Regretting You(22)

“I don’t know details,” the nurse says. “All I know is that he was brought in a few moments ago, so try to get here as soon as possible.”

I choke out an okay before ending the call, but I’m almost positive she would have given me more information if the news were better.

If the news were better, Chris would have called me himself.

I’m holding Elijah. I was holding him when the phone rang, and now I’m clutching him even tighter, still on my knees. For at least a minute, I’m frozen on my living room floor. But then Elijah yawns, and it snaps me back into a grim reality.

I call Jenny first, but her phone goes to voice mail. It’s her first day back to work. She won’t have her phone on her until her lunch break. But word will spread fast at the hospital, and she’ll find out soon enough.

I start to call Jonah next so that he can come get Elijah, but I don’t even have his phone number saved in my phone. I rush to the sheet of paper Jenny left me this morning and enter the number she wrote down to reach him. It goes straight to voice mail. He’s in class.

I’ll call the school to get in touch with him soon, but every second I spend trying to contact someone is a second longer it’s going to take me to get to the hospital. I strap Elijah into his car seat, grab his diaper bag and my keys, and leave.

The trip to the hospital is a blur. I spend it whispering prayers and gripping the steering wheel and stealing glances at my phone resting in the passenger seat, waiting for Jenny to call me back.

I don’t call Clara at school yet. I need to know that Chris is okay before I worry her.

If they haven’t already notified Jenny that Chris was in a wreck, I’ll have them page her when I get inside. She can take Elijah then.

For now, he’s with me, so I take his diaper bag and his car seat and run toward the entrance. I’m faster than the automatic sliding doors of the emergency room. I’m forced to pause my sprint for a couple of seconds so they can open wide enough for me to enter. As soon as I’m inside, I go straight to the nurse’s desk. It’s a nurse I don’t recognize. I used to know almost everyone in this hospital because I thought it made Chris look good for me to know everyone at his office parties, but they come and go so often, I don’t even try to keep up anymore.

“Where’s my husband?” The words tumble out in a panic. Her eyes are sympathetic.

“Who is your husband?”

“Chris.” I gasp for air. “Chris Grant. He works here, and he was just brought in.”

Her expression changes when I say his name. “Let me get someone who can help you. I just got on shift.”

“Can you page my sister? She works here too. Jenny Davidson.”

The nurse nods but rushes away from the window without paging Jenny.

I set Elijah’s car seat on the closest chair. I try Jenny again and then Jonah’s cell phone again, but they both go straight to voice mail.

I don’t have time to wait on the nurse to figure out her shit. I call the hospital and ask for Labor and Delivery. They connect me after the most excruciating thirty seconds of hold time in my life.

“Labor and Delivery, how may I direct your call?”

“I need to speak to Jenny Davidson. One of your nurses. It’s an emergency.”

“Hold, please.”

Elijah starts to cry, so I put my phone on speaker and set it in the chair so that I can pull him out of his car seat. I pace back and forth, waiting for Jenny to answer, waiting for a nurse, waiting for a doctor, waiting, waiting, waiting.

“Ma’am?”

I grab my phone. “Yes?”

“Jenny isn’t on schedule until tomorrow. She’s been out on maternity leave.”

I shake my head, frustrated. Elijah is growing more agitated. He’s hungry. “No, she started back this morning.”

There’s a moment of hesitation from the woman on the other line before she repeats herself. “She isn’t on schedule until tomorrow. I’ve been here all day, and she’s not here.”

Before I start to argue with her, the doors to outside open, and Jonah rushes in. He pauses for a second, almost as if he wasn’t expecting to see me here already. I hang up the phone and toss it in the chair. “Thank God,” I say, handing Elijah to him. I reach into the bag and pull out a pacifier. I put it in Elijah’s mouth and then head back to the window and ring the bell three times.

Jonah is standing next to me now. “What do you know?”

“Nothing,” I say, exasperated. “All I was told on the phone is that it was a car wreck.”

I finally look up at Jonah, and I’ve never seen him like this. Pale. Expressionless. For a moment, I worry about him more than myself, so I take Elijah from him. He backs up to a chair and sits down. In the midst of my internal hysteria, irritation begins to claw its way out. Chris is my husband. Jonah should be worried about me more than himself right now.

The waiting room is alarmingly empty. Elijah only becomes fussier, so I sit three seats down from Jonah and pull a bottle out of Elijah’s diaper bag. It’s cold, but it’ll have to do. The second I put it in his mouth, he stops fussing and begins to devour it.

He smells like baby powder. I close my eyes and press my cheek against the top of his warm head, hoping the distraction will keep me from breaking down. I can feel in my gut that it might not be good. If they aren’t allowing us to go see Chris, that means he’s probably in surgery. Hopefully for something minor.