What We Deserve

Part 75: Away

I would have assumed Max was planning on coming home.

Sure it may have been after we had gone to bed.

Or just before.

But no.

We arrived home after work and Max was still gone.

And the app was unusable because Max's phone had died- and or—he turned it off.

My nerves kept me up all night.

He said he was taking off.

I assumed he meant from work, but it turns out he meant off off.

As in running away.

As in possibly never coming back.

This is a punishment for me.

This is torturous beyond anything else I've dealt with.

The poor kids have noticed Dad's absence.

They've noticed how he was not at dinner that night.

And not home the next morning.

Though two out of the three can't truly comprehend where the missing adult is.

Joel has taken notice and is still curiously watching me and the rest of the adult's mannerisms these passed few days.

Yes.

Few.

Max has been gone now for nearly a week with no word as to where he is, what he's doing, or when he'll be back.

Sitting in my office, trying to maintain a sense of normality, I look through a few of my patient files that are being closed due to a few passing and some others recovering. The scale is never equal. Some weeks it seems all is on the up and up for my patients.

And then others, are so low that I feel I've lost all hope.

It's weeks like these, where you get a splash of both sides- grief and joy- that I'm stuck. I sit back and remember each patient- when I received them. When I began treatments.

And when I lost them.

Or released them to live another day.

So heavy my baggage is.

Yet I've grown to carry it effortlessly- though it weighs me down on the harder days.

"Mum?" Looking up from Clara Davis' file, I find Joel standing at the front of my desk, his book tucked in under his arm and a contemplative expression on his face.

"Yes, Darling?"

"Why do babies die inside the mom?" Oh jees.

"Sometimes it just happens that way."

"Is it the mom's fault?"

"Not always. Sometimes it's just that the baby has some sort of defect that prevents it from continuing growth. Sometimes the Mum is over stressed and doesn't take care of herself. Sometimes it's...it's unexpected." I say.

I've grown a bit more in size- what would probably look like a normal woman's 5th month belly is only my 14 week's.

Pushing back from the desk, I gesture for him to sit on my lap and he does, leaving his book on the other side of the table as he comes around.

"Why is it some babies are stillborn and others have to be removed before labor?"

"Sometimes the doctors don't catch that anything's wrong. And sometimes it's just too late before they can do anything." I hold him close to me and rest my cheek on the side of his head. "There's a lot of things that can go wrong in pregnancy. As a doctor, I know that some of those things are avoidable and some...some just happen for no particular reason. It's never easy, losing a baby or a child, and it isn't easy for those who can't even try. Children are gifts and to have one- even one you never bore- makes you the luckiest person on the planet."