Seeing Is Believing
If I hadn't seen it with my own eyes I wouldn't have believed it, but there she is, large as life and twice as startling.
Abby. Baby.
I just now realised that that's an anagram.
It's not like I haven't known about the whole thing, but hearing is a very different thing from seeing. Hearing from Greg that she and Kovac were "back together" I could be happy for them. Hearing they were "having a baby together soon" pulled me up a little but I could smile about it, even if I could hear myself asking her "Is that what this is about?" about 90 seconds before Chuny told us he was dead. But seeing it …
I still can't say I'm a father. It's just bullshit what people said to me after Joshua died … didn't live … whatever it was that happened. They said it didn't make any difference, that I was still a dad.
Bullshit. I never changed a diaper, or walked the floor with him while he cried, or kept myself awake just to watch him sleep, never felt my heart in my mouth when he was sick or hurt, never felt my gut tighten when someone made him unhappy, I never took too many photos at birthday parties, watched him wobble on a bike, helped him out with his homework or grounded him or tried to remember the courage it takes to ask for your first date, or reassured him that everything would be OK when me and his mom fought.
A baby being conceived, born even, doesn't make a dad, any more than a wedding makes a marriage. Kem says she's not ready yet, not ready to try again, so I wait for when she might be, hope that what I'm feeling is OK, because half the time I don't even know what it is. I spend a lot of time watching desperate people crying over their dead kids these days, people who don't have any tears left for themselves but who find them for the little scraps of themselves they'll bury in the next few hours. I watch them use precious water to wash the little bodies, watch them press a last kiss to the dead faces, stroke the hair on the dead scalps, watch them wrap them carefully in winding sheets which make the bodies look smaller somehow, watch them lie them tenderly in the ground. I can only bear it because they do. In the end the skills I bring to them look pretty feeble when all that's left is love and memories. And looking through the rain at Luka's son I realise he knew that all along. "I couldn't remember why it was so important. My children were dead". And his kids being dead didn't stop him being a father.
She's alone in the ambulance bay, scraping her hair out of her eyes, under the canopy to avoid the shower that caught me by surprise, maybe waiting for Luka. She doesn't see me so I can watch as she talks to the baby, no, not the baby, Joe, I know his name is Joe, I can watch as she talks to him, smiles, her eyes exaggeratedly wide, watch as she ducks in and blows into the soft skin of his neck so that he squeals and throws himself backwards in her arms and she has to put a hand to his back to stop him toppling out of her grasp. I can't tell from here which one of them he looks like. His hair is dark but that could have come from either of them.
The rain has stopped and for a minute the sun comes out and she turns her face up toward it. Joe follows her gaze and seeing nothing of interest lunges at her, hands either side of her face, mouth open on her cheek. I hear her "Eeew, Joe!" and she laughs and scrubs at her wet face with her sleeve, and just then, as she drops her arm she sees me, and her face falters, just for a second, before breaking into a grin. She waves and makes to head over to me but I motion to her no, and jog across the intervening space, not looking where I'm going, soaking my pant leg as I drop a left foot into a puddle. Rain, lots of it, standing water, it's a thing of beauty to me nowadays.
"Hey!" Her grin broadens.
"Hey yourself."
I didn't know you were here."
"Flying visit, just a couple of days, foundation stuff"
"The centre?"
"Yeah.
She glances over my shoulder. "Kem here?"
"Not this time." There's a silence which with the best will in the world can only be described as awkward. "So, you going to introduce me to your new guy?"
"Excuse me?"
I nod at Joe.
"Oh, right, well … this is Joe, and this here," and she turns a little so he has to look at me, "this here is Uncle John."
"Carter."
"Uncle Carter?"
"Just Carter. Why change the habits of a lifetime? You waiting for Luka?"
"I was waiting for Luka but he just called to say he's still in a Department Heads' meeting and will be at least another half hour talking about the cost of paper towels in the staff rest rooms."
"Department Heads? He's – "
"Chief."
"Wow." I must look as wrong footed as I feel because she frowns a little.
"What?"
"Nothing, that's … that's great."
"But?" The frown is still there.
"I was just … when I first got here I promised myself I'd be doing that job one day." There a lot of things I thought I'd be doing one day and Luka seems to have beaten me to pretty much all of them. "God, it's a lifetime ago".
"You should be careful what you wish for. "
"I should?"
"Poisoned chalice. Luka … I mean he's great with the staff and the medicine but the paperwork, the meetings, the targets and performance indicators and ass kissing … not so much."
That gets a laugh out of me. "I can imagine. Kerry loved it."
"She's gone."
Gone? Gone as in … left? Gone as in … dead? "Gone where?"
"Look, Luka's going to be hip deep in paper towels for a while - do you want to get a cup of coffee or something and I can fill you in."
I don't know. Do I? "What about Joe?"
"He just ate, he'll be fine."
I don't really want to do this, watch her playing happy families with Joe until Luka shows up, but I don't have a good reason not to and there's something stopping me making one up. "Sure." I offer to carry her bag but she shrugs me off and we head down the street to a coffee shop that wasn't here last time I was. I must have walked past the place a million times but I can't remember what it used to be. A hardware store maybe? Doesn't matter.
The waitress smiles at Abby like she knows her and chucks Joe under the chin. "Hey there little guy! How are you doing?" Joe grins at her and she grins back and then peers around me with a little frown. "And where's the big guy? Where's your daddy, huh?" She winks at Abby who rolls her eyes but can't quite suppress a smile before she heads over to a table by the window. Plus ça change … The waitress, who I see from her name tag is called Joni, gives me a perfunctory smile, and says "Be right there".
Joe is grabbing at napkins and I'm a little taken aback when Abby plops him into my lap. "Here, hang onto him a minute". She rummages in her bag and I find Joe's eyes with my own. Brown, Abby's eyes. He stares levelly back at me, like he's waiting for me to do something impressive. I got nothing.
"Hey, Joe", and my mind supplies "Where you goin' with that gun in your hand?" and that makes me smile. He smiles back at me and jiggles his head from side.
She's watching me.
"He likes you".
Joni interrupts this Hallmark moment with a chirpy "What'll it be?"
Well, this I can do. "Two coffees – "
"Coffee?" Joni's eyebrows are heading for her hairline.
"Not coffee? Abby?"
"Dr Kovac always gets hot chocolate for Dr Lockhart."
"I – I kind of got used to it while I was pregnant."
"Hot chocolate it is then. Coffee for me"
"You have something you want me to warm up for Joe?"
"Nah, he just ate.."
"Do the grownups want anything to eat?"
We don't, maybe when Luka gets here, which reminds her to send a message to tell him where she is.
We're quiet then as Joe chews on his fingers and Abby periodically leans over and wipes his chin..
"Teeth?"
"Oh yeah, and don't we know it."
We.
More silence, interrupted by Joni who brings the drinks, setting them out of Joe's reach like the old hand she obviously is.
" I didn't order marshmallows."
"Dr Kovac always gets them for you."
"Dr Kovac is a bad influence."
"Uh-huh". Again with the wink. Jesus.
I clear my throat and break up the little smugfest. Joni shoots me a look and books.
"So, what news from the Rialto? Tell me about Kerry."
"Moved to Florida with a hot TV producer ."
"What hospital?"
"She's doing TV, she's all over some morning show."
"What brought that on?"
"Well, she's also all over the hot TV producer. And, uh, Luka fired her."
I have to fight to stop myself spitting hot coffee all over the back of Joe's head.
"He what?"
"He had to lose an Attending and – "
"She wasn't – "
"Long story. And … she was ready to move on. I miss her."
"I'll bet."
"No, I really do. She had her hip fixed, good as new. New-ish."
She carries on talking, Susan going, some guy who had a total meltdown, Neela's glittering career in surgery, balanced by the horror of Gallant's death, and I can't wuite take that in, Joe being born too soon after a mind boggling shoot out in the ER, something about her needing surgery but she cuts that short. But I barely hear her. I'm looking out to the street and thinking that it's true, you really never can go back, and then I realise she's stopped. When I look back at her she's just sitting there, leveling those brown eyes at me.
"What?"
"I said that Frank outed himself and Pratt's joined the Moscow State Circus".
Busted. "I'm sorry. It all seems a little … "
"Alien?"
"Kinda. So you – what happened to you?"
"You can't figure it out?"
I think for a second that she's joking about getting knocked up but her face is serious. "Tell me." I realise Joe has fallen asleep.
She sighs, tucks her hair behind her ear, classic delaying tactic, looks out of the window. "I grew up." A pause. "I fell in love." She's trying not to smile but not only is she doing exactly that she's also blushing a little. She looks back at me now, raises her shoulders. "I fell in love. I never felt this before. I didn't think I could feel this for anyone. Well I don't know, maybe I could have, but … "
I take advantage of the pause. "Things got in the way." Yeah – muggers beaten to death, crazy moms. Me.
"I don't know. Maybe. You have to be in the right place, both of you, right?"
"I guess."
"It's kind of scary when you think how hit and miss it all is. If I'd decided to risk it with Jake – "
"If Luka was still with Sam – "
"If you'd have listened to me when I asked you not to go back to Africa for him – "
" – or Gillian."
" – or if – look, are you trying to make a point? Are you? Because I think we've known each other long enough for you to just spit it right out."
She's raised her eyebrows but she hasn't raised her voice, it just feels like she has. And the truth is I have no point to make, looking at her, thinking about Luka, everything in between their first go round and now feels like a detour, and I remember how unsurprised I was by Pratt's news and how little it seemed to be news to him. And how comfortable she seems with it all and that it could have been me she was sitting here waiting for and that I want to be meeting up with Kem in undistinguished cafes and diners and juggling strollers and yes, it could have been me but I'm glad it's not because then me and Kem would never have met, and I feel like –
"I feel like a spectator."
"A spectator."
"Yeah."
"OK, well you're going to have to help me out on that one because I have no idea –"
"I don't know what's going on with me and Kem" I blurt out. The sardonic smile on her face is gone. "I don't know what she wants, what we want, when we can pick up our lives. She's in Paris now, to be with her mother – "
"Her mother?"
"She's sick, she has cancer, it's end stage – and it's been four months, and I sometimes can't remember what she looks like, or feels like, or … what she is to me or why she can't come spend some time with me." So there we are, what I should have said is I don't know what I am to her.
"In Africa? It's not like she could just stop by for a weekend, is it?"
"Or here! Or London, or – "
"Or you could go over there."
"What?"
"Oh come on, you have a passport, you have money, why don't you go over there?"
"Darfur isn't the kind of place you can just walk in and out of."
"And yet here you are."
"Here I am."
"Come on Carter, you knew she wasn't your garden variety gal when you married her. She always went where she felt … needed."
"I need her."
"No you don't, not like her mom, you just want her."
"That has to count for something, I have to count for something."
"So go tell her, you did before." I don't answer because I know she's right. "Look," she continues, "just do it, OK? You married her, better or worse, sickness and health, feeling great and feeling neglected because of your mother in law dying slowly of cancer. If I've learned anything in nearly 40 years it's that stuff isn't arranged to suit you. And what about if she needs to be there for her mother? Sulking until someone proves they love you enough never works. Believe me, I've tried it. Sometimes you have to just close your eyes and jump. "
"And hope the fall doesn't kill you."
"It's not the fall that hurts, it's when you hit the ground." That gets a laugh at least, and I'm already thinking about flights to Paris, and it suddenly seems easy, ridiculously easy. "And not jumping usually ends up hurting just as much." I finish my coffee and realise that I'm pretty sick of the view from up my own ass.
"What about you?"
"What?"
I nod toward her left hand. "You ready to jump again? Going to let him make an honest woman of you?" There's that smile, that hint of a blush.
"As a matter of fact I'm going to make an honest man of him".
"I daren't ask."
She sighs. "He asked me to marry him, before Joe was born. And then he asked me again. I gave him the "I don't need a ring and a white dress" crap."
"And?"
"And he said he'd wait. And he waited, and I let him, and it wasn't until he was up on the roof with Ames and I heard the gunshot – "
"Whoah, wait, wait, what did I miss here?"
And so she tells me, and it's all I can do not to laugh because Jesus Christ, you couldn't make this up. I have a memory of Luka, kneeling in the dirt at Matenda, glaring not very helpfully at the Mai Mai, almost daring the guy to pull the trigger while the government soldier pleaded for his life and Gillian cried and I just about peed my pants and really, really didn't care as long as they went away and left us all alive. I wonder if Abby knows about that. I'd guess not. And now she's telling me that – this time - he begged for his life because he had a family to live for, and somehow an angry man with a gun spared him yet again.
"So – I asked him. "
"To marry you".
"To ask me again."
"Sounds so simple."
"It was. It is. Sometimes you need fate or a crazy man with a gun to administer a kick in the ass to make you see that there's a whole lot of stuff you thought mattered that really doesn't. But then you know that."
I don't know if she's talking about me and Kem or me and her but what does it matter now? "Yeah. I know that". I become aware that there is one very simple thing that matters right now and see from the way she wrinkles her nose that she's got the same message.
"Joe, not again! " She sighs and picks up the enormous bag that all parents tote on every trip. "You are never eating prunes again". She holds out her arms and I pass a slightly groggy and already whimpering Joe to her. Fragrant he is not right now. "I'll be right back" she says and hitches him onto her hip before making for the ladies room. I don't notice that Joni has sidled up to me.
"Refill?" I hold out my cup and she fills it but she doesn't go, instead hovering by the table. "You new here?"
"Er, no, not exactly. I worked at the hospital for … years."
"Uh-huh. " She's waiting.
"Me and Abby and Luka go way back".
"They're a lovely family. I look forward to seeing them, they make me smile. Can't say that about many people who come in here. Guess that's true of your line of work too, huh?"
"Pretty much." If she thinks Cook County is short on laughs she should hear where I've been lately. She's still hovering, waiting for gossip, some titbit she doesn't know about Mom and Dad and Joe makes three. She'll have to wait. She deflates slightly with disappointment but then bucks right up as she spies someone over my shoulder and her big, plain face is suffused by a huge grin, and can she possibly be blushing?
Guess who.
"Carter!" A hand descends emphatically on my shoulder and its owner moves past me and slides into the seat opposite. "Welcome back!"
I open my mouth to answer but Joni gets there first. "The usual?"
"Yes. Uh, no, something cold. Diet Coke"
"Thirsty work?"
"Lot of talking, too much talking, not a whole lot of listening."
"Coming right up then." She scurries off and I wonder whether Luka's Coke will come with sparklers and a paper umbrella and dancing girls.
The man himself glances round, frowning slightly.
"Restroom with Joe. I hope it wasn't you that gave him the prunes."
"Not guilty. You're looking good – you lost weight".
"The Darfur diet will do that for you."
"Kem here?"
"Paris. Her mom's, well, she doesn't have long left".
"That's tough. It's good she can be there with her. It means a lot."
"Yeah."
He's glancing around again, fingers drumming on the table top. Jesus, she's only changing a diaper. But then I notice that there's something a little strange about his hand, slight discoloration, a certain unnaturalness of articulation, like maybe he'd had an accident.
"What happened to your hand?"
"What? Oh – long story. Caught it in a vice."
"How do you catch your hand in a vice?"
"Like I said, long story. Finishing up physio, should be fine soon." He shrugs. "I don't think I'll be playing the piano again though."
"You play the – " and I stop because he's looking at me with "don't be ridiculous" expression. "Oh, funny, very funny."
His drink arrives, no umbrella, no sparklers, unless you count Joni's pearly whites. And then here's Abby, grinning, bending to kiss him, her arm across his shoulders. Joe grins too and holds out his arms to his father who sets him on his lap, instinctively pushing his glass out of reach, before scooting over to make room for Abby. I feel a little nauseated. I remember playing this scene and others like it out in my head while we waited for Joshua to be born, and before that I'd played it out in my head while I waited for something somewhere to click into place, for some gear to engage with Abby, some gear that never did engage. And even in my imagination I could never have painted the smile she's wearing now as she reaches out and snags a sip of Luka's Coke.
"It's bad enough you do that with the fries you say you don't want until you see them on my plate, now you're branching out into beverages."
"What's yours is mine"
"That's not official yet. Don't push it." Joe has pushed himself onto his feet in his father's lap and Luka smiles at me over his head. "She told you?"
"She did. Congratulations. When's the big day?" I didn't have a big day, just a half hour in the Mairie in Neuilly sur Seine, and then instead of a honeymoon we headed back to Kinshasa. It didn't seem to matter at the time.
"The big day," he says, looking not at me but at Abby, "depends on the bride actually making some decisions about the whole thing." Now he looks at me. "She gets to arrange the wedding, I do the honeymoon, although at the rate she's moving it will have to be in a retirement resort".
"It's all in hand" the bride says, evidently lying through her teeth. The bride. The ring I nearly gave her is still in the safe. I never even thought of giving it to Kem and now that I'm thinking about it I can't quite believe I ever thought that it belonged on Abby's finger. She's not wearing an engagement ring now.
"No engagement ring?" I blurt.
And there, she looks right at me, right in the eyes.
"I don't need one."
The message is clear – the biggest diamond in the world doesn't make up for a lack of guts, of faith. The biggest diamond in the world means nothing if it stays in a guy's pocket.
Luka coughs, breaks the moment and right there I know that she must have told him, must have described the deserted restaurant, the candlelight and Claire de Lune and the chocolate soufflé and the finding the ring later, and for all I still think of him as clueless, as being an ignorant, innocent onlooker to our exchanges, not in on the secret, I get it that he's not, and now I wonder if he ever was.
"Will you excuse me a minute? I need the, er, the … " I nod toward the restrooms and try not to hurry toward them. Once there I splash cold water on my face and look at myself in the mirror. "What the hell are you doing here? You walked away and stayed away and these people don't need you." I'm suddenly unbearably, cripplingly lonely. Those looks that they exchange between one another, that … intimacy, I'm not a stranger to that, I've had that, been one half of it. "And you don't need them." Fishing in my pocket I pull out my phone. She picks up and it's only now that I think about the time difference. She sounds tired, upset, miserable.
"Your mom bad?"
"No, no change, holding on. I just … I wish you were here to talk to and hold my hand. I miss you."
The words I'd said to Abby, that pathetic, petulant, up my ass whining about her staying away so long bring a bit of a blush to my face. Her mother is dying, her mother who she barely sees, her mother for God's sake.
"I know. I miss you. There's a flight to Paris at midnight, I'm going to be on it."
I'm waiting for her to protest, to say "No, you mustn't, take your time in Chicago, don't change your plans" but instead I hear her give a little muffled sob and what she actually says is "Can you? I should tell you not to but I need … I want so badly for you to be here, I – "
I cut her off. "I know. I know. I'll be there, I will."
"I love you so much".
I can't think of anything to say back that isn't a cliché – so I go with the cliché. "Me too. Je t'aime" She laughs a little then, and I can picture her wiping tears from her face. "I should go. I have a ticket to buy". Another laugh. "I'll give Luka and Abby your love."
"Oh, give him a kiss from me"
"Give – "
"If he hadn't nearly got himself killed I wouldn't have you, would I?"
"Right. Well you know I'd do just about anything for you, but kissing Luka … "
"Come on, embrace your feminine side."
"I'm hanging up now. I'll let you know my ETA."
"I love you."
"Yeah – I know." And I really do.
………………………………………………………………………………………………
When I get back to the table they're deep in conversation, Luka looking over Joe's head at a board book, managing to sound convincingly astonished and excited by the pictures in it. As I approach Abby leans over and kisses her son, and following a word from her husband to be, him too.
"I have to get going".
"Really? Stay and eat." Luka sounds like he means it; Abby says nothing.
"I'd love to, but duty calls, and then I have a midnight flight to Paris to get".
"You going to see Kem? "
"Yeah, screw the Board – we pay a Chief Executive very generously to see to that stuff. "
"Thank God for video conferencing, huh?" Abby looks at me, her expression bordering on "I told you so". To her credit, she doesn't say it.
Luka makes to shift Joe, but I stop him. "Don't get up, little guy's really into that. It was good to see you both. All. Whatever."
I can't think of another thing to say and so I just turn and head out. I'm only a few yards down the street when I hear her call my name.
"Smart move" she says, smiling up at me as a few drops of rain fall. "Paris I mean."
"Yeah. When you're right you're right."
"But of course."
"And we only have one mom."
She gives a throaty laugh. "Thank God".
There's a moment's silence which I break with "Take care of each other. "
"Yeah." She's waiting so in the end I do it, I close the gap between us and hug her. "You know," she says, squinting up at me, "I never thanked you."
"For what?"
"Bringing him back."
"Well just look after him, I'm not doing it again." Then again, from what she's told me about the Vec and the crazy guy with the gun someone up there is looking out for him. "Oh, and – " I bend and kiss her briefly on the mouth " – that's from Kem."
"She sent me a kiss?"
"No, she sent Luka a kiss for being Cupid in Cargo pants and you know I'm grateful to him for being the instrument of romance his brush with death turned him into, but there's a limit."
"I'll be sure to pass it on."
Another silence. "I have a plane to catch."
"Get out of here, go find your wife."
She steps back and motions me away from her. There was a time, not long ago, when I'd have felt the poignancy of this, but instead I grin.
"See you around".
I look back just the once and she's still watching me, taking careful steps backward, wanting to get back to them, but seeing me off, and at that moment the rain starts, and she gives me one last wave, turns and scampers back into the diner.
I wonder if it's raining in Paris. I kind of hope so.