Read Online Leave a Mark by Stephanie Fournet - Free Book Online
Authors: Stephanie Fournet
Ads: Link
traversed the stairs on her own, and even though she was still sore, she made it back up just a little more slowly than normal. But she made it.
When she re-entered her apartment, Wren let go a sigh of relief. Maybe now she’d be able to push him from her mind. It usually didn’t take long to clear a man from her head. She’d been able to say goodbye to Miller and never look back.
And maybe it was because it had been a few months since Miller — since anyone — that the young doctor’s attention had set her spinning. Must be it. That and being so vulnerable after her surgery. In a few days, she’d be back to her old self. Strong. Tough. Self-sufficient.
It was okay, she told herself, to need someone’s help — temporarily — to be grateful for it, and then to move on. Emergencies could happen to anyone, and it was nice that there were good Samaritans in the world to lend a hand when they did. But Wren knew better than to expect a man to stick around for the long term, to be steady and true and reliable. The moment she believed in that, she’d be setting herself up for disappointment.
Such knowledge had spared Wren a fair amount of heartache over the years. She hadn’t been disappointed at all when she realized Miller was — at heart — a lazy freeloader. There wasn’t a whole lot she could thank her mother for, but her sense of skepticism was one of them.
When it came to men, Wren knew how to set realistic expectations, and she knew how to avoid the ones who were dangerous. The guys she’d slept with had been harmless and fun. They hadn’t been into drugs, and they’d never hit her. The ones who were more fun stuck around for a little while — until they got on her nerves or wanted more.
And then she’d find someone else.
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVEN THOUGH HE was usually exhausted, most days at UMC were good days. Lee had learned years ago that babies were the great equalizer. Rich or poor. Black or white. Single or married. Gay or straight. The arrival of a healthy baby was a universal source of joy. The happiness of a birth did not belong solely to the privileged of the world. Or the empowered. Or the mainstream. Even his patients who were dirt-poor celebrated, thanked God, and cried tears of joy. Every day, it humbled him to be part of such a unifying human experience.
But nothing in life had prepared him for stillborns.
The vortex of grief was the same for everyone, too. And even if he had never met the mother and father (or the mother and her partner, or the mother and her sister/godmother/aunt), Lee always walked away from a stillbirth hollowed out and haunted for days.
Patients died. Everyday. For all sorts of reasons. That was commonplace in a hospital. But when it happened in the maternity ward, everyone felt it. Everyone grieved it, the families with tears and sobs and sometimes screaming. Or with stomach aches and throat clearing, like the hospital staff.
Lee sat in the breakroom, clutching his stomach. He knew the odds. Even if a case of placenta previa had been diagnosed before labor began, the chance of stillbirth was still ninety-five percent. It wasn’t much consolation for him, and it wasn’t any consolation for Lucy and Connor Merrick. The young couple, urban farmers with dreadlocks and crocheted sandals, had come in to UMC with names picked out, ready to meet the most important person in their lives.
And they were leaving with heartbreak instead.
Lee stood up and paced the room. He still had to make rounds, but he couldn’t get his head on straight, and he didn’t want to see patients while wearing a look of doom. Thinking he needed a distraction, he moved to the mail cubbies, hoping an issue of AJOG had arrived.
His box was free of medical journals, but he found a card, and his spirits lifted. Lee loved that a surprising number of his patients had sent him birth announcements. He’d taken them home, put them on his refrigerator, and they’d stayed there until Marcelle
When she re-entered her apartment, Wren let go a sigh of relief. Maybe now she’d be able to push him from her mind. It usually didn’t take long to clear a man from her head. She’d been able to say goodbye to Miller and never look back.
And maybe it was because it had been a few months since Miller — since anyone — that the young doctor’s attention had set her spinning. Must be it. That and being so vulnerable after her surgery. In a few days, she’d be back to her old self. Strong. Tough. Self-sufficient.
It was okay, she told herself, to need someone’s help — temporarily — to be grateful for it, and then to move on. Emergencies could happen to anyone, and it was nice that there were good Samaritans in the world to lend a hand when they did. But Wren knew better than to expect a man to stick around for the long term, to be steady and true and reliable. The moment she believed in that, she’d be setting herself up for disappointment.
Such knowledge had spared Wren a fair amount of heartache over the years. She hadn’t been disappointed at all when she realized Miller was — at heart — a lazy freeloader. There wasn’t a whole lot she could thank her mother for, but her sense of skepticism was one of them.
When it came to men, Wren knew how to set realistic expectations, and she knew how to avoid the ones who were dangerous. The guys she’d slept with had been harmless and fun. They hadn’t been into drugs, and they’d never hit her. The ones who were more fun stuck around for a little while — until they got on her nerves or wanted more.
And then she’d find someone else.
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVEN THOUGH HE was usually exhausted, most days at UMC were good days. Lee had learned years ago that babies were the great equalizer. Rich or poor. Black or white. Single or married. Gay or straight. The arrival of a healthy baby was a universal source of joy. The happiness of a birth did not belong solely to the privileged of the world. Or the empowered. Or the mainstream. Even his patients who were dirt-poor celebrated, thanked God, and cried tears of joy. Every day, it humbled him to be part of such a unifying human experience.
But nothing in life had prepared him for stillborns.
The vortex of grief was the same for everyone, too. And even if he had never met the mother and father (or the mother and her partner, or the mother and her sister/godmother/aunt), Lee always walked away from a stillbirth hollowed out and haunted for days.
Patients died. Everyday. For all sorts of reasons. That was commonplace in a hospital. But when it happened in the maternity ward, everyone felt it. Everyone grieved it, the families with tears and sobs and sometimes screaming. Or with stomach aches and throat clearing, like the hospital staff.
Lee sat in the breakroom, clutching his stomach. He knew the odds. Even if a case of placenta previa had been diagnosed before labor began, the chance of stillbirth was still ninety-five percent. It wasn’t much consolation for him, and it wasn’t any consolation for Lucy and Connor Merrick. The young couple, urban farmers with dreadlocks and crocheted sandals, had come in to UMC with names picked out, ready to meet the most important person in their lives.
And they were leaving with heartbreak instead.
Lee stood up and paced the room. He still had to make rounds, but he couldn’t get his head on straight, and he didn’t want to see patients while wearing a look of doom. Thinking he needed a distraction, he moved to the mail cubbies, hoping an issue of AJOG had arrived.
His box was free of medical journals, but he found a card, and his spirits lifted. Lee loved that a surprising number of his patients had sent him birth announcements. He’d taken them home, put them on his refrigerator, and they’d stayed there until Marcelle
Similar Books
