Lost In Rewind (Audio Fools #3) (7 page)

“Her parents and Eddie are all here. Your parents are here, too. Will is back from St. Lucia. She’s out of surgery; still unconscious but stable,” she expels with relief.

I close my eyes and take a full breath once I hear that Sara is alive.
Thank God. Thank you, God, for this.

“She lost a lot of blood and the baby,” she whispers the last part. “But it could’ve been much worse for all of us.”

My heart contracts at her last statement—Sara and William lost their baby.

“Why did you tell the doctors she was your wife?” Emily asks in a small, sad voice.

I look up to meet her questioning stare. “I’ve been to the hospital a few too many times in my life with Jacqueline. I know a spouse has different rights than a mistake like me. She was bleeding, and if she needed blood, I had to make sure they knew that our blood types match. We went through all this when we had the twins.” I smile as the memory of us sitting at the fertility clinic instantly bombards my mind.

“You’re sure about this?” I question her about a choice that would change everything.

“I’m sure. I only want your sperm hanging out with my eggs if I have a say,” Sara answers with her usual sarcasm.
“If this works, we’ll be parents. Can you imagine a baby with your eyes or my nose? Promise me I can give the baby a name,” she begs with hope and excitement dripping from her voice.

“Sara, of course you can name our child. It will be our family
,”
I respond honestly, mimicking her optimism.

Instead of one baby, we got two—Juliet and Jacob. Sara was my gift in life; she made everything better, while I made everything worse. What kind of life would I have had without knowing her? She was and is a part of everything I am today. Jacqueline and I had a real family, thanks to Sara. It’s funny how we assumed our kids would provide our shaky past a stable future. But that’s not what fate had intended for us. That stupid fortuneteller got it all wrong.

Emily talks to me while I reluctantly come back from a memory of when I had it all. I’m back to reality, back to my doomed fate that doesn’t include Jacqueline or Sara.

“You saved her life, you know? She could’ve died if she was alone. Thank you for saving my best friend,” she mumbles with tears running down her pale cheeks.

“Emily, I can never repay her for everything she’s been in my life. I have hurt her for so long that I will be saving her life for the rest of mine.” I’ve cried more in the last week than in my entire existence combined. Just allowing my head to imagine a world without Sara stops me from taking another breath. My kids and I lost Jacky; we can’t lose Sara, too. That’s not an option. Whether she’s part of our life or not, she needs to be a part of this world. I need to know that she’s somewhere, existing, healthy, happy, and being loved.

“Jeff, I know you love her, but I hope once she gets better you’ll allow her to experience happiness without you.” Emily’s words come out in a plea. “I didn’t know how deep your relationship was, and I wasn’t a good friend to her. I didn’t give her good advice, but now that I know the truth, I beg of you to let her be. She loves him and he loves her and I just want her to have what she’s always dreamed about.”

“I know we’ll never be together again, but tell me, how am I suppose to go on? I don’t know anything but her. She was supposed to be my future. How can I raise our kids on my own? She loves them so much. What if I can’t be a good father?” The questions I should be asking Sara shoot out of my mouth without any thought or filter. Emily doesn’t have the answers. No one can help me but me.

“The doctor will be in to talk to you since they think you’re her husband.”

I nod, close my eyes, and promise that I’ll be whoever I need to be for her.

The edge of my bed dips as Emily takes a seat. I open my eyes as I feel her take my right hand in hers and turn it to expose my open palm. She traces the lines inside my palm before lifting her gaze to mine.

“My nana once told me that our life is mapped out and etched in history before we come out of the womb. That no matter what road we take and regardless of the mistakes we make along the way, our destiny will always find us. In the end, all our choices bring us to our providence. I believe that fate brought you and my best friend together. Nothing and no one could’ve changed that. Your children are a testimony of that. But souls heal one another, not break each other. One day, you’ll find all the pieces of your heart that perhaps you haven’t earned yet, and when you do, you’ll understand all the choices that brought you to your bashert.” She looks back down at my open, outstretched hand before I make a fist and close it.

Emily stands up without another word and leaves me alone to remember a mocking memory that for years I’ve tried but failed to forget.

“Sit, boy. I will give you a reading,”
the older woman at the top of the stairs had whispered with certainty. I was never the same after I’d spoken and looked into the old fortuneteller’s eyes. I can’t explain what had compelled me to accept her invitation. I can’t decide if I was intoxicated or perhaps hoping she’d actually know my future, since my reality at the time took an unforeseeable turn.
I believe she was the reason I went back to New York to see Sara again to try and explain. Try to break up with her and let us both move on. I had every intention to never see her again. Sara had her whole life ahead of her. She was a baby who just graduated high school, and I was a new attorney who had a career to build. Even if for only a short time, Jacqueline was my future, not Sara. But seeing the girl I couldn’t stop thinking about, coupled with the old woman’s taunting words, was my ruin. She planted the seed, and I watered it with empty promises and willed it to life.

But everything seems trivial and too late to try and make sense of now.

Twenty-twenty-twenty-four hours to go I wanna be sedated.
The lyrics circle around in my head instead of a litany I can’t bring myself to compose. But the Ramones can’t help me now … only a higher being can lend a hand now. There is nothing left of my insides that my guilt hasn’t eaten away at already.

My door opens as William Knight enters, shoulders hunched, hands in his pockets, utterly defeated. I recognize the guilt on his face all too well. I can only imagine the immense remorse he’s dealing with at having not been there to help Sara. He walks over to a window and starts talking to me without glancing my way once.

“The universe never gets it wrong. Even if you fib, con, and steal a small morsel of hope that isn’t yours, the universe will find a way to autocorrect and seize it back from you. I assumed I was coming back to castigate her for allowing you to touch her. I was then gonna apologize for leaving her on her own and fight for my future wife and child. Eight hours ago, my only fear was that I’d lost her to you. I couldn’t comprehend you two on the floor in our home wrapped in each other’s arms. Now, mother universe, once more, demonstrates that it’s not about my egotistical idealizations, but someone’s life. And if I’m honest, it’s the only life I care about anymore—more so than my own. The last time I saw her, she was alive, gorgeous, perfect, and had my life growing inside her, and now, I bloody hope that she stops hemorrhaging and continues to exist. I just want her okay and out of this wretched hospital and this horrible city, and as far away from everybody but me as possible. But it matters not what I want; I have no control over anything,” he declares, which takes me a few minutes to digest.

“William.” I say his name to try and explain what his guard thinks he saw. But he won’t let me speak. I doubt he can even hear me.

“They have her in the recovery unit and the medics should come see you soon. Being that you’re her husband.” He snorts out a sarcastic laugh.

I inhale his words and look over as Sara’s brother, Eddie, and his best friend, Louis, walk into my room. They, too, hardly look my way and proceed to sit on a few of the scattered chairs by the wall. Both have a hollow stare in their eyes that echoes my own. I glace back as the door opens once more; Emily returns and nods her head at me.

An older, plump gentleman in green scrubs with squeaky black rubber shoes enters the room moments after Emily. He speaks first to Eddie, who then beckons William to come join the conversation. They all look my way simultaneously and begin to approach. I can hear the doctor speak, but I can’t make out his words. I’m fairly certain I’m brain-dead. He suddenly turns his full attention and initiates to speak directly at me, as if he knows that his patient means everything to me.

“We were able to stop the internal bleeding, which was the main cause of the septic shock her body experienced. The ectopic mass was the cause of the catastrophic tubal rupture that led to the massive hemoperitoneum.”

I continue to stare at him with a dazed, empty glance. I haven’t a fucking clue as to what anything he said actually meant.

He senses my confusion and switches over to English and continues. “The blood caused by the ectopic mass rupturing accumulated in the space between the inner lining of her abdominal wall and the internal abdominal organs. That was the presenting cause for the emergency surgery, and the fluid and blood replacement. We were able to stop her bleeding and stabilize her, for now.”

Now I slightly begin to grasp what he attempts to explain, but I’m still confused and lost.

“She’s going to be okay, but she lost the baby?” I ask like a two-year-old idiot. I already know she did by everything he and Emily already said, but my brain is in refutation.

“I’m afraid so, Mr. Rossi. If you hadn’t brought her in when you did, and if the first response team hadn’t begun their resuscitative efforts when they had, we’d have lost her, too.” His last words ricochet out of his mouth right dead center into the open wound I once called my heart. “We don’t know exactly how far along she was since you weren’t lucid enough to tell us, or how long she’s been bleeding, but the pregnancy was ectopic, which means the fertilized egg implanted in the wrong place and began to grow outside the uterus. In this case, the blastocyst implanted in the fallopian tube, which ruptured and caused the internal bleeding. She’s very lucky to be alive.”

I nod frantically, not allowing myself to lose it and think any further than the information the doctor just gave us.

He looks around at William and Emily and then adds, “I know since you’re all close relatives that you’re all aware as to how rare Sara’s blood type is. I can’t stress enough how lucky she was that her husband was with her. He knew exactly what her blood type and Rh factor were. He also practically forced us to start drawing his own blood, which he knew was a perfect match for the transfusion. That saved us precious time as well.” He keeps using the word “husband” and turning to me, which I can only imagine makes William want me dead even more. But
no,
unfortunately I’m not her husband—never was, never will be.

“Thank you, doctor. When can we see her?” Eddie jumps in and asks.

I need to get as far away from these people as I can. I won’t go back on my promise. I made a silent pact with God and I will leave her alone. He kept her alive and I will leave her alone. I just want to make sure she’s all right. I’ll just steal a quick glance at my angelic Sara, who was once mine, and then I’ll get lost.

“Sit tight. We’ll let you all know as soon as she’s out of the ICU.”

“
King of Pain
” by The Police

I
’ve stood in this spot before and watched my wife, my once radiant wilting best friend, my Jacqueline, lying on the other side of a hospital door far too many times. But I’ve never been in this position with Sara. She was my rock, my salvation. I ran to Sara to escape the hell that my life was wedged in. Never once did I imagine I’d watch her helpless body connected to machines. It almost feels staged, like we’re on a movie set and the director is about to yell
cut
. But the more I watch, I know that this is real, too real. This is my Sara fighting for her existence and I can’t do shit about it. She’s so pale, so small, but still incredibly beautiful, almost tragically beautiful, like a broken china doll.