Part Four – Depression
"I start to think there really is no cure for depression, that happiness is an ongoing battle, and I wonder if it isn't one I'll have to fight for as long as I live. I wonder if it's worth it." - Elizabeth Wurtzel
X
It was 0900 hours on the dot as I sat in cold plastic chair across from an officer's desk awaiting the verdict to my request. For the first time in weeks I'd dressed out in my ACU's and my hair was pulled back and pinned up in a tight bun. Even though my stomach was twisting into knots, I'd never felt more ready to get this over with. My only fault was the sleeve. It wouldn't button over my cast.
It was almost a repeat of my day with Dr. Wyatt as we met to talk about my request to return to the Iraq despite my one of my surgical hands being out of commission. The officer asked me five or six different times how I managed to survive a tour at the front line only to come home and injury myself. Again, I lied to them.
Still, he managed to remain diplomatic in his answers whenever I asked if I return to my unit. I was dismissed with a follow-up for the next week. Of course that meant my prognosis did not look good.
I blew out of the offices and into the parking lot where Teddy was waiting for me. I was too nervous to drive myself and I knew asking Callie would destroy any truce we'd gained the other night.
"So… what did he say?" Teddy asked with that quiet sense of anticipation lurking in her voice.
"What do you think he said?" I huffed back.
She hesitated before answering, "…That you can go back?"
"NO! I can't fucking go back! Do you see my hand? It's still super broken. He even asked how I hurt it. And you know what I told him? I was accidentally pushed into a wall. A wall!"
"Well, the wall part was sort of true."
"I am the worst liar in the world, Theodora! He just had to look at me to know I wasn't telling the whole truth!"
Frustrated, I turned to the car and tried to throw out another punch. This time, Teddy grabbed me before I could connect with the metal frame.
"Whoa there cowgirl! Remember the last time you decided physical aggression was the best form of expression?"
Her arms don't loosen from mine until I can control my breathing again. It takes a few moments, but soon enough I feel the rage subside. We both get into the car.
"We seriously have to find a better outlet for venting other than destroying other people's property, you know?"
Her humor is more honest than I'd like, but Teddy has proven to be a good friend to me in past few weeks. From rides to base to watching after my girls while I was gone, I couldn't ask for anymore. Unfortunately, my emotions were running raw so instead of agreeing with her, I laughed. But the laughter soon turns to cries. Teddy reached across the central console and took my hand.
"I belong… with Calliope … and now … I don't belong in the army," I sobbed. "I just don't know anymore."
X
We made a pit stop at Seattle Grace on the way back so Teddy could sign off on some charts. To avoid Callie, I stayed in the lobby, but even there I felt uncomfortable dressed up in my combat uniform. Staying in the car was looking like a better plan as I tried to ignore the prying eyes from colleagues.
"Dr. Robbins!"
I turned around to see an intern dressed in full isolation gear with her hands wrapped up.
"Please! You have to come Dr. Hunt isn't answering any of our pages! Dr. Torres is in the OR. She needs you now."
X
"I asked for Owen Hunt! Why the hell did you bring me Arizona?" Callie yells at the intern as she scurried back into the OR.
"Y-Y-You said you needed the trauma surgeon. I couldn't find Dr. Hunt anywhere. I thought she could help since she just came back from Iraq!" stammers the frightened intern.
"She's in Peds!" my irritated wife screams.
"Calliope! What happened?" I ask through the washroom's intercom system.
Through the window, Callie looks up at me. Her brow furrows at the site of my uniform. Before her on the operating table is an extremely young girl. Callie and her team have her thigh exposed. I know her frustration, but I also know the intern's heart was in the right place. If anyone in the hospital besides Owen was more practiced in trauma, it was me.
"What are we looking at?" I ask.
"Go help her!" Callie shouts at another observing intern.
Another student hops to and joins me out in washroom. Without a moment to spare, I shed my jacket and intern hands me an extra scrub top.
"Open femur fracture near the epiphyseal plate. Bone nicked the artery. She nearly bled out in the ambulance ride over. I need you in here. She's coded once on us already."
I scrub my good hand raw at the sink, not caring if my cast gets wet then onto my casted hand. It'll have to be replaced after this, but I think I can convince an orthopedic surgeon to help me out. Lifting my feet one at a time, the intern pulls off my boots and replaces them with foot covers. It's not the first time a surgeon has performed in socks and personal protective equipment and I probably won't be the last.
"What was the mechanism of injury?" I continue, drying my hands.
"Abuse… or at least that's what the police reported."
My blood boils at the thought of any parent physically hurting their child. The girl on the table couldn't have been more than five.
The intern finally places a scrub cab over my head and ties it tight followed by a mask. Nothing could stop me as I bolted into the surgical room. Two nurses immediately have me wrapped in an isolation gown. A small latex glove is placed over my good hand, while a large one is pulled tight over my casted hand.
My eyes shoot to the girl's swollen abdomen filled with internal bleeding. Her injuries clearly have progressed thanks to what appears to be years of abuse. Scars and bruises are littered through out her tiny body making my stomach to turn.
"Please Arizona!"
"Please Arizona…." Callie whines as I dragged her up the hundredth hill at the park next to our hospital. "My back is killing me! Are you we there yet?"
Turning back, I grab her hand. "Just a little farther," I promise and pull her up the top of hill to a well-known bench we use to frequent in the early days of our relationship.
Dramatically, she collapses on the bench swings her feet over my lap just as I sat down. Her hands begin to rub her baby bump. At almost twenty-six weeks, the little tyke is already exhausting Calliope. The baby finally started moved out of the fluttering stage and onto been kicking like there's a soccer match going on inside Callie's womb.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, kiddo's just a little excited today," she grimaces.
"Maybe she'll be a soccer player."
"Or maybe he'll wise up and go to med school like his mommies."
Another slip on my part. Calliope and I decided we'd like to be surprised about the sex of the baby. Only probably is I can read an ultrasound monitor. I'm pretty Callie can do the same, but chooses not to. Either way, Thalia Sophia Robbins – Torres is a fighter with her constantly kicking, wiggling, and punching the insides of Callie like a meat tenderizer.
Hesitantly, I place my hand on her stomach hoping to feel anything, but all is quiet. I try not to look disappointed for the umpteenth time, but it's hard not to when the baby has been moving around for the past two weeks and I seem to be the only one who hasn't gotten to experience it.
"Hey…" Callie begins, lifting my chin up to meet her eyes. "You'll get a chance. We've got fourteen more weeks of this to go."
"I know…"
"Okay, so why the hell are we out here?" she asks, trying to get my spirits up.
"Do you remember the last time we were up here?"
"Yeah, the merger."
"… And I took you up here to get away from it all and you still managed to bring it up."
"Only because I was scared the Chief wasn't going to make me an attending and I'd be on a plane to Cleveland in the morning for an interview or something terrible," Callie defended.
I slipped off her sandals and began to give her swollen feet a gentle foot rub.
"And what happened?"
Callie's frownie face gets me every time as I push a little deeper between the metatarsal in her feet to get to those sore muscles.
"He gave me the job."
"Exactly! So now we're going to sit here and enjoy that lunch hour you messed up for us with sandwiches and salad."
"You brought food?"
Ravenous wolves couldn't have stop Calliope as I pointed to the bag I'd been carrying that now lay almost forgotten by the bench. Instead of reaching for a sandwich or salad, she went straight for the strawberries.
"Hey! That's supposed to be for dessert." I tried, but to no avail.
"Baby wants strawberries," she shrugged.
"Oh really? Our tiny human knows the super delicious taste of strawberries?"
She flashes me a cheesy grin little seeds stuck in her teeth. Whether it was the lack of sleep due to waiting on Callie hand and foot throughout the night or the exhaustion from extra hours I'd been pulling with the veterans, I started laughing.
"What?" Callie asked. She looks at her clothes to see if she spilled.
"What!" she demanded again, but didn't stop until my sides hurt and Callie looked close to tears.
"Come here!" I said scooting towards her, so that her growing stomach touched mine. "You have seeds in your teeth."
Embarrassed, she quickly ran her tongue over her teeth and cleaning them off with little success. My lips soon found hers and I kissed away any lingering mortification.
"All better?" she smiled.
"Just about," I replied and reached for a strawberry.
A quick couple of messy bites and my teeth were covered as well. A seedy smile just like hers made Callie light up like billboard. I felt a small flutter on my stomach. Not inside, but on the outside.
"…Calliope?"
"I think someone wanted to finally say hello."
Every nurse, resident, doctor, and staff looked to me. It was it was a well-known fact in the hospital that I had been banned from the operating room. This was bordering on suspension or possibly being fired.
"Arizona, I'm not pressuring you into this," Callie frantically says as she and three other doctors struggle. "But Owen isn't walking through those doors in next ten seconds. I understand if you don't want to—"
"Scalpel, ten blade," I demand with an authority I thought I'd checked back in Iraq.
The nurse places it in my casted hand. Thankfully, I'm able to grip it just like I would without the cast. Though the pain was excruciating as barely healed bones move for the first time in weeks, I placed the scalpel to the child's stomach and cut.
The little girl lived to see another day and hopefully to never see her abusive family again. As extensive as the bleed was, I was able to control it. Callie set the bone in her femur and we were out of there within the hour.
We scrubbed out feeling saintly, like a fresh start for the both of us just a stone's throw away. Only waiting for me outside the OR was the Chief and one very long walk to his office. Calliope held my hand every step of the way until the door was closed in her face and it was just Richard Webber and I plus a termination of employment file on his desk.
X
The drive home was silent except for the soft snores coming from Thalia, wrapping comfortably in her car seat. Calliope had reached across the center consol two now to hold my hand as I wallowed in the passenger seat. But I pulled away, trying to let her see the tears that rolled down my face.
The last good thing I had in my life, Seattle Grace, was now just another part that didn't want me. News had traveled fast through the hospital of my heroics, but it was careless. If anything had gone wrong, I would have lost my license and that child would have lost her life.
She pulled into the drive way and shut off the car. Neither of us made a move to leave. I didn't want to go into the house. I wanted her to fight past my cationic state and hold me. I wanted to cry in her arms, not in the seat of this car.
My entire career was gone within one day. With a broken family, it was all I had left in the world. And one stupid, but life saving has taken away the emergency room and any hope I had at seeing an operating room again. The army was my only hope now and even then, I knew it would be a long shot at being deployed again.
The car door opens and then the back door. Callie unbuckles our sleepy girl and rests her against her shoulder. She feels guilty, knowing that we could have very easily made a resident or an intern perform the surgery necessary to save that little girl's life. But inexperienced hands on such an inexperience life would have only ended in tragedy.
"Thank you," is all that's said as the car door closes and the wife that's given up on me and the child that loathes me, enter our home.
X
Dreams are just about the only place of safety I have left. Deep within my psyche consists a sleepy wonderland where I can find my Calliope, the girl I remembered just before the baby was born. A place where our child didn't think of me as a threat and Calliope wasn't so upset with me that distance was the only cure.
Some thing pokes into my arm, but I refuse to let it take me away from the girl I remember, the woman I fell in love with. She's not yelling at me or forcing me to hold her daughter. No, Thalia is safely inside her again. After that trip to the park, she would to kick against my hand every time I spoke to her. I never thought I'd be jealous that she'd be the one to carry our child. It's one of the last few times I remember beginning truly happy around them.
Again, something pokes me in the arm.
"Callie, not now," I mutter out to the real world.
It pokes me again bring reality back down and me back up.
"Stop it!"
And to top it off, the blanket is pulled away.
"Goddamnit Cal! Can't you just let me sleep for five fucking minutes!" I yelled, but as I opened my eyes, Calliope wasn't there in bed next to me.
It's Thalia with a few stray tears rolling down her face. She quickly scurries underneath the bed.
"Thalia! Oh my god! I didn't mean – I'm so sorry!"
I reach for her, but she just slides back even further out of my touch.
"Please Lia! Just come out for a second. I'm not angry at you."
But the little girl doesn't budge.
I look up for any sign of Callie anywhere, but her discarded pajamas on the chair. Both her cell phone and her pager are gone from the night stand. Next to them is a note.
Arizona – Got paged 911. Not sure when I'll be back. If I don't answer, I'm probably still in surgery. If Thalia wakes up, give her breakfast and get her dressed for the day. You'll be fine, but if you have any problems, Mark and Lexie are next door. – Callie
Quickly, I look outside of the window to Mark and Lexie's house. Both cars are gone; so much for any help from the man whore and Little Grey. I turn on my phone and call Callie. It heads straight to voicemail.
"It's me. Please come home the second you get this. God… I fucked up. She woke me up and I thought it was you and I was angry. Now she's hiding because she thinks I'm some big scary monster and she won't come out from under the bed. Callie, come home. I can't do this."
A glance down and I see her peering out from her hiding place. She's studying me, probably wondering the same thing I've been thinking. Why on Earth would Calliope leave us alone together?
I hang up the phone and look down at her. "Hey Lia, are you hungry?"
Immediately, she retreats back under the bed and further out of my heart. I'm screwed, so I do the only thing I can think of that Callie will have to answer, her pager.
Thirty minutes have passed and still no answer from my scalpel superstar or her daughter for that matter. I know she's got to be hungry. It's almost nine in the morning and what child isn't carving some sort of sugary cereal in the morning well before dawn?
Resorting to bribes, I ended up pouring her a small bowl, no milk because apparently neither of us can handle it without complete supervision still. I left it out just far enough so that if she reached for it, I could grab it. Sure, baiting-and-capture the child who has issues with you already isn't probably the best idea I've had, but I can't leave her under the bed all day.
Still, another thirty minutes past and nothing became of the cereal. I looked under a few times to find two very pale blue eyes staring right back at me, observing me. She'll make a wonderful surgeon one day if she's able to stay put for that long. For an almost two year old that's probably the equivalent of six or more hours for us. I have to say, I am impressed by it.
As quickly as I saw them, they disappear back into the shadows of the bed. Light brown Latina curls of hair sweeping behind them. We chose a donor as close as possible to me. Sometimes I think we chose to well. Her eyes reminded me of my brothers. Mine were a piercing blue, but David's gray-blue. Not sure how that happened, but when they first started to settle in their color, I couldn't have been more happy. It was like one last final gift from my brother.
"Thalia, look, I'm sorry I scared you. I didn't mean too."
But it seems all I do is scare you since I came back.
"And I'm sorry I'm the one you're stuck with today, but she's coming back okay?" And then I'm leaving. I'll get my old apartment back, see about that second tour, maybe call my lawyer and talk custody papers. Who am I kidding! God knows Thalia not really mine. Not legally anyways. We could never get those papers signed because of the military.
"Look, she wouldn't leave you with me if she didn't think I could take care of you. Gosh, I took super great care of you for six straight months before basic. You use to wake me up then, too. Your mom has a knack for sleeping through anything softer than a jet engine. Heh, this one time Calliope had just come off a thirty-six hour shift and she was so tired that I had to hold you both up while she breast fed you."
I laugh to myself remembering that night. Lia must have been around three months at that point and Callie kept falling asleep against the pillows while the baby kept slipping further and further down from her chest, erupting into tears when she couldn't drink from her mother. Finally, I just sat behind her and held Lia up to drink. Important family bonding moments, as Calliope would call them in the morning.
A tiny hand crept out from underneath the bed and grabbed a few cheerios from the bowl. I looked down at the small Latina with those gray-blue eyes staring back at me.
"Hi," was all I could whisper to her.
X
Sweet sounds of soft snoring came up from underneath the bed. I took refuge with a blanket and pillow on the other side of the room away from the door. She needed an exit, not this sense of entrapment that I felt. All I could do was sit and wait for Callie to come home.
"You know what the funny thing is? I'm the pediatric surgeon. I'm the awesome one who's good with kids and I can't even get you to come out of there."
Crouching down a little further onto the floor, I look at her as she sleeps in her wonderland. The bowl of cheerios is completely gone now and I bet she's probably going to be hungry for lunch too.
"I use to tell the children that their IV bag was filled with fairy dust. Not sure who believed it more, them or me, but it calmed all those tiny humans down long enough to get a line in. I use to make them do math equations with their medication dosage. I would memorize their stuff animals' name and examine them along side the patient, just because it would get some radiation filled child to laugh. I was… I was so awesome."
My eyes wandered across the light brown locks of hair nestled around her head. Those curls shook as Lia shivered in her sleepy. Go figure! Lying on the wooden floor underneath the bed would be a little drafty. In a craft I could probably pull her out from underneath the bed, but I could only imagine the boundary lines I would be crossing if she woke up.
"Okay, you're cold and the humane thing to do when a child is cold is to give them a blanket. So if this wakes you up, I'm sorry."
Slowly, I inch towards her, careful not to let any let the floor board squeak and drape the blanket over her. Feeling a bit more daring, I lift her head and place the pillow under her.
"I never wanted kids only because I was afraid you'd get sick with something I couldn't cure. But you came out perfect. Easy pregnancy, easier delivery, Hell! You slept through the night once during the second month. It was all perfect."
My hand lingers a bit as I brush back those gorgeous curls and see her face, Calliope's face. She stirs ever so slightly, so I choose not to push my luck and retreat back to safety. The shivering soon stops.
"Absolutely perfect."
She sighs in her sleep and settles down.
Sleep finally over takes me.
X
It's dark outside, I'm not sure how long I've been out for, but it's probably not ideal to sleep the day away considering the post-traumatic stress syndrome diagnosis that Dr. Wyatt hinted at to me in our last session. Though I think I'm able to name this one by myself.
Depression.
Dejected but a heroine, I came back to a world that had moved on without me. We couldn't stop Thalia from growing. I couldn't stop Callie from seeking comfort in surgeries and doctors I cared less for just to avoid my gloomy self. I couldn't help the lack of patience I gave my pediatric ward after experience so much military precision. All I could do was move forward again.
I try to move when I feel a weight on my good arm. It's Thalia. She's wrapped herself in the blankets and snuggled up next to me. She must of sensed I'm awake as she rolls over and looks at me with those eyes that remind me so much of my brother's.
"Momma?"
A few nods are all I can manage as tear over take me. Her voice is just as sweet as I imagined from listening to the short videos that Callie sent. The eighteen month old looked confused by my silent sobbing nods as she tried again, reaching for my tears and trying to wipe them away.
"Mom – ma?" She tries again, slower, hoping she got it right.
"It's okay Lia. We're okay."
She turns over and pulls the empty cereal bowl to us. My stomach growl in agreement.
"Guess we can't go much longer on a couple things of cereal, can we? Wouldn't want your mama to think I'd let you starve."
Lia turns and pokes her small chubby finger onto my chest and for a third and final time today, she calls me it.
"My momma."
Deep down I knew from day one she hadn't forgotten me. My arms wrap around her in a lasting embrace. "Once upon a time, baby. Once a time I was."
We stayed up well past her bedtime since we'd slept most of the day away to begin with. I cooked some chicken nuggets and warmed up some peas to eat. Food became just another toy as I toss pieces of it in the air and caught them in my mouth, with Thalia squealing and clapping in delight each time. She even tried as I tossed peas at her. After a few tries, she was able to catch them in her mouth, that or my aim got better.
Angling the headlights of my car into the backyard, we bundled up to fight the brisk Seattle evening weather and played on the tiny play set Carlos and Marie had bought for their only granddaughter. We play the most lopsided game of tag as Lia boldly ran as fast as she little legs could carry her. I followed always keeping her just out of reach until I was sure she could not run another inch. Then I scooped her up as she giggled and puffed in my well-toned arms.
By midnight, we were finally worn out. I put on the Princess and the Frog as we shared some ice cream on the couch. Barely on her third "airplane coming in for a landing!" bite of ice cream, the little one had curled back into my side and began to dose off. I didn't have the heart to move her, at least not yet. This would be the first and last time Thalia and I would probably ever experience a day like this.
Car lights pulled in front of Mark and Lexie's house. If they were home, it only meant Calliope wasn't that far behind them. Again, I scooped my darling child up and gently carried her upstairs to her room. The walls were a pale pink with the occasional star hand painted a long by Lia's very hormonal mama. She said that I always seemed to make the world sparkle and she wanted Lia's world to do just the same.
As I lied her down in her small tot bed and pulled the covers up, her tiny hand shot out. I looked to her fearing the stolen day we had just had together would come to a halt, but I wasn't. Her eyes were narrowed and focus as if she was studying my face. Even for at such a young age and with such a limited understanding of emotional and vocabulary, I could read what she was trying to say to me.
"It's just a dream, Lia. Go back to sleep."
Heavily eyelids do as they're told and flutter closed again, satisfied with what I've said.