinks. Wake up so I can love you the way I always should have.”
Keeping my eyes trained on her monitor when I heard it start another round, I felt every part of my soul shudder when her oxygen and blood pressure shifted lower, ever so slightly.
Pressing my mouth to the top of her head, I breathed, “Need you to fight now, Peach, because I’m not losing you.”
I’d fallen asleep just like that—lying on my side, clutching her hand like I could will her to pull through with the strength of my grip and gently cradling her flat stomach for the same reason.
But the sleep had been fitful.
Every time her blood pressure cuff had started taking another reading, my eyelids had snapped open and shot to the monitor, checking her slowly declining heart rate and oxygen, and waiting to see what the newest pressure reading would be. Every time it’d dipped, I’d gripped Mallory’s hand tighter andreminded her she was a fighter, the words thick and warped with emotion.
At least the baby’s heart rate hadn’t changed whenever the nurse had come to check it.
At least it was still alive.
But as the nurse glared at me when I slid back into place next to Mallory once she finished getting the most recent fetal readings—her expression more resigned and less disapproving than the first time she’d walked in to find me on the thin hospital bed—she informed me, “The baby’s heart rate is stable, but still half of what it should be at sixteen weeks.”
I wasn’t sure I could react to the news of the decreased pulse or that Mallory was already sixteen weeks along.
Not when my stomach had been left somewhere on the sterile floor, and my heart had been ripped from my chest long ago.
The nurse gave me a sympathetic look and murmured, “We’ll just continue monitoring and hoping for the best,” before turning to check Mallory’s IV fluids and monitor readings.
“She should’ve already woken,” I said on a rough mumble when the nurse stepped away from the monitors, the words a statement rather than a question. When the nurse paused, I added, “From the sedation.”
“Yes,” she said bluntly, “the sedation from the surgery would’ve already worn off. But we’re also keeping her on heavy pain medication, which will also make her drowsy. The positive here is that she’s breathing on her own.”
Because she hadn’t been.
The nurse didn’t say that, but the words sat heavy in the air.
“Thank you,” I muttered as my stare shifted back to Mallory’s pale face before reluctantly dragging back to the nurse when she spoke again.
“You’re welcome to say ‘no,’ but yourfamily”—she said the word with an arched eyebrow, as if she knew good and well therewas no blood relation to the people she was talking about—“has been asking to be let back here.” Holding up a hand before I could respond, she added, “Again, you’re more than welcome to say, ‘no,’ but if you’d like any of them to come back, I can let one person back at a time.”
“I’m not leaving her,” I claimed, giving my answer right then, even though I knew I wasn’t the only one who was in agony over this. Even though I knew the rest of our team deserved to have their time with Mallory if?—
I cut that thought off before it could fully finish forming, my jaw aching from how tightly I ground it.
The nurse’s expression softened. “I can see that, Mr. Monroe. I’ll let one of them come in herewith you.”
A strained grunt clawed up my throat as I managed a nod. “Let them back.”
