"A Rose By Any Other Name"
By: Rena Cresten
Chapter 3
Disclaimer: I own the story. That's about it. Okay, disclaimer done.
Author's notes: Thanks for the reviews, they mean a lot. Even the ones that seem to say bad things were good. And I like that. Constructive criticism. What a wonderful thing. Oh, and I hope your still all enjoying this story. I know I'm enjoying writing it. One last thing, someone reviewed that I have a lot of spelling errors. If there is someone out there that is trustworthy and would like to proof read for me, I would love to hear from you. I try to get it as perfect as possible, but I know mistakes are still made. A fresh look is what it needs. Thanks again for reading. Enjoy ...
*************
I don't know what I was thinking at my wedding. I keep watching the tape of it and I just don't understand what could have been going through my head. I mean, I get the whole blanking during the ceremony part. But for goodness sake, how much did I drink if I thought I could sing karoake. It was just awful, and I will never live it down. If only Anna would let me erase that part of the tape. I promised she wouldn't notice too much. I'll put something else just as good there. Maybe just go have the tape spliced to cut that part out. She, on the other hand thinks it is precious and made me swear not to do anything to it. I happen to think she is just out to make sure she has blackmail later on down the road.
"You aren't watching that wedding video again, are you?" I turned just long enough to send her a fake little smile and watch her waddling down the hallway from the bedroom. Another three weeks and we would have a bouncing baby, uh, well just a bouncing baby. She refused to tell me what it is, and tries to tell me she doesn't know either. Now that is a load of crap if ever I heard one. She is so nosy and pushy and ... I think I had better stop before she reads my mind in that unnerving way she does and-
"What did you say Baby?" Yeah, just like that. It's like she knows everything in my mind. Which just gives me the creeps. I mean what about my private thoughts? Some of those I don't want anyone to know, some of them I don't even want to know.
"Nothing Anna, darling." She switched off the video, smiling sweetly to herself as though she had won something I didn't even know was up for grabs. What exactly is it about women that is so confounding?
I watched her take the video and slide it slowly into its case and set it firmly back in its place on the wall. And oddly enough it was almost as though she had put some barrier on it, I wouldn't have grabbed that video from its spot again for anything. Yet another womanly mystery.
"Baby, what do you want for-" I was just switching on the news, and my attention span was slowly dwindling. It was Sunday for crying out loud.
"What did you say Annie?" She didn't answer me, which wasn't odd since it was dinner time. What was odd was the lack of sounds coming from the direction of the kitchen. She was headed in there, wasn't she?
I felt an odd prickle run up my spine and spun around in my chair just in time to see my wife finally drop to one knee on the floor. She was holding her stomach and obviously in pain. Her grip on the back of a dinning room chair looked painful and I was suddenly reminded of the things I saw every day at the hospital. My doctor-mind never kicked in, it was too over powered by the husband part of me. So I ran to her side instead of to the phone and fumbled around, trying to help her to her feet. She pushed at me, having enough thought to point at the phone before collapsing into a ball on the floor. I grabbed the phone, punched in 911, and returned to her side. Her eyes were slowly closing, and the color in her face was draining rapidly.
"Hello? Hello, is anyone there?" Oh God, someone had answered. Please don't hang up!
"Yeah, yeah. I'm here. I need an ambulance at 321 north Maple street. My wife, she's in pain." I wanted to cry just then. I wanted to cry more than I ever had in my life. This tiny woman before me was everything in my world. She was my life blood. She was my heartbeat. She was-
"Sir. SIR, are you still there?" The woman on the other end sounded tired. Had I been able I might have felt sorry for her.
"Yeah, I'm here. My wife is pregnant and she is having pains in her abdomen and ..." I knew fear at that moment. I could have thrown myself in front of a freight train and never have been this scared. "... and she's bleeding. Badly."
The world around me seemed to collapse in on itself and I was only able to focus on the pool of blood forming on our pale carpet. And much like on the wedding day, only this time with opposite circumstances, I blanked. I remember almost nothing of the ambulance ride to the hospital. Though I do have a faint recollection of hearing my wife scream. It was oddly comforting. I know I shouldn't feel bad about that, but I do. Being happy she was screaming was horrible. Or, it would have been had it not been such a strong sign of life.
It wasn't until Robert Mosden, a good friend of mine and fellow doctor, shook me out of it that I become conscious to the situation.
"Dare, come on bro. You gotta wake up. Your wife needs ya man." He was wrong. I needed her. I needed her like the air I breathed. Robert was trying to explain something to me, so I woke myself long enough to listen.
"... fetus is fine, but Annie is-"
"What was that Robert?" I didn't want him to finish that so I brought him back to the good news on the baby.
"Okay. The baby shifted sideways. She'll be all right if we can get her out of there in time. But the movement caused some complications. If we don't do the surgery now we'll lose both of them." I didn't want to believe the man in front of me. I wanted him to be some lunatic stranger. Complications? What could he mean by complications? I couldn't lose them both. And ...
"Wait. It's a girl?" Robert managed to smile and held out a permission slip to me. He really meant to do surgery on my wife. It began to sink in then that either way I might lose one, or both of the most important women in my life.
I kept it together long enough to sign the papers and then I let the tears take me. I sobbed until I was too tired to cry anymore. And then I just let myself go numb. The tears never stopped, they never once stopped, but the sobs quieted after the first half hour. When Robert came back to me he had a shaky smile on his face. And for the first time I was the one in the waiting room, clinging to that faint smile with even fainter hope.
"The surgery was a success. You have a brand new baby girl. And she seems just as strong and stubborn as her parents." I felt the first sob in nearly an hour force through my throat. Robert was telling me it would all be okay. Wasn't he? "Your welcome to go see them now. But I do have some bad news ..."
"No." I wanted so badly to hang onto that hope. To bask in this moment when my family was whole.
"I'm afraid so Darien. The complications Anna suffered were too much. She's very weak. And I'm not sure she'll even make it through the night. I'm so sorry man." He tried to lay a comforting hand on my shoulder, but the touch revolted me and I yanked away. How dare he tell me I have a new family, and then take it away again. How dare he!
Yeah, how dare he have worked for hours to save my wife and daughter and then break the news as nicely as he could. I couldn't blame him. Much as I wanted to.
So I let him lead me to the recovery room, and to the sight I had hoped never to see.
Anna was hooked to what seemed a million machines. Why had I never noticed how horrible that really looks with my own patients? She was pale and thin and fragile looking. My fallen angel looked like death warmed over. It killed me inside, shattering any hope I may have had left. She looked like she was sleeping. And there was a thin veil of serenity upon her face that I clung to, trying to forget everything else. A watery wail pierced that air and I nearly jumped out of my skin. But the plastic baby bed placed next to my Annie soon became the sole focus of my attention.
A tiny pink hand clawed at the air above her, as another wail was let loose. I stepped up next to the bed and looked down on a near duplicate of the woman laying a few feet away. I could see the same nose, red as it was. And the same round little chin. I had to touch her, feel her baby soft skin. But I almost didn't. My huge, rough hand next to her tiny head seemed barbaric. It scared me.
"Don't let it scare you Darien." My head snapped up and I forgot to be amazed she had read my mind again. All I cared about was the faint sparkle of life in those endless blue eyes. I glanced at the baby but stepped around her and dropped down instead next to Annie's bed. I grabbed at her hand and ran into yet another wire and her hospital bracelet.
"She needs you Baby. So you need to be strong." She seemed to be fading right before my eyes and I felt my soul fading along with her.
"She needs you Anna. I don't know what to do with a baby." I don't know what to do without you. I wanted to scream that to her. But my throat seemed to have swollen shut.
"You'll learn. You'll be a great father Darien. She's lucky to have you." Are those tears? She's crying. That was the last straw. She couldn't leave me. So I prayed. I hadn't prayed in years. Maybe my whole life. But I figured someone up there would listen to me. They had to. I just couldn't lose her.
"God no. Anna you can't leave me. You are everything that makes my life worth living. You ARE my life!" She shook her head slowly, painfully. And reached across with her right hand to clasp the ones I had clenched on her left. She gave a pitifully weak little squeeze and shook her head again.
"And you're mine. Darien, please. You have to let go. For our daughters sake. For your own." She paused then, having to draw in a shaky breath. Her eyes closed briefly and I thought maybe that was it. Maybe she would leave me right there.
"Anna NO! You can't leave me!" She opened her eyes to stare at me again briefly.
"I will always be with you Baby." She slowly began to fade away but turned, as if on an afterthought and smiled. "What will you name her?" I hardly heard the whisper, but the panic in my was very real and very sudden. All I could think of was the serene look on her face such a short while before while she slept. The serene look that only the angels would now see.
"Serenity." She smiled, I think she liked that name. Then squeezed my hand one last time and closed her eyes to sleep. Robert came to me then and laid his hand once more on my shoulder.
"It's time to go Darien." As he said those words the heart monitor flat lined and the incessant beep burned itself into my brain. Her grip had fallen away and her skin felt fake and plastic. I let her hand go and slowly stood from her side. I felt the numbness sink deep inside of me, felt it begin to eat me alive. I couldn't live without her. I didn't understand how I could still exist at all with her gone. And I would have simply continued to walk until I had made it outside and in front of a moving vehicle had Robert not stopped me at the door.
"At least you still have your daughter." It took a minute, but a sparkle of life re-ignited inside of me. And with it a little flame of hope. I turned to look at the baby as her little feet and hands twitched against their blankets. Serenity. My little Serenity.
My last ray of sunlight in this world.
Disclaimer: I own the story. That's about it. Okay, disclaimer done.
Author's notes: Thanks for the reviews, they mean a lot. Even the ones that seem to say bad things were good. And I like that. Constructive criticism. What a wonderful thing. Oh, and I hope your still all enjoying this story. I know I'm enjoying writing it. One last thing, someone reviewed that I have a lot of spelling errors. If there is someone out there that is trustworthy and would like to proof read for me, I would love to hear from you. I try to get it as perfect as possible, but I know mistakes are still made. A fresh look is what it needs. Thanks again for reading. Enjoy ...
*************
I don't know what I was thinking at my wedding. I keep watching the tape of it and I just don't understand what could have been going through my head. I mean, I get the whole blanking during the ceremony part. But for goodness sake, how much did I drink if I thought I could sing karoake. It was just awful, and I will never live it down. If only Anna would let me erase that part of the tape. I promised she wouldn't notice too much. I'll put something else just as good there. Maybe just go have the tape spliced to cut that part out. She, on the other hand thinks it is precious and made me swear not to do anything to it. I happen to think she is just out to make sure she has blackmail later on down the road.
"You aren't watching that wedding video again, are you?" I turned just long enough to send her a fake little smile and watch her waddling down the hallway from the bedroom. Another three weeks and we would have a bouncing baby, uh, well just a bouncing baby. She refused to tell me what it is, and tries to tell me she doesn't know either. Now that is a load of crap if ever I heard one. She is so nosy and pushy and ... I think I had better stop before she reads my mind in that unnerving way she does and-
"What did you say Baby?" Yeah, just like that. It's like she knows everything in my mind. Which just gives me the creeps. I mean what about my private thoughts? Some of those I don't want anyone to know, some of them I don't even want to know.
"Nothing Anna, darling." She switched off the video, smiling sweetly to herself as though she had won something I didn't even know was up for grabs. What exactly is it about women that is so confounding?
I watched her take the video and slide it slowly into its case and set it firmly back in its place on the wall. And oddly enough it was almost as though she had put some barrier on it, I wouldn't have grabbed that video from its spot again for anything. Yet another womanly mystery.
"Baby, what do you want for-" I was just switching on the news, and my attention span was slowly dwindling. It was Sunday for crying out loud.
"What did you say Annie?" She didn't answer me, which wasn't odd since it was dinner time. What was odd was the lack of sounds coming from the direction of the kitchen. She was headed in there, wasn't she?
I felt an odd prickle run up my spine and spun around in my chair just in time to see my wife finally drop to one knee on the floor. She was holding her stomach and obviously in pain. Her grip on the back of a dinning room chair looked painful and I was suddenly reminded of the things I saw every day at the hospital. My doctor-mind never kicked in, it was too over powered by the husband part of me. So I ran to her side instead of to the phone and fumbled around, trying to help her to her feet. She pushed at me, having enough thought to point at the phone before collapsing into a ball on the floor. I grabbed the phone, punched in 911, and returned to her side. Her eyes were slowly closing, and the color in her face was draining rapidly.
"Hello? Hello, is anyone there?" Oh God, someone had answered. Please don't hang up!
"Yeah, yeah. I'm here. I need an ambulance at 321 north Maple street. My wife, she's in pain." I wanted to cry just then. I wanted to cry more than I ever had in my life. This tiny woman before me was everything in my world. She was my life blood. She was my heartbeat. She was-
"Sir. SIR, are you still there?" The woman on the other end sounded tired. Had I been able I might have felt sorry for her.
"Yeah, I'm here. My wife is pregnant and she is having pains in her abdomen and ..." I knew fear at that moment. I could have thrown myself in front of a freight train and never have been this scared. "... and she's bleeding. Badly."
The world around me seemed to collapse in on itself and I was only able to focus on the pool of blood forming on our pale carpet. And much like on the wedding day, only this time with opposite circumstances, I blanked. I remember almost nothing of the ambulance ride to the hospital. Though I do have a faint recollection of hearing my wife scream. It was oddly comforting. I know I shouldn't feel bad about that, but I do. Being happy she was screaming was horrible. Or, it would have been had it not been such a strong sign of life.
It wasn't until Robert Mosden, a good friend of mine and fellow doctor, shook me out of it that I become conscious to the situation.
"Dare, come on bro. You gotta wake up. Your wife needs ya man." He was wrong. I needed her. I needed her like the air I breathed. Robert was trying to explain something to me, so I woke myself long enough to listen.
"... fetus is fine, but Annie is-"
"What was that Robert?" I didn't want him to finish that so I brought him back to the good news on the baby.
"Okay. The baby shifted sideways. She'll be all right if we can get her out of there in time. But the movement caused some complications. If we don't do the surgery now we'll lose both of them." I didn't want to believe the man in front of me. I wanted him to be some lunatic stranger. Complications? What could he mean by complications? I couldn't lose them both. And ...
"Wait. It's a girl?" Robert managed to smile and held out a permission slip to me. He really meant to do surgery on my wife. It began to sink in then that either way I might lose one, or both of the most important women in my life.
I kept it together long enough to sign the papers and then I let the tears take me. I sobbed until I was too tired to cry anymore. And then I just let myself go numb. The tears never stopped, they never once stopped, but the sobs quieted after the first half hour. When Robert came back to me he had a shaky smile on his face. And for the first time I was the one in the waiting room, clinging to that faint smile with even fainter hope.
"The surgery was a success. You have a brand new baby girl. And she seems just as strong and stubborn as her parents." I felt the first sob in nearly an hour force through my throat. Robert was telling me it would all be okay. Wasn't he? "Your welcome to go see them now. But I do have some bad news ..."
"No." I wanted so badly to hang onto that hope. To bask in this moment when my family was whole.
"I'm afraid so Darien. The complications Anna suffered were too much. She's very weak. And I'm not sure she'll even make it through the night. I'm so sorry man." He tried to lay a comforting hand on my shoulder, but the touch revolted me and I yanked away. How dare he tell me I have a new family, and then take it away again. How dare he!
Yeah, how dare he have worked for hours to save my wife and daughter and then break the news as nicely as he could. I couldn't blame him. Much as I wanted to.
So I let him lead me to the recovery room, and to the sight I had hoped never to see.
Anna was hooked to what seemed a million machines. Why had I never noticed how horrible that really looks with my own patients? She was pale and thin and fragile looking. My fallen angel looked like death warmed over. It killed me inside, shattering any hope I may have had left. She looked like she was sleeping. And there was a thin veil of serenity upon her face that I clung to, trying to forget everything else. A watery wail pierced that air and I nearly jumped out of my skin. But the plastic baby bed placed next to my Annie soon became the sole focus of my attention.
A tiny pink hand clawed at the air above her, as another wail was let loose. I stepped up next to the bed and looked down on a near duplicate of the woman laying a few feet away. I could see the same nose, red as it was. And the same round little chin. I had to touch her, feel her baby soft skin. But I almost didn't. My huge, rough hand next to her tiny head seemed barbaric. It scared me.
"Don't let it scare you Darien." My head snapped up and I forgot to be amazed she had read my mind again. All I cared about was the faint sparkle of life in those endless blue eyes. I glanced at the baby but stepped around her and dropped down instead next to Annie's bed. I grabbed at her hand and ran into yet another wire and her hospital bracelet.
"She needs you Baby. So you need to be strong." She seemed to be fading right before my eyes and I felt my soul fading along with her.
"She needs you Anna. I don't know what to do with a baby." I don't know what to do without you. I wanted to scream that to her. But my throat seemed to have swollen shut.
"You'll learn. You'll be a great father Darien. She's lucky to have you." Are those tears? She's crying. That was the last straw. She couldn't leave me. So I prayed. I hadn't prayed in years. Maybe my whole life. But I figured someone up there would listen to me. They had to. I just couldn't lose her.
"God no. Anna you can't leave me. You are everything that makes my life worth living. You ARE my life!" She shook her head slowly, painfully. And reached across with her right hand to clasp the ones I had clenched on her left. She gave a pitifully weak little squeeze and shook her head again.
"And you're mine. Darien, please. You have to let go. For our daughters sake. For your own." She paused then, having to draw in a shaky breath. Her eyes closed briefly and I thought maybe that was it. Maybe she would leave me right there.
"Anna NO! You can't leave me!" She opened her eyes to stare at me again briefly.
"I will always be with you Baby." She slowly began to fade away but turned, as if on an afterthought and smiled. "What will you name her?" I hardly heard the whisper, but the panic in my was very real and very sudden. All I could think of was the serene look on her face such a short while before while she slept. The serene look that only the angels would now see.
"Serenity." She smiled, I think she liked that name. Then squeezed my hand one last time and closed her eyes to sleep. Robert came to me then and laid his hand once more on my shoulder.
"It's time to go Darien." As he said those words the heart monitor flat lined and the incessant beep burned itself into my brain. Her grip had fallen away and her skin felt fake and plastic. I let her hand go and slowly stood from her side. I felt the numbness sink deep inside of me, felt it begin to eat me alive. I couldn't live without her. I didn't understand how I could still exist at all with her gone. And I would have simply continued to walk until I had made it outside and in front of a moving vehicle had Robert not stopped me at the door.
"At least you still have your daughter." It took a minute, but a sparkle of life re-ignited inside of me. And with it a little flame of hope. I turned to look at the baby as her little feet and hands twitched against their blankets. Serenity. My little Serenity.
My last ray of sunlight in this world.