The Choices We Make (24 page)

“Oh, so we're back to this whole fucking ‘taking sides' thing? There are no sides here, Hannah. And even if there were, I am not taking David's side...” He bows his head, shaking it slowly.

“Yes, you are. Every time you push back that's
exactly
what you're doing.”

“I have no idea how to talk with you about any of this!” This explodes out of him, and now he has my full attention. “You've pulled away from me, and it's
exhausting
trying to figure out what to say, what not to say and what you want from me.”

“What I want from you?” I narrow my eyes, mentally pushing the boulder of anger closer toward him. “
Complete strangers are trying to protect our child, Ben.
Why aren't you fighting as hard as I am for our baby?”

“You want to know why?”

“Yes! Please. Enlighten me.” Without question our shouting is seeping past Peter's office door, but we're too far gone to care about anyone hearing us.

“Because that could be you in that bed! That could be you buried under all those machines, only alive because of a ventilator. That could be
you
, and that's all I see when I walk into Kate's room. I want this baby, so desperately I can't even take a deep breath when I think about him. But I can't fight David anymore, Hannah. I don't want to fight him. So please, stop asking me to.” His shoulders roll forward, and I know what I'll find if I tilt his face up to mine—heavy tears and a desperate need for me to remember that we are stronger together. But I keep my distance, because as heartbroken as I am about every last detail of this situation we're in, I must be single focused; I won't survive any of this otherwise.

“I can't,” I whisper. “I'm sorry, but I can't.”

His head lifts, his face betraying his disappointment and worry, along with what I think is a hint of disbelief, and it occurs to me Ben and I may not make it out of this in one piece, either.

51

The next morning when my phone rings at 7:00 a.m., I'm sitting on the living room couch—where I slept the night before—putting together the breast pump, Clover snuggled beside me. Things are still icy between Ben and me after our argument in Peter's office, hence the couch, and even if I knew how to fix it, I'm not sure I have the energy to do it.

“How's my very pregnant little sister?” I ask, putting my phone on speaker so I can finish assembling all the parts. I've been pumping religiously since Kate's collapse—even though technically I wasn't supposed to start for another two weeks—worried about being ready to nurse whenever the baby was born. Six times a day, including once in the middle of the night. It's draining and disheartening, and despite Trudy warning me that at first I'd be lucky to get drops of milk after a twenty-minute pumping session, I push each session to thirty minutes. I've been meticulously collecting the milk and transferring it with a dropper into a test tube, which is in the freezer. After eight days I have exactly a quarter of an ounce and raw nipples.

Claire lets out a long breath before drawing in a few short ones. I drop the bottles and pick up my phone, taking it off speaker.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Oh, I'm better than okay,” she says, breathing deeply again. “I'm finally in labor, and determined to have this baby before six p.m.”

I stand up so quickly I knock the pillows off the couch and Clover startles out of her deep sleep, barking nearly the instant her eyes open. “You're in labor?”

“It was the Scotch bonnet sauce that finally did it. Thank Ben's mom for me, would you? Her hot sauce is hotter than hell, but looks like it did the trick.”

“You're in labor.”

“For the second time, yes,” Claire says, laughing a little. “We're heading to the hospital. I wanted to let you know it's okay if you want to wait until after the baby's born, when we're home, to come by.”

I know she's thinking about the pro-life group and their signs, and how both have grown significantly in only twenty-four hours. And that I'll have to walk past them to get through the doors, and more importantly, that her having her baby today when our situation is so tenuous may be more than I can handle.

“Don't be crazy.” I throw the pump pieces back into the carrying case. “I'm on my way.” I sprint up the stairs, Clover right at my heels, and burst into the bedroom. I toss my phone on the nightstand, then wriggle out of my shorts and pull on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved cotton shirt.

“Ben,” I say, loudly so he wakes up. Clover helps by jumping up on the side of the bed and letting out three short barks. “I'm going to the hospital. Claire's in labor.”

He sits up quickly, trying to rub the sleep out of his eyes. “Claire's having her baby? Like, now?”

“Yes, like now,” I reply.

He watches me as I race around our room, trying to keep from stepping on Clover while I do. “I'm coming with you.”

I pause, take a breath, try to figure out if I even want him there. “Fine. I'm leaving in five minutes,” I finally say.

“Okay. I'll be ready.” He grabs a pair of jeans from where he dropped them on the floor the night before and a crew neck T-shirt, which he pulls over his head in one move. “Hannah, are you sure you're okay?”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” I grumble, grabbing my toothbrush and speeding it over my teeth. I spit in the sink and watch him from the bathroom mirror. He looks worried, and it makes me antsy. “I'm fine. This is my sister and my niece we're talking about, and so, yes, I'm sure. Now get dressed or I'm leaving without you.”

* * *

Once we arrive at the hospital I understand Claire's hesitation. The group has more than tripled in size, to the point where it's hard to see a space to walk between the protesters and their signs. There are also police out front now and more news crews scattered about.

“Oh, my God.” I have visions of David walking past this group, these signs, every day. Of Ava and Josie somehow seeing this, and understanding what it means. I suppose I could thank Kate's dad for bringing this fight here, for unknowingly giving our baby a voice in this terrible situation, but all I feel is a pit of gloom in my stomach.

I'm sure every time David sees the
Life Is Precious
sign circling around, all he thinks about is Kate and how the preciousness of her life is under threat. These signs, their messages, have reduced her to a body in a bed—a vessel for something more important. And by forcing David's hand to keep the baby inside her, we are also forcing him to relinquish the pathetic kernel of control he has left: his ability to make a decision when it comes to Kate's care. My stomach churns, and I feel hot and light-headed.

Ben presses his lips together, the way he does when he's trying to keep something to himself. “Let's go through the emergency room doors.”

My body betrays me, and I start to shiver despite how warm out it is already. I'm grateful Ben's beside me—no matter what has happened between us. He leads me through and away from the circus, and we're almost past the worst of it when I hear “Hannah Matthews?”

Suddenly a microphone is shoved in my face, held by a pretty young woman with a perfectly styled bob and long, mascara-heavy eyelashes. I'm standing in front of her, mute, trying to figure out how she recognizes me...until I see the copy of
Femme
in her other hand, the magazine held open and displaying my photo and byline. Ben shoves me forward, trying to get me away from her microphone, but the crowd has swallowed us. Now there are other microphones and tape recorders and outstretched arms all around me, and I open and close my mouth a few times, feeling claustrophobic and desperate to escape. The questions come rapid-fire.

“What's the status of the baby, Hannah?”

“What's Kate Cabot's condition? Is she still on life support?”

“When do you expect the judge to rule?”

“How far along is the pregnancy?”

“No comment,” Ben says, grabbing both my arms and pushing me forward hard enough I stumble a bit. I can't draw a full breath and am grateful when Ben's determined shoving somehow breaks us out of the group. He grabs my hand and tells me to run, and so we do, making it through the emergency room doors a moment later, which the media are blocked from entering by security.

I'm hyperventilating, and I try to focus on what Ben is saying instead of how hard it's become to breathe.

“Hannah, they can't get in here. Breathe. Out through your mouth, in through your nose.” He forces me into a chair and pushes me forward so I'm chest to thigh, my head between my knees. “There. Better. Keep breathing.”

It takes ten minutes, but soon my breathing has evened out and I don't feel as though I'm going to faint. And after I've managed to sit up, I clutch Ben's jacket to hold him tight to me and I know it's not worth it—I can't fight Ben, too. Somehow I have to find a way to fix all of this, to heal the damage we've endured and, in some cases, done to each other—before it's too late.

* * *

I'm feeling steadier once we've made it up to the labor and delivery floor, where we find Peter at the nursing station.

“Peter,” I call out, and he turns. He's wearing jeans, a simple plaid button-down and tennis shoes, and away from the law firm and without his glasses on, I'm struck again by how young he looks—more like a first-year associate than the firm's founding partner. He smiles and comes toward us.

He hugs us, smelling fresh-from-the-shower clean, his shirt carrying the slightest hint of some kind of cologne. “Claire will be happy you're here. She's in room 201.” He points to the right down a long hallway. “I'm just off to grab her some ice chips, so I'll meet you back there.” He pauses, watching us carefully. “You guys doing okay?” I nod, an embarrassed flush threatening my cheeks when I think about our shouting match in his office the day before. “Good, okay. That's good,” Peter says, turning to head down the hall. “I'll see you in there.”

As Ben and I walk toward Claire's room, I suddenly remember the pump. Sitting on the kitchen island where I forgot to grab it in our haste to get here. “Shit,” I say, stopping so quickly my rubber-soled espadrilles squeak on the linoleum.

“What? What's the matter?” Ben stops a step ahead of me, and looks back with concern.

“I forgot the pump at home.”

“Do you need it?” Ben sounds irritable, and I try not to let it bother me. After what happened on our way in here of course we're both still on edge.

“I didn't get a chance to pump this morning, and I don't want to screw up the schedule. It's okay. I'll just run home and get it.” But the thought of crossing back through the crowd of reporters and picketers makes me weak.

“No, you stay. I'll go back and get it—you go in with Claire.”

“Thank you,” I reply, relief washing over me.

“Sure,” Ben says, a hesitant smile on his face. “I'll be back as soon as I can, okay?”

We kiss goodbye—quickly and without fanfare, the way we used to before heading to work back when life was simple—and I wonder if I should have held him to me longer, as if that alone could erase whatever still held us apart.

But he's gone before I can do anything about it, and so I head to Claire's room, which is large and cheerful with huge windows and pale lavender paint on the walls. I'm struck by how different this room feels compared with Kate's, which is white and clinical and lifeless.

Claire is pacing in front of the windows, one hand held to her belly and the other on her phone. She looks beautiful and relaxed—her hair up in a smooth and taut ballerina bun, all held in place with a thin black fabric headband. Her face is bare, which allows the smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose to stand out. I'm swept back to when we were kids, spending lazy summer days making watermelon-and-mint popsicles with Grams and swimming in our grandparents' pool, which had been original to the house and always had a thin layer of slippery green algae on its rough stone sides.

“You look too beautiful to be in labor.” I hug her, her belly pressing between us. “How goes it?”

“It goes,” she says, grimacing slightly through a contraction. I hold her hands, which tightly squeeze my own, and breathe with her until her face relaxes again and she stands up straighter. “You are so lucky you don't need to do this,” she says, taking in a deep breath. Then, seeing the look on my face, she starts apologizing profusely. “Shit, that was the most insensitive thing I could have said. I'm so sorry, Hannah. I didn't mean—”

“No, it's okay. I know what you meant.”

But Claire's guilt is still etched on her face. “Can I blame my stupidity on the pain of my uterus trying to eject itself from my body?”

“You don't need to apologize. You're right. There are definitely pros to outsourcing labor.” I smile and change the subject. “Where's Mom?”

“She's making calls out there somewhere, telling everyone she's ever known her first grandchild is coming.” Surprisingly this doesn't hurt me, though I would have expected it to as I—the eldest—was the one who was supposed to give Mom her first grandchild.

“I would have thought she'd be attached to you.”

“She has been—trust me. I had to get Peter to practically drag her out of our bedroom this morning when she was trying to help me get dressed. I mean, I may be in labor but I can still put my underwear and bra on myself, you know?” She rolls her eyes, then closes them as another contraction moves through her.

“Those are picking up, huh?” Peter asks, coming to stand behind her and rubbing her lower back in swift circles. He glances at his watch and back at Claire's face, which is still scrunched in pain. A minute later the contraction subsides and Claire is back to normal. She takes my hand and squeezes. “How are you?”

“I'm fine. Stop asking me and worry about yourself, okay?”

“Where's Ben? Didn't he come with you?”

“He went home to grab my pump. I forgot it in the rush.”

Claire starts pacing again. “Sorry, I have to keep moving. It's like someone is pounding on my spine with rubber mallets. Or something equally as horrible.”

I walk beside her, linking my arm through hers while she uses her other hand to balance herself against the window's long ledge.

“How's the pumping going?”

I shrug. “It's fine. I'm making about enough to feed a baby hummingbird breakfast at this point.”

Claire laughs at that, and a moment later a doctor—who I think looks a bit old, with his donut of white hair and crinkled skin, to still be practicing medicine—arrives and says it's time to check Claire's progress.

At that point I leave and wait outside the room, hoping Ben gets back soon. I see my mom coming down the hall, her pace quick and frantic but just shy of a jog. It's sweet how excited she is, and I find myself smiling.

“Hannah!” she says, her tone enthusiastic and a good match for her pace. “When did you get here? Where's Ben?”

“About half an hour ago. And Ben just ran home to get something I forgot.”

“Okay, good,” she says, craning her head toward Claire's room. I probably could have said Ben was headed to hunt moose in Canada's far north and she would have responded the same way. “What's happening in there? How's Claire?”

Before I get a chance to respond Peter pokes his head out the door. “She's ready to start pushing,” he says, his grin stretching so wide it takes over half his face. Mom practically leaps toward the door, then as an afterthought, reaches back to hug me. “That's my cue,” she says. “See you later, honey.”

I give Peter a look. “Claire asked your mom to be in the room for the delivery,” he says, answering my unspoken question. “Trust me—I was as surprised as you look. I figured even I'd have to grovel to be allowed in there.” He chuckles, then glances back into the room when my mom calls his name. “There's a waiting room just down the hall. I promise I'll come and find you the moment I can, okay?”