You Were There Too Read online

  “Yes. And here I am getting the baby checked out—doctor’s orders and all.” A memory is triggered—this is the emergency appendectomy Harrison performed last week. The woman who found out she was pregnant.

  “Congratulations!” I exclaim, overenthusiastically, and Harrison squeezes my hip.

  “Thanks,” she says, putting her hand on her stomach. “It was quite the surprise.” I nod, my gaze traveling back to the man beside her.

  “Sorry,” Caroline says. “This is Oliver.”

  Oliver.

  I roll it over in my mind, my mouth. I get the sense that it should taste familiar. It doesn’t.

  But everything else about him is—from his relaxed posture, one hand tucked into the frayed front pocket of his jeans, the way the worn material of his burgundy T-shirt is taut and then loose in the swells and valleys of his arms, his chest. The longer top section of his shaggy, errant nut-brown mop falling into his eyes and the way he smooths it back at intervals, a habit he no longer notices. He’s familiar in a way that doesn’t make sense. Like a picture in a magazine that suddenly comes to life. Or like an ex-boyfriend you haven’t seen in years. I know him, but I don’t know this version of him.

  He’s talking to Harrison, but suddenly turns to me, and I’m busted for the second time, rudely ogling him. I know I should say something, make a lame excuse—a cliché You look so familiar—but when I open my mouth to speak, he beats me to it.

  “I know you,” he says, tilting his head. My heart thuds. My skin pricks with sweat. My eyes widen. But I also feel a small sense of relief. If he recognizes me, then I must know this man—and not just from my strange dreams. I must have met him before and don’t remember it. It’s the only thing that could explain . . . any of it. I lean forward slightly, but eagerly, waiting to hear how he knows me, waiting for it all to fall into place and make sense.

  “Or I guess I don’t know you—but I’ve seen you. At the Giant, I think? Last week?”

  Oh.

  “Sorry, that’s probably weird,” he says. His tone is friendly, but he doesn’t smile. “But I have one of those photographic memories—never forget a face.”

  “Yeah,” I manage, the word coming out squeaky. “I was there. On Friday?”

  Oliver dips his head. Affirmative.

  “Small world,” Harrison says, amiably.

  “Small town,” Oliver quips.

  And then Harrison is wrapping up the conversation and everyone is exchanging customary nice-to-meet-you pleasantries and I’m being ushered out the front door, bewildered at the bizarre normalcy of the encounter.

  “Sorry,” Harrison says in my ear as he opens my car door for me. “I know you wanted to get out of there.”

  “It’s OK,” I say, folding my body into the bucket seat, trying to sort out what’s just happened and how it’s possible and why I feel like I just rode the world’s fastest roller coaster—exhilarated, terrified and like, at any second, I may throw up everywhere.

  * * *

  “Are you hungry?” Harrison asks, when we walk into the kitchen, my mind still a jumble of confusion and shock and grief.

  I fixate on the lone barstool at the massive island in our kitchen. Its partner is in my studio, and it occurs to me now how cruel it was to separate them. It looks lost, like a child who’s slipped away from his mother in the mall and ended up, bewildered, in a store he’s never seen before. I need to buy more barstools. I add it to the list of things that feel impossible to accomplish.

  “No,” I say. My phone buzzes and I throw it on the counter.

  “Vivian?” he asks.

  “Probably. Or my dad. Or Raya. I haven’t called them back since—”

  “I’ll tell them,” he says.

  He picks up the no-longer-buzzing phone and starts tapping the screen with his thumb. I hear him say, “Hey, Vivian, it’s Harrison,” as he walks out of the kitchen.

  I know I should go after him, that I’m copping out. That Vivian will call me anyway, and then Dad, and then Mom, and then my phone will keep obnoxiously and cheerfully ringing and dinging until the end of time. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that miscarriages make people uncomfortable—even the people that love you the most. They never know what to say, so I somehow always end up being the one comforting them. It’s OK. I’m fine. We’ll try again. And I can’t comfort anybody right now.

  I need to be alone. I slip out the back door and walk toward the studio, so I don’t have to overhear him say the words I’ve been avoiding.

  Tubs of my paints and various art supplies litter the floor of the garage, canvases holding up the walls like middle school boys at a dance. Waiting. The garage still has the faint smell of wood chips. The previous owner used it as a woodworking studio to hand-carve his own boats, and a large canoe on two sawhorses greeted us when we first looked at the garage. I suddenly wish he had left it behind. I want to run my hands down its smooth edges, curl up in its curved basin.

  Instead, I lie on the hard cement where the boat used to be.

  And I think of Oliver.

  Oliver.

  It’s as if learning his name has unlocked some treasure trove of stored dreams that I assumed had been lost forever, dissolved like sugar in water by the morning light.

  They come rushing in like memories: Oliver sitting in a desk next to me in Mrs. Piergiovanni’s class, loudly whispering while I’m trying to find the cosine in an isosceles triangle and hushing him, terrified I’ll get in trouble. Oliver, my copilot in a biplane, laughing when I realize neither one of us knows how to fly and it starts falling from the sky, my stomach going with it. Oliver lying next to me in a cornfield, his hand hot between my legs, gripping the inside of my thigh—

  I jerk my head. They’re not memories. They’re dreams. They’re just dreams. It’s not real.

  He is real, though. He was standing there, mere inches away from me, as solid as the cement floor beneath me. The entire episode feels like a scene from a suspense flick. Like I was outside of it, watching it, breath bated, startled by each turn of events. And then it occurs to me that the most shocking thing of all was also the most mundane.

  He’s married.

  It feels wrong. Like wearing a dress to swim in the ocean. Or a pair of too-tight shoes. It doesn’t fit.

  But there they were, two peas in a pod.

  And they’re going to have a baby.

  A charcoal pencil is sticking out of an open bin near me, a silver HB etched into its side. I reach for it without moving my body, my fingertips barely touching the tip. I pluck it out and the sudden, familiar urge to create—to make something out of nothing—overcomes me, but there’s no paper nearby. I start drawing on the floor. First one line that slowly morphs into a tiny finger, and then a hand, no bigger than a quarter.

  I put down the pencil and cover the hand with mine. It fits perfectly beneath my palm.

  Then somehow, I fall asleep.

  * * *

  It’s dark when Harrison comes in. But instead of telling me I need to get up, or even carrying me back to the house, he lies down beside me on the floor, his head next to mine, his dark eyes glistening in the moonlight. I turn on my side to face him, the tips of our noses almost touching.

  “Dios Mia,” he whispers.

  I blink, long and slow. His cheek is resting on the hand I drew.

  “Our baby,” I whisper back. “You’re lying on it.”

  His eyebrows rise above his glasses and he sits up a bit, then squints at the ground, until he can make out the slightly smudged, impossibly tiny charcoal fingers in the dark.

  “Shit,” he says. “I knew I would be a terrible dad.” It’s an awful joke. Too soon. But it makes me giggle. And I love him for it.

  He lies back down, shifting his head this time so it’s not on the drawing. And I love him for that, too.

  �
��Can I tell you something crazy?” I whisper.

  “Of course,” he says.

  “You know that guy today—in the waiting room? With your patient—with Caroline?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I had this déjà vu feeling when I saw him. Like I recognized him.”

  “You mean from the Giant?”

  “No. I mean, I do remember seeing him there. But only because I had the same feeling then, too.”

  Harrison waits for my explanation and I search for the words.

  “I’ve seen him before.”

  “I’m sure you have—Hope Springs is a small town.”

  “No. I’m trying to say . . .” I pause, and then say it: “I’ve dreamt about him. Before.” The second it comes out of my mouth, I realize how ridiculous it sounds.

  Harrison squints. “What do you mean, like you’ve had a dream about someone that looks like him?”

  “No. Him. I think. He was so familiar. Like I knew him, even though I’ve never met him.”

  “Because you’ve dreamt about him,” Harrison repeats.

  “Yeah.”

  “Huh.” We sit in silence for a few beats.

  “Do you think I’m crazy?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says.

  I tap his chest. “Hey.”

  His face softens. “But it’s one of the things I love most about you.”

  I know he doesn’t think it’s a big deal, and I could try to explain it more, how long I’ve been dreaming about Oliver, how shocking it was to see him in the flesh, but suddenly I’m exhausted.

  He puts his hand on my shoulder, gently cupping it, and rubs the pad of his thumb back and forth across my skin.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “About the baby.”

  The sorrow in his eyes mirrors mine and I breathe deeply, feeling something loosen in my chest, as if his very presence is helping relieve the burden of my grief. I feel so connected to him in this moment.

  Which is why I can’t believe what he says next.

  “Maybe,” he whispers, “it really is for the best.”

  Stunned, I stare at him.

  “I didn’t mean . . .” he says, and then stops.

  A tear slips out of my eye, down the slope of my nose and onto the floor between us.

  “What do you mean?” I whisper.

  He pauses, collecting his thoughts. “That we tried,” he says. “That maybe it’s not in the cards for us.”

  I snicker lightly, but without malice. “I thought you didn’t believe in fate.”

  He repositions his head where it’s lying on his elbow. “It’s just, the other night—I don’t know if I can watch you go through that again. That I can go through it again. You could have . . .” He doesn’t finish the sentence.

  I close my eyes. I know he means died. I could have died. But I don’t know how to tell him part of me already did. Every baby that has left us has taken a piece of me with it. And while having a baby won’t give me those pieces back, not having one might end me for good.

  Finally, I open my eyes. “I want to go to the fertility specialist.”

  It’s a statement, not a question, but still, I expect him to respond. To acquiesce as he usually does when we disagree. Or to argue, tell me he’s not ready yet, that he needs more time.

  But Harrison remains silent. And we stare at each other, our faces bathed in moonlight, the tiny hand of our baby lying between us.

  Chapter 5

  Harrison

  “What on God’s green earth did you put your rook there for?” Foster asks, pouring the black liquid from the carafe into his mug and nodding toward the chess game set up on the table.

  Harrison glances at the board, trying to remember his last move.

  “I’m just gonna take it with my rook,” Foster continues. Thirty years Harrison’s senior, Foster Moretti is one of the founding partners of the Fordham Health surgeon group, and the only one still practicing. He’s as old-school as they come, preferring physical exams—touch, look and listen—to technological devices. It’s a common joke that he doesn’t even know what floor the MRI is on. He only works two days each week, one day for patients in the clinic, one day for surgeries, but he just can’t seem to stay away from the office.

  Harrison remembers his strategy. “Yeah, but then I’m going to take your rook with my bishop.”

  Foster gives his head a firm shake. “But you only have the one rook. I’ve got both of mine. A player with a single rook should never sacrifice it for one of his opponent’s. Lev Alburt.”

  Harrison has no idea who Lev Alburt is, but assumes he must be some chess expert that Foster reads up on in his spare time. Foster takes Harrison’s rook and Harrison takes Foster’s with his bishop and then they both study the board in silence for a minute.

  “I was sorry to hear about Mia.” Foster blows on his coffee. “How’s she doing?”

  Harrison thinks of Mia, lying on the studio floor last night. His heart clenches.

  When they first met, he thought she was out of his league—too beautiful, of course, but also too everything else. Too witty. Too passionate. Too talented. Too interesting. Too alive. She was wearing that yellow dress. And two pink plastic barrettes, like the ones kids wear, secured the right side of her long black hair away from her face. It was obvious she put effort into how she looked, but equally obvious that she didn’t care what anyone thought about it. It was so novel. Refreshing. He’d spent his whole life caring what other people thought, and throughout the night, found himself caring what she thought most of all. She could have had her choice of any man in the room. But she picked him, like one might choose a pastry from a bakery case. I’ll have that one.

  She chose him. And in that moment, he swore he’d spend his entire life making sure she wouldn’t regret it. But how could he have known then how many things would be out of his control? He can’t think of anything he hates worse than seeing his wife in pain and not being able to fix it. And even though it seems with each passing year he becomes more unsure of things he once knew positively (and often thinks it’s an unnatural progression—shouldn’t you become more steadfast in your beliefs about the world around you as you age?), he knows one thing for certain: Mia’s sadness is his sadness and he’d carry it around with him like water in a bucket until the end of his days if it meant that she didn’t have to.

  To Foster, he lies. “She’s OK.”

  Foster dips his head. “And you?”

  Harrison lies again. “I’m OK, too.”

  And then his cell rings in his pocket, and because it’s his on-call day, he knows it’s the ER.

  “It begins,” he mutters.

  * * *

  At four, when he finally has a minute to grab a sandwich from the doctors’ lounge in the hospital, his cell rings again.

  “Hey, Graydon, Leong. I’ve got another one I think you need to see—woman with a hundred-two fever, acute abdomen pain; she’s tachycardic. From the free air in the X-rays, looks like a perforated viscus.”

  While Leong’s talking, Harrison pulls up the patient’s records on the computer. He tells Leong he’ll be right down and takes one last monster bite of his sandwich, not knowing when he’ll get to eat again.

  The patient looks around Mia’s age, early thirties (which is close to Harrison’s age—thirty-five—but Mia often teases him that the few years’ difference makes him ancient). Her blond hair’s tied back in a messy bun, and she’s lying flat on the gurney, her hands gripping the sides. Worry is etched on her face, but she’s trying to hide it with a smile. Harrison quickly realizes it’s not for his benefit—she’s not even looking at him. There’s a boy standing next to her, wide-eyed and trembling a little. He reminds Harrison so much of Noah that he goes cold, a torrent of memories flooding in.

  Noah’s lifeless face, his mouth an O around his endotrachea
l tube, as if he was just as surprised as Harrison was by what happened. The viscous blood that coated nearly every surface, as if a can of red paint had been carelessly upended. The monotone beep, a constant reminder of his failure.

  Keeping his voice steady, Harrison smiles at the kid and grabs one of the lollipops that he keeps in his coat pocket just for situations like this. “Hey, bud,” he says and offers it to him, but he turns his head away from it. Harrison can tell he’s going to be a tough cookie. He sets it on the arm of the chair next to him and then looks from the boy back to his mom. “What seems to be the trouble?”

  “My stomach,” she says, through clenched teeth.

  “And what’s your name?”

  “Whit—” Her breath catches. “—ney.”

  “Whitney, I’m Dr. Graydon. I’m just going to ask you a few questions, do a quick exam, and we’ll figure out exactly what the problem is. Sound good?”

  She nods.

  Harrison quickly runs through the questions about her medical history, the quality and details of the pain she’s experiencing and past symptoms. During the physical exam, when he gets to her belly, she shrieks at the contact, but then immediately cuts it off, glancing at her son. The boy glares with his Noah eyes. “Sorry, buddy,” Harrison says, holding his hands up. “I’m all done.” Her stomach is hard as a rock and hot to the touch. Leong’s diagnosis was correct, which means Harrison needs to get her into surgery immediately.

  “OK, Whitney, so basically what you have is called a perforated viscus, which means there’s a hole somewhere along your digestive tract—anywhere from your esophagus all the way down to where it ends at your rectum. I’d like to do an exploratory laparotomy, which is just a fancy term for opening you up to find the hole and fix it.”

  As he runs through the details of the surgery, her eyes grow bigger, which is common—most people don’t like the thought of being cut open. And then she asks the question most people ask, hoping to avoid being cut open. “What happens if I don’t do anything?”