22
It was the end of September when Bethany returned to the hospital—not to be on bed rest, not to work, but to get the rest of her things, things she’d left behind when she was abruptly told it was time to stop working. She walked slowly, grateful for the ability to move on her own, and entered the office she’d vacated. Inside, she found her coworkers—nurses, doctors, and orderlies—waiting for her with cake and flowers. “Surprise!” they cried.
Bethany was touched. More than Rod ever could, these people understood how much her career meant to her, how much she hated stepping away. But they also understood that she would be back to save more lives, to give as much as she could to improve the human condition. It was what she’d been put on this earth to do.
Bethany sat, ate a slice of cake, and caught up with the coworkers she hadn’t seen in a while. She felt unbearably pregnant, although she knew she still had about three months left. “I forgot what it’s like,” she said. “And being older certainly doesn’t help things.”
“I think you’re inspiring,” a nurse in her thirties said, blushing. “I still can’t decide if I want kids, and the idea that you can make choices later and later in life is amazing.”
Bethany smiled at the younger woman, who’d just gotten married and had spoken endlessly about wanting to travel. “There’s no real timeline in life. Society puts all this pressure on you, but you need to ignore it.” She didn’t add that she’d hated her bed rest, that she’d hated having a higher-risk pregnancy. She knew that not all forty-five-year-old women had similar experiences. More than that, she knew she worked too much and added to her own stress.
When she was preparing to go, Gina from the front desk snapped her fingers and said, “I keep forgetting to tell you. An old patient called, looking for you. He’s pretty desperate to talk.”
Gina passed a note to Bethany, which Bethany unfolded to read: "Matteo" plus a phone number. Her heart leaped. Why would Matteo reach out to her?
“Thank you,” she said, slipping the note into her back pocket.
“I hope everything’s okay?” Gina said.
“Me too.”
Bethany didn’t hesitate to call Matteo. As soon as she got into the car, she dialed him, thinking of Helena, whom she hadn’t spoken to in a few weeks. Things had gotten hectic with the kids’ school, with the pregnancy, with her failing and flailing body. But recently, Rod had surprised Bethany with a gorgeous painting by Helena herself. “You talked so much about loving her work, I thought it would be nice to hang something in our bedroom,” Rod had said, kissing her forehead. And he’d done very well in his selection. It was of a wild and free-wielding sea, but it was all colors: the sky and the sun and the darkness brewing beneath. It encapsulated what Bethany so often felt: that she was uninhibited, that being alive meant giving in to your complexities.
Matteo answered immediately. “Dr. Sutton, hi.”
“Hello, Matteo. How are you?”
“I’ll get to it quickly. I know you have a lot on your plate.” Matteo sounded slightly manic, as though he hadn’t been sleeping. “I don’t know if you know this. But Helena finally reached out to me. We started dating.”
Bethany held her breath, waiting. But she had a hunch about where it was going.
“I haven’t felt this way about anyone in a crazy long time,” Matteo said. “I really thought this woman was my future. But recently, I found out about her liver disease. I guess you know about it?”
Bethany remained quiet.
“We haven’t talked since. I don’t know what to think. I think she feels guilty about not telling me, and to be honest, I was angry at first. But now, I mean. I can’t help but think. Is it possible for someone like me to be a donor?”
Bethany’s jaw hung open.
“I mean, is that a viable option for Helena and me?” he asked again, sounding even more frantic.
Bethany splayed her hand over her pregnant belly. She could feel the baby kicking, as though he or she was in on how crazy this was.
“The process isn’t entirely simple,” Bethany said. “Have you spoken to Helena about this?” She already knew the answer as she asked the question.
“Not yet,” he said. “I wanted to run it past you first.”
Bethany considered poor Helena, who’d been in the process of making peace with her own death for many years at this point. She hadn’t wanted to fall in love with Matteo. She hadn’t wanted to open herself up to all this pain. Now, she and Matteo weren’t talking.
“There are tests that would have to be done,” Helena said. “You’d have to make sure that you had the same blood type. You’d…”
“I’m O negative,” Matteo said excitedly. It meant that he could donate blood to whomever.
“That’s a good start. But there are other tests,” Bethany said. She didn’t want to get his hopes up.
She didn’t want to think it, but she considered that Matteo's desire to save Helena might be related to the previous loss of his daughter. His heart had shattered over and over. He wanted to save it. He wanted to see if there was a way through this without everything falling apart.
Bethany realized she needed to see Helena immediately. She needed to be the friend Helena hadn’t allowed herself in years. “I still think you need to talk to her yourself,” Bethany said. “But I’m going to go see her. I need to make sure she’s all right.”
