LITMIR.BIZ

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Rebecca leaned her head against the tiled wall, eyes closed. “I’m so sorry, Maya. I thought this time it would be okay.”

      “Me, too.”

      It was going to be very hard for Maya to tell Adam. This would kill him. Rebecca’d had lunch with him at the hospital the week before, and he’d been unable to keep the smile off his face when he spoke—with cautious joy—about their “Pollywog.” His eyes had sparkled, and only then did Rebecca realize how long it had been since she’d seen him look so happy. As much as Maya wanted this baby, Adam wanted it even more. He’d changed in the past couple of years. He was still handsome, of course. Still sexy as hell, even though Maya never seemed to get that about him. But the energy and enthusiasm that had been his hallmark had left him bit by bit as he and Maya failed to create a family. Now Rebecca felt their hope for the future breaking apart like glass. Their relationship, though, was solid. They’d get through this the same way they’d gotten through it the last time. And the time before that.

      “Do you want me to come home?” she asked, counting on Maya to say no. “I can catch a plane in the morning.”

      “Absolutely not,” Maya said.

      “Look, you call your neighbor and then call me right back and I’ll stay on the phone with you till she gets there, okay?”

      “I’m all right now. I don’t need to—”

      “Call me back, Maya. I’m going to worry if you don’t.”

      “Okay.”

      She hung up her phone but didn’t budge from the stall of the restroom. She knew all about life not being fair. She saw it every day with her disaster work. She’d seen it when she and Maya lost their parents. But some things felt less fair than others, and this was one of them.

      3

      Maya

      “ADAM?” MY VOICE CAME OUT IN A WHISPER, ADAM’S NAME on my lips even before I opened my eyes.

      “Right here, My,” he said. “Sitting next to your bed, holding your hand.”

      I opened my eyes, squinting against the bright lights in the recovery room. “I’m sorry.” I felt crampy from the D and C as I turned my head to look at him.

      “You have to stop saying that.” Adam moved his chair closer. “It’s not your fault.”

      “I know. I just … what did Elaine say? Boy or girl?”

      Adam hesitated. “Boy,” he said.

      Another boy. Two sons lost. At least two.

      “Elaine wants us to come in next week to talk,” he said. “To figure out where to go from here.”

      What did that mean, where to go? Did we dare try again? Could I go through this one more time?

      “Okay.” I shut my eyes.

      “Don’t go back to sleep, My,” Adam said. “You know how it is. They’re going to want you up and out of here soon.”

      I groaned, forcing my eyes open again. “Why do we do that to patients?” I asked. “It’s inhumane.”

      “I’ll take you home and later, if you feel up to it, I’ll make you some of my special chicken soup, and I think we have a couple of movies we can watch, and I’ll surround you with lots of pillows on the sofa and—”

      “Don’t do that,” I said.

      “Do what?”

      “Be all … Adamy.”

      He laughed, though there was no mirth at all in the sound. “All ‘Adamy’? What’s that mean?”

      “All chipper and cheery and energetic and … caretakery.” Was I making any sense? I desperately wanted to go back to sleep. I wanted to sleep away the weeks—the months—of mourning I knew were ahead of me.

      “How would you like me to be?” Adam asked.

      I thought about it, though my mind floated in and out of consciousness. Adam could be no other way. His cheeriness was ingrained. It was what I usually loved most about him, what had drawn me to him in the first place.

      He smoothed my hair away from my forehead, then let his fingers rest on my cheek. “Want me to be serious?” he asked.

      Did I? “Yes,” I said. “I know you’re sad. Beyond sad.” I looked at him again. He’d lost his false smile. His fake cheer.

      “Yes, I’m sad,” he said. “I’m as brokenhearted as you are. But I want to take care of you today. Today and tomorrow, bare minimum. Let me do that, okay? After that, you can worry about me.”

      ” ’Kay,” I said. What woman wouldn’t kill for my husband?

      “I’m going to find out when I can spring you,” he said, getting to his feet.

      I nodded and once he’d walked away, I closed my eyes again, hoping sleep would return to me quickly.

      I’d first met Adam in the hospital room of one of my patients. The girl was tiny for eight, dwarfed by the mechanical bed. I could tell she hadn’t yet received her presurgical medication, because she was shivering with anxiety when I walked into her room. Sitting at her bedside, her mother held the little girl’s hand, and the anxiety was like a ribbon running from mother to daughter and back again.

      I had seen them only once before, when I evaluated the girl, Lani, in my office and discussed the surgery I’d perform to lengthen her leg. Lani’d been playful and talkative then. Now, though, reality had set in.

      “Good morning, Lani,” I said. “Mrs. Roland.” I sat down next to the bed. I liked doing that, taking the time to sit, to be at my patient’s level. To act as though I had all the time in the world to give them although the truth was, I had three long surgeries that day and really no time at all.

      “Will the surgery be at nine, like they said?” Mrs. Roland glanced at her watch. Her hand shook a little.

      “I think we’re on schedule this morning,” I said. “That’s a good thing. Waiting around is no fun at all, is it?” I smiled at Lani, who shook her head. Her eyes were riveted to my face as though she were trying to see her future there.

      “Do you have any questions?” I asked her.

      “Will I feel anything?” she asked.

      “Not a thing.” I gave her knee a squeeze through the blanket. “That’s a promise.” I looked up as a man walked into the room.

      “Hey.” He grinned at Lani, and his entrance into the room was so casual and genial that I assumed he was the girl’s father or another relative. “I’m Dr. Pollard, Lani,” he said. “I’ll be your anesthesiologist during the surgery today.”

      The new guy, I registered. He’d been working at Duke for only a week, but I’d heard about him. He was in his late thirties and he wore khakis, a pale blue shirt and a confident air.

      “What’s an anesthesiologist?” Lani pronounced the word perfectly.

      I opened my mouth to respond, but he beat me to it. “I’ll make you comfortable during your surgery,” he said, one hand resting on the foot of her bed. With the other, he pointed toward the pole holding her saline solution. “I’ll give you medication in that IV there that will let you go into a sleep so nice and deep, it’ll feel like magic. You’ll close your eyes and count backwards from ten. The next thing you know, you’ll wake up and the surgery will be over. Then I’ll make sure you don’t have a lot of pain.”

      Lani’s mother visibly relaxed. I watched it happen, her shoulders softening as she broke into a smile. “I told you, Lani,” she said. “You won’t know anything’s happening, and you won’t remember it when you wake up.”

      “What

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