what now? | outerbanks

• one hundred •

Sarah

The world comes back in pieces.
Beeping.
Cold air on damp skin.
A pressure in my throat, something taped to my arm, voices muffled through water.
I blink, or try to, at least. My lashes feel glued together. The ceiling is blinding, a harsh blue-white blur. My head rolls to the side, sluggish and heavy, and I catch a flash of green gowns, gloved hands, metal glinting under lights.
It hits me like a lightning strike.
The baby.
My chest lurches. My heart claws against my ribs, wild and desperate. The fog in my head cracks apart, and I'm shoving at the air, at the tubes, at anything, because she's gone. She's not here—where is she—
A panicked sound rips out of me, raw and broken. "Where's my baby?"
Hands are on me immediately, pressing me down. Someone's voice cuts through, firm but careful, "Sarah, don't move—"
"Where is she?" My voice is slurred and half-choked, but I'm thrashing anyway, tearing at the oxygen mask, wires tugging at my skin. I don't notice the pain. "Where's my baby—give her—please—"
"She's okay," someone says, urgent, trying to reach me. "She's okay. She's with your husband. She's in the NICU getting the help she needs."
"No—" My arms jerk, clumsy, weak, nothing like mine. "I need her. She needs me—"
"You need to stay still." A gloved hand cups my face, steadying it. "Sarah. Listen to me. She's safe. Your husband is with her. You don't need to panic."
It feels like an insult, almost, that I'm being told not to panic about my baby. About the tiny thing I hardly caught a glimpse of before leaving her. I was with her for almost thirty-six weeks, and I left her without saying goodbye.
    I should've been there. I should've stayed awake to hold her against my chest for those first few minutes, to ease her cries and warm her. I wasn't.
My breathing hitches, stuttering sobs spilling out of me. The words punch through the panic, just barely. She's alive. She's alive.
"She's okay?" I whisper.
"She's okay," the voice promises again, softer now. "And you're okay too. We were able to control the bleeding. We didn't have to do a hysterectomy, but it was close. You're going to need a lot of recovery, but you're still with us. You made it through."
I choke on a sound and let my head fall back against the table.
"Let's get her back under," someone says, and they ease the mask back over my face, gentle and slow, like lowering a cloud.
The edges of the world blur again, softening, my heartbeat beginning to slow.
The last thing I think before the dark folds me up again is her.
Her tiny body, her first cry I hardly heard, and the way I'm going to hold her and never let go.

    I don't know how long it's been when I wake up next. I feel heavy and empty and full of ache. It takes me some effort to peel my eyes open, and when I do, I find Rafe at the side of my bed. It's dark outside, and the only light in the room is a lamp beside us. He looks tired. Maybe even stressed, too.
    His eyes jump when he realizes I'm awake. "Hey, Sarah," he breathes.
    I manage a weak, "Hey."
    I notice that he doesn't even have his watch on—the heirloom one—like he left the house so quickly he didn't have time to get ready.
    He keeps his voice low. "How do you—Do you feel okay?"
    "Feel like shit," I rasp. My voice doesn't even sound like mine, grated down to shards from hours of screaming.
    He runs a hand down his face. "You scared me like hell," he says softly. "The screaming, the blood—it was like watching it all over again."
    I know exactly what he means. Our Mom. I wonder if he was unsurpassed as I was. If, somehow, he too had an inkling that I would follow in her footsteps.
    I blink at Rafe, slow and clumsy, my head still weighted with fog. "I'm sorry," I whisper.
    His mouth twists. "You don't have to be," he says gently.
    "Where is everybody?" My voice cracks, the question cutting through the air like a paper tear.
    "Still here." He exhales, shoulders sagging. "They're all in the waiting room. Nobody could go home. John B. is in the NICU with her."
    Her. My heart stutters. I try to clear my head.
    "Have you talked to Wheezie?"
    "Yeah." His eyes flick down briefly. "Sofia has been calling and texting when she can. All she knows is that the baby was born. I didn't—" He shakes his head, jaw tightening. "I didn't tell her anything else. I couldn't."
    I nod faintly, trying to picture Wheezie waiting alone at home, small and scared, wishing she had someone to hold her. I wouldn't have told her either. She doesn't need that.
"Have you... have you seen her? The baby?"
    "Yeah," he says, softer now. "She's really small, and they said she had some trouble breathing at first, but she's doing well. Better now. She looks..." His eyes lift back to mine, the faintest curve of a smile there. "She looks like you did when you were a baby."
    My throat closes.
    A nurse slips in quietly, smiling when she sees my eyes open. "Hey there, Mama," she says softly, already watching the monitors. She passes through a checklist, checking the IV, looking at my stitches, pressing around my abdomen with careful fingers.
    She rattles off information about my stitches and about the bleeding being under control. She says something about how they're monitoring for infection and how the baby's on oxygen support but stable and strong.
    I nod at the right moments, but none of it really lands. My ears are buzzing. All I can think about is her. My baby. I carried her for almost thirty-six weeks. I felt every flutter, every hiccup, every curl of her toes beneath my ribs, and now she's somewhere else, with strangers, and I can't even picture what she looks like.
    The panic bubbles up fast, sharp and dizzying. "Can I see her?" The words tumble out desperate and raw. "Please, I need—I need to see her."
    The nurse's expression softens and gentles even further. "I need to check if the NICU team is finished with her care for now," she says, her voice low and kind, "but if they are, I think we can bring her down to you for a little while."
    My breath stumbles in my chest. "Please," I whisper again, barely more than air.
    "Alright," she says. "Let me go find out."
    She slips out the door, and the silence she leaves behind feels like it stretches forever, thick and trembling and full of longing.
    Rafe stays with me while we wait, quiet and watchful. The clock ticks somewhere above the door, each second dragging like a stone through water. My fingers twitch against the sheets. I can't be still. My body is too exhausted to move, but my mind is restless, desperate, and wild.
    "She's okay," Rafe murmurs again, like he's reading my thoughts. "She's tougher than she looks. She's a fighter like you."
    I close my eyes for a second, trying to hold onto that, to wrap it around me like a coat of safety, but the truth is, I don't feel like a fighter. I feel like glass, cracked through, as if anyone pressed too hard on me I'd shatter into pieces and spill across the floor.
    The door clicks open.
    My eyes fly up so fast that the muscles behind my eyelids throb.
    The nurse is back, and this time, she isn't alone. John B. is behind her, hunched protectively over a clear bassinet on wheels.
    I think I stop breathing.
    Rafe exhales, shoulders easing. "I'll give you guys a minute," he says softly, and slips past them, brushing John B.'s arm on his way out.
    John B. looks like he's been to hell and back. I guess we both have. His eyes are swollen and red around the edges, and his hair is a wild mess. His shirt is wrinkled and damp, like he's sweated through it, even though I know Kie packed him extra. He's crying before he even speaks.
    "Sarah," he breathes, and then he's at my side, bending down to me, arms coming around me so carefully, like I'm something breakable. His whole body shakes against mine. "God, you're okay—you're okay." His voice cracks apart. "I was so scared, Sarah. I thought—" He can't even finish.
    I press my cheek into his shoulder, feel the heat of him, the way he's trembling. My eyes sting. I'm still dazed, still floating a little, but his arms, his smell, his voice, it all anchors me back.
    "I'm okay," I rasp, staring blankly at the wall. "I'm here."
    He pulls back just enough to look at me, wiping roughly at his eyes with the back of his hand, then glances down toward the bassinet. His voice goes soft, wonder threading through the tears.
    "She looks like you," he says.
    I turn my head.
    And there she is.
    The nurse moves gently, quietly, unlocking the sides of the bassinet and lowering them so I can see her better. My chest caves in.
    She's so small. Smaller than I could have imagined. She's curled up in a little nest of blankets, a knit cap over her head, a tiny tube taped near her nose, wires tracing down her chest. Her hands are the size of my thumbs. I'm sure her whole body could fit inside John B's palm.
    "She's been strong," the nurse says softly. "Breathing on her own now, and her oxygen is stable. She's ready to be with her mama. When I get her in your arms, I'll take the wires away."
    John B. looks back at me, eyes wet again, asking without words if I'm ready.
    I nod desperately, even though my whole body is trembling. My heart is a storm.
    The baby lets out a whimper, a sound so fragile it slices right through me. My heart stutters. She squirms weakly in the nurse's hands, her tiny face scrunching up, a small cry rattling out of her chest like she's offended at being moved, like she knows how far she's been from me.
    "Dad," the nurse says gently to John B. as she positions herself closer to my bed, "why don't you help Mom undo the top of her gown?"
    John B. startles like he's been snapped out of a trance. "Oh—yeah, okay."
    His hands are careful, fumbling at first, like he's trying not to touch me too hard. It means something special to me. The air goes still, heavy with something reverent. My gown loosens at the top, baring my chest, my skin cold under the room's air but flushed everywhere else.
    The nurse leans down, speaking so softly it's almost a whisper. "We'll do skin-to-skin, okay? She needs to feel you. It'll help her regulate."
    I can't speak. I wouldn't know what to say even if I could. I just nod, hard, tears already burning my eyes.
    And then—she's there.
    The nurse lowers her onto my chest, guiding the wires gently off of her face, leaving her to me in purest form, and the moment her tiny body touches my skin, her cry spikes, sharp and desperate, like she's been holding it in all this time. The sound claws through me. My arms twitch and lock up on instinct, stiff and awkward yet still cradling her, caging her to me.
    "It's okay," I breathe, my voice cracking, pretending like I have any real idea of what I'm supposed to say. "It's okay, baby—"
    She wails for another heartbeat, and then she stops. Not all at once, but slowly, melting down into me, cries dissolving into a hitching whimper. Her cheek presses into my collarbone, squashing her mouth, her perfect tiny, pink lips into a tiny O. I feel the smallest puff of her breath on my skin, warm and damp, and I can confidently say I have never been so over the moon about a person's breath. A person. She's real.
    My world tilts.
    The nurse adjusts the blanket over us and steps back. "You guys take a moment. I'll be back in a little while to check in," she whispers, and then slips quietly from the room, shutting the door behind her.
    It's silent now, except for the soft little snuffle of her breath, somewhat labored, but there.
    John B. has one hand on my shoulder, the other cupped protectively around her back, and he's crying again, silent tears slipping down his face. I can't look at him. I can't look at anything but her.