Radclyffe - Crossroads

She lay in bed in the dark, with only a sheet covering her hips and the windows open to catch the faint currents of air. The temperature outside hovered in the low seventies and sweat soon misted her skin. She stared at the ceiling, at the wavy patterns of light and dark made by moonlight filtering through the branches of the hemlock outside her window. She thought she could make out the shape of a monkey riding a tricycle.

She’d managed not to think of Annie for twelve hours. She thought of Rob almost every day, but in a distant way, as if through a curtain of rain. The instant her mind conjured up his face or a conversation or a memory of time they’d spent together, the curtain thickened and images dissolved, shielding her from the full force of the pain. Her shields had failed her when she’d seen the photographs of Linda’s family and remembered her own family and the special bond she’d shared with Rob. That little break in her defenses had been the beginning, maybe, but Annie was the one to break through all her barricades. Annie crossed her barriers like they weren’t even there, and that scared her. She was in danger of becoming attached, seriously attached, and attachments could be deadly. When they broke, or worse, were severed by random tragedy, they left you bleeding with no way to stop the hemorrhage. She’d vowed never to put herself in that position again, and she was in very real danger of doing just that.

She tossed and turned, too hot in the warm night air. Finally she got up and took another shower, and still, she couldn’t relax. She pulled on a T-shirt and blue-and-white-striped boxer shorts and walked barefoot down to her front porch in the dark. She sat in an Adirondack chair with a worn canvas cushion, alone in the night. Cars occasionally passed, and now and then she heard the distant peal of laughter or a deep rumble of conversation from an open bedroom window. She ached, as lonely as if she were marooned on some faraway planet.

She wasn’t alone—she had family she could call, but what could she say? Everyone grieved over Rob. Everyone bled. But only she carried the guilt. She dropped her head to the back of the chair and rubbed her eyes. She’d told Annie things she’d never told anyone. She’d made her last confession a week before the world exploded and hadn’t been back to Mass since. She might be forgiven her sins, but she wasn’t ready to accept absolution. Rationally, she knew she wasn’t at fault for what had happened to Rob, but she’d played a part in the tapestry of fate that had put him there that morning, all because she’d put someone first over him, because she’d taken him for granted. He’d always been there, and she’d just assumed he always would be. The next time would be time enough—and she never had another time. She’d never be able to say all the things she’d felt her entire life but never thought she needed to say.

Still, she’d confessed to Annie—the words pouring out as if from a stranger’s mouth. Why, she didn’t know. Annie would offer her forgiveness, not recognizing the magnitude of her transgressions, and maybe that was why she’d confessed what she’d never said out loud.

Annie. Annie with the understanding eyes and tender touch. If things were different, would she have taken Annie to meet Rob? Look at the woman I found—isn’t she amazing? Rob would have flicked her a high sign behind Annie’s back— Yeah, you did good, Monroe. But things were what they were—Rob would never see his own child, and Annie didn’t deserve her ghosts.

Rob’s loss had left a huge gaping hole in her life, a sorrow she couldn’t put aside. So she’d done the only thing she could—she’d withdrawn into a self-protective shell and buried herself in her work. Now Annie had cracked the shell, and she wondered if all the careful artifice of her life would fracture next.

Finally, exhausted, she made her way up to bed and lay face-down on top of the sheets, naked, alone, and accepting she had no answers.

*

The next morning, Hollis stood in a lukewarm shower until the grogginess was gone. She had a cup of coffee and was at the hospital by seven, alert and with nothing on her mind but Ellen Goodwin. At seven thirty she went to see her in the pre-op area.

“Hi, Ellen. Sleep okay?”

“Fine. How about you?”

“Like a rock.” Hollis smiled at Sheri. “How are you doing?”

Sheri rubbed Ellen’s arm. “I’m fine. We’re excited. It can’t be too soon.”

Ellen squeezed Sheri’s hand. “We’ve tried and tried and didn’t think it was ever going to happen. Now we’re almost there.”

“Good. Not much longer.” Hollis signed some of the paperwork on Ellen’s chart and placed it at the foot of the stretcher. “The anesthesiologist will be coming to take you back in just a minute. I’m going back to scrub, but you may be asleep by the time I get into the room. They’ll start an epidural, but you’ll be sedated so you may not remember everything that happens.” She looked at Sheri. “As soon as things quiet down a little in there, I’ll have the nurses call out to let you know how things are going. Don’t be concerned if you don’t hear anything for forty-five minutes or so. Sometimes we get a slow start.”

“I understand. Take as long as you need. I just want them both to be healthy.”

“Good enough. I’ll talk to you as soon as I come out.”

“Thanks, Dr. Monroe.”

Hollis squeezed Ellen’s knee. “Ready?”

“More than ready.”

“Me too.”

Hollis walked back to the OR and told the nurses she was ready.

“I’ll page anesthesia,” Sue Gregory, the scrub nurse, said. “Anything special you need?”

“I don’t think so. Who’s on call for neonatology?”

“Karl Provik.”

“Good. I’ll let you know when to call him.”

“Okay, Hollis, thanks.”

Hollis scrubbed, Sue gowned and gloved her, and as soon as anesthesia was ready, she stepped up to the table and Sue passed her the scalpel. She made the Pfannenstiel incision just above the pubic symphysis at the junction with the lower abdomen. She cut down through subcutaneous tissue and divided the rectus. The uterus looked fibrotic, somewhat pale, as if it hadn’t been getting enough blood. She was glad they hadn’t waited. She made the incision in the uterus and Sue sucked up the amniotic fluid as it gushed out. The color was good—clear, no signs of fetal distress. She widened the incision with one hand inside and palpated the baby’s head. She delivered the baby and clamped the cord.

“You can call Karl,” Hollis said and passed the baby boy to the waiting nurse. When she turned back, blood filled the uterus and poured over into the abdomen. The surgical field leapt into sharp focus, as if a color TV show had suddenly switched to black and white.

“We’ve got bleeding,” Hollis said. “Better get up another suction and start the Pitocin.” Sweat broke out on her brow and she blinked it away. “Kelly clamp.”

Someone wiped her face. The bleeding slowed but didn’t stop. “Load up the number two silks and have someone get her partner on the phone.”

“Do you want the hysterectomy tray, Hollis?” Sue asked.

Hollis looked up at the clock. “In a minute.”

*

At noon, Annie decided Hollis wasn’t going to call about meeting her for lunch before clinic. She was surprised. She’d known all along they were asking for trouble trying to build some kind of personal relationship—she hesitated to call it friendship, whatever lay between them had seemed from the onset to be something different—when they had to work together under such stressful, volatile conditions. But she’d assumed Hollis could handle it—just as she was handling it.

True, she’d had a lousy night’s sleep and been grumpy at breakfast. She’d just managed to put on enough of a smile to fool Callie, and fortunately all she’d had scheduled for the morning was paperwork. No one minded when she bitched about that. Now she sat at her desk watching the clock, giving Hollis another five minutes to call. Four minutes had passed when she finally rose, disgusted at herself for putting all the power in Hollis’s hands. She needed to be in clinic if she was going to make a decision that she hadn’t wanted to make in the first place, and she was damn well going to have the information she needed. She closed down her computer with a few sharp punches to the keyboard, snatched up her shoulder bag, and spun around, nearly colliding with Barb.