Rosie: I better get going. Love you guys.
Nadia: Love your face! Hang in there!
Shored up by her squad, Rosie went about her rounds as normal. Vitals were checked, diapers were changed, and the twin with jaundice had her time under the bili-light. When it was Jayden’s turn to be fed, she let his mother, Mandy, do the actual feed. The grateful woman turned to her with a watery smile.
“His siblings keep asking when we’ll bring him home. Do you have any idea?”
Rosie bit her tongue. “Dr. Carter is waiting to get some more test results, I’ll send her in as soon as we get them back.” She prayed her face didn’t betray what Shannon had told her. And she prayed that the test results wouldn’t come in while she was working.
She didn’t get her wish. At around eight in the evening, the results showed up in Jayden’s electronic chart. It wasn’t good. Shortly after they showed up, Dr. Carter strode down the hall toward the nurse’s station
“Rosie,” she said, “I wanted to let you know I’m heading into twenty-four. I’ve called Dr. West to come down for a consult.”
Rosie nodded. The other nurses and aides in the vicinity went silent. Everyone knew what was going on when palliative care got called in. Then Dr. Carter disappeared into room twenty-four. She was just close enough, and the other nurses were quiet enough, to hear most of what she said.
I received the final test results and they do not give any indication that your son’s lungs are deficient on the surface. However, as you know, we have tried sedation and temporary paralysis and we still can’t wean him from the ventilator. After exhausting all other possibilities, it appears Jayden has outgrown his lungs and they can’t support him anymore…
Mandy’s wail cut through her heart like a lightsaber.
The rest of Rosie’s shift was a blur. Grandparents came in, well after normal visiting hours. Extended relatives brought in Jayden’s nine siblings to meet and say goodbye to their baby brother. No one said a word. The rules no longer applied to their family. A priest came around five a.m. to baptize him, and probably give him his last rites. Dr. West and the social worker came down at six. Rosie’s brain switched to autopilot. At seven, she gave her report to the incoming nurse, someone she hadn’t worked with before. Dr. West had called one of his nurses in to help the family transition. But Rosie couldn’t tell you her name once she left the building. The drive home happened without an accident, but she couldn’t recall the trip at all.
She was empty. Numb. And she couldn’t stomach going home to a dark, equally empty apartment, knowing her patient would likely be gone by the time she returned.
That was how Rosie found herself outside Olivia’s door at seven-thirty in the morning. But it wasn’t until the door opened she remembered who lived there now.
Matt opened the door, his blond hair rumpled like he’d just woken up, barefoot and wearing his Virginia Tech t-shirt with orange plaid lounge pants. He blinked at her, and Rosie’s zombie mask crumbled.
She raised her face as her vision blurred behind the tears she’d been fighting all night. “I’m sorry,” she croaked as a sob rattled her chest. “I—I completely forgot Olivia doesn’t live here anymore.” Just as she was about to turn away and crawl back to her cave, a pair of strong arms pulled her inside.
The door clicked shut as the arms wrapped themselves around her, pressing Rosie into a giant teddy bear. Except this was no stuffed animal. It was Matt.
Chapter 9
Mattstoodintheentryway of the apartment half asleep, his dream girl Rosie tight in his embrace. He couldn’t believe he was stroking her silky hair as her tears soaked his shirt. Listening to her sobs felt like someone was driving a knife into his chest, but he wouldn’t let go for anything. Closing his eyes, Matt pressed his nose to her temple and committed the feel of her soft, luscious curves in his arms to memory. His heart pounded in his chest as he was struck by the realization that she trusted him.Please don’t let this be the only time I get to hold her,he prayed.
“Rosie, what happened? Are you okay?” he murmured drowsily in her ear.
The gasp of her breath as she tried to speak broke his heart. She started crying harder.
“It’s alright, you don’t have to talk about it.” Matt swept her onto Olivia’s red couch only a couple feet away, cradling Rosie on his lap. He rubbed circles into her back as she hiccuped into his shoulder.
“We … we’re losing baby Jayden.”
Matt held her tighter. He looked down at her face, but Rosie’s red-rimmed eyes weren’t looking at anything he could see.
“His lungs just … aren’t growing. He’ll never breathe on his own. Life on a ventilator isn’t living. Dr. Carter had to tell the family that we … we can’t save him.”
Rosie buried her face in his chest once more. Matt held her till her tears ran dry. She pulled her face away, but Matt didn’t move his arms.
“I’m so, so sorry. You must think I’m a total mess.” She wiped at her face.
“You’re not a mess at all.” Matt said without thinking. “You’re incredible. I could never do what you do. You’ve got to be the strongest person I know.” She blinked up her green eyes up at him, and he lost himself there as the words flowed freely. “You saved my dad when he had his heart attack. You work with the tiniest, most fragile babies. Babies that wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for you, for the NICU.” He swallowed, the next thing he had to say making him pause. Matt thought he’d have a better time to tell her, more time to plan. But this felt right. She needed to be reminded today that her profession made a difference.
“Iwouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the NICU.”
Her perfect bow lips, reddened from the salt of her tears, fell open. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you speak to me. I thought you didn’t like me.”
Matt shook his head. He had been thinking these things for years, keeping tabs on her through conversations with Olivia, but he’d never had the courage to say them. Maybe because seeing his angel so vulnerable, so utterlyhuman,he was able to confess it now. Or because she’d woke him out of a dead sleep.
