Joseph nodded, but I took a few steps towards Matthew, my eyes wild. “What? Just say it, please. I’m thinking the worst right now.”
“It’s what I’m thinking too,” he said sadly as my heart and my lungs turned to liquid and drained away.
Joseph gripped my wrists fiercely and pulled me into his chest. He cursed into my hair and I tried, as hard as I could, to remember how to breathe.
Apella entered carried by Alexei, my father sneaking in behind them. She connected with my eyes briefly, sadly, but once put in her chair, she wheeled straight over to Matthew. He said something to her, to which she shook her head in response. He sighed deeply.
It had been hours, and Orry had seized twice in that time. We were in a pattern of barely contained panic to absolute panic every time it happened. Joseph was nodding off in the plastic chair next to me. But I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t do anything. I was useless in this situation.
Matthew appeared to steel himself, and then he strode over to the two of us. The teenage parents. He sighed again. I blinked up at him, the white lights blinding me. I smacked Joseph’s chest. “Wake up.”
This felt like getting my allocations, reading Joseph’s letter, waking up pregnant, and Joseph dying in front of me all rolled into one.
“Come with me,” he said
The others waited near Orry as Matthew brought us into another room at the end of the infirmary, a solitary desk strewn with paper with a microscope its only adornment.
We sat down and he sat on the edge of the desk, leaning towards us, his face a crumpled mess of emotions. He swiped his forehead with his hand and said, “I’m sorry.”
Joseph stood up suddenly and punched the wall. I jumped in my chair. “Sorry for what?” I asked stupidly. “What’s happening?” Matthew put his hand on my shoulder, and I shook it off. “What’s wrong with Orry?”
Joseph rubbed his fist with his hand and came to stand behind me, his breath hoarse.
“I don’t know why, but Orry’s blood cells are exploding in his body. He is anemic, and his liver is not coping. His cells are just expiring,” Matthew said, exasperated. I leaned back into Joseph’s stomach, the up and down of his erratic breathing matching my own.
I gripped the arms of the chair. “Damn it, Matthew. Don’t talk about him like he’s a tub of old yogurt. That’s Orry out there.” Oh God, my baby.
“Is there anything we can do?” Joseph asked hopelessly.
“I’m trying. I’m searching everywhere for a treatment, a solution. And I’ll keep looking.”
My head snapped up. “Hessa, where is he? Is he ok?”
“That’s the thing, Hessa’s fine. Apella explained to me that she was in charge of Hessa’s development, but Este had already taken over the reins when Orry was made.”
Made, development, what horrible words.
“How long do we have before…” Joseph couldn’t complete the sentence, and I was glad he didn’t.
“At the rate his cells are degenerating, I’d say, a few days at most.” Matthew was trying to keep it together, but a couple of tears made their way down his cheeks. “We’ll keep him sedated and feed him via tube for now.”
I stood and faced Matthew. “You’ll find a way.”
*****
You’re so small. So unknowing. You don’t know how you were made, only that you are loved. You will be loved. Forever. You are the best part of me. If you go, I’m nothing but rust and rags.
Deshi, I’m glad you were spared this. This feeling inside that you might lose your child was like a spinning spur in your guts. It was cutting, slicing, and shredding me to a pulp.
Joseph and I clung to each other like we were drowning. I would be strong for him as he would be strong for me, but strength was useless in this fight. Only science could win.
I pulled my chair closer to Orry’s bed. His chubby little body was wasting away already. His skin was pale, with his tiny lips pursing like he was displeased about something. One hand curled up, the other flat like a star. I smoothed his curls from his face and waited for the flinch, the suck of breath when I disturbed him, but he didn’t move. He wouldn’t move at all, and I wanted to shake him.
Matthew pulled the curtain back and took in my grief-stricken face. I gazed up at him like a starving child. “Take something out of me and give it to him,” I begged, gripping his shirt desperately. “Please. I can’t do nothing… be nothing.” He took my hands in his and just watched me with miserable eyes. I couldn’t look at him, at any of them anymore.
What could I do?
Nothing.
I slid back from the bed, stood carefully, feeling myself slowing erupting, a flood of panicked tears rising from my feet to my head until I felt that I might turn to water. I moved deliberately, mechanically, to the door, Joseph’s eyes tracking me. My hand shook as I opened it. Pelo looked up, smiling inappropriately. Apella tried to speak but only managed to cough. I turned my back to them, and I ran.
Hands reached for me, pleading voices asking if Orry was ok.
No.
I was fast. I knew he was following me, but I didn’t look back. I ran past the station, the screaming monkeys, the city streaking in my vision as my lungs burned, but I couldn’t stop.
The trees closed around me suddenly, calmly. They embraced me with their scratchy arms. I grabbed one trunk with both hands, I looked to the sky, and I screamed. I screamed at the top of my lungs, and collapsed in the dirt.
*****
He approached me like I was a wild animal. I snorted as I dug up clumps of soil in my hands and threw them deeper into the forest.
“You always were a bit emotional, just like your father,” he said, his fine brows arching and then falling quickly.
“Don’t say that,” I whispered. “Don’t talk to me like you know me.”
“But I do. I know you because you and I are so alike. I am your father, and I love you, Rosa. I love Orry too.”
He bent down to meet me. His eyes were so devastated that I almost believed him. “I don’t love you, not anymore,” I said. His stick-like body tightened at my words like a fossilized trunk. “At least, not the way I used to. You’re someone else to me now. And you’re wrong about one thing… we’re not that alike. I would never abandon my child.”
He nodded slowly; he took it, accepted it, but put in his pocket for later. Everything was too big, too much to deal with, without adding our father-daughter drama to it. He put his arm around me, and I leaned into him.
I lied. I did love him, but I was scared of him too.
“Do you want to scream some more?” he asked with a wink.
I shivered and shook my head, watching the branches sway in the icy breeze. They were calling out to me, thin and white-barked, their slender fingers tapping out the message that I’d already read.
Hessa was ok for one very simple reason—Apella.
I took the hand Pelo offered and stood. Resolve hardened my insides. I knew what had to be done.
Maybe that’s what family is. You’re there for each other. You do what is needed without being asked.
I didn’t need to say a word. When I returned, the bed next to Orry’s had been converted to a desk. Paper was stacked, the microscope and other medical paraphernalia loomed over her tiny frame, threatening her. A man walked in with yet another piece of equipment. My eyes found Joseph, and he grinned. “They’re raiding the hospital and bringing the brilliant scientist what she needs.” He gestured to Apella, who looked up, her face ashen, her arms shaky. But her eyes were hard. I knew she would find the answer or die trying.