What's My Name?

How Could He Be So Selfish??

The hospital was cold. Everything seemed to move slow as we sat in the waiting room. Nova was getting restless, and so was James.

James' foot began anxiously tapping against the floor and his eyes were staring off into space. He was lost in thought again.

"Daddy?" Nova looks up from her seat at James, and he doesn't reply.

"James?" He snaps out if his mind and looks at me. "Nova is trying to talk to you."

He begins to look off again and his eyes gloss over.

"She usually called Rudy daddy. I, on the other hand, she calls me Papa. It's complicated, but we somehow taught her to call us different names, simulating a difference between Rudy and I."

Okay. That was the long answer.

"James, if something happens to Rudy, you'll have to be there for Nova."

James nods his head lightly, but I can tell his mind is elsewhere.

Almost five minutes later I watch as his lips quietly mouth the words 'I know'.

After what seemed like hours of waiting, Nova fell asleep in James lap, and his head seemed to be struggling to stay up. And when he finally began to succumb to his body's needs, a nurse walked out to the lobby and called his name.

"James Pimmit?"

His eyes fly open and Nova almost falls out of his lap.

"That's me." Standing up, he places Nova in my arms. "Please tell me that he's okay."

The nurse gives him a smile and politely asks him to follow her.

I watch as he walks away, but when he notices I wasn't following, he comes back to me.

"Why are you sitting there? You're family, come on." His voice is soft and his eyes are tired. He grabs Nova and takes me by the hand. "We're gonna go through this together."

He knew what was about to happen. Rudy's time had finally run out.

Were lead to a small room. The door is labeled 'Family Room', and what a wild family we are. We take a seat on the couches and the nurse talks to James quietly as she leaves.

"She said the doctor will be in to see us." James plops down on the couch next to me and attempts to lay on my shoulder. Eventually, he just ends up placing his head on mine. Holding me closer than he ever has, he begins to rub my shoulder. "I was so sure that we'd be able to see you get married together. He would have walked through Hell to see that. He really did love you in his own little way."

Yeah, that bruise on my chest from three years ago must be a love mark.

"He was something, I'll tell you that." I look up at him and smile. "You are too. The perfect idiots."

"Man, I was so jealous of you, I felt like a teenage girl sending you that text all those years ago."

I furrow my brows at first, but then I finally remember. 'Stay away from my man'. Hm. And all this time I thought it was Rudy's wife.

"We all do things that we regret." I pause and wonder if I should really say what's been on my mind at a time like this. I decided that honesty is best and speak my truth. "In all honesty, I should have never crossed that line that day. I should have had more control over myself. Don't get me wrong, I love what we all have, but think I mad a bad judgment call on Rudy."

"I know what you mean Victoria. Nobody's in a worse position to judge than me." He pulls me back into him and kisses the top of my head.

How's that coconut oil taste?

The doctor walks in and closes the door.

Here it was. The downfall.

"Evening, I'm Dr. Percy Hackscon." She looked down at the clipboard in her hands and looks towards James. "Mr. James Pimmit? From this, it says that you and Rudy are married?" The doctor must be really confused that the baby in my hands is mixed since she's directly related to Rudy. "And that must be his little girl right there."

"Please ma'am, just do your job. I'm coming down from a high rather quickly, so please tell me while my emotions are offset."

The doctor seems to loosen up. She must be homophobic in some regards. Seeing that James was a human just like everyone else must have made her remember why the hell she was actually here.

"In that case, your husband Rudy Pimmit came in in a fragile state. His heartbeat was irregular and his breathing was shallow. It was lucky that the paramedics arrived when they did, ten more minutes and he would have been gone."

We nod. Waiting to hear the inevitable.

"It is understood that he had Prostate cancer, stage three?" She takes that deep breath. The tell-tale sign everybody has that shows that they are about to deliver bad news. "Rudy put up a fight for the past three years, but I'm sorry to say that after taking him out of a medically induced coma, he has passed away."

Oh.

"Thank you. Since we don't live here, can I request to have the body transported back to Minnesota? Can we get that set up as soon as you have time?"

James' voice was fragile, and every word came out of his mouth like a broken pencil. It didn't seem to have a point. In the headspace around us there was a loud silence, and it filled the room with an exchange of mute voices.

It was our voices. Rudy. Mine. They were having a conversation. In fact, it seemed to be every conversation we ever had over the years. To know that I'd never hear his voice again didn't settle well with me.

I looked down at Nova in my hands. She sucked on her thumb quietly as she slept.

I felt upset. I belt of anger rose within me and my teeth clenched involuntarily, giving me a sharp pain in my jaw; I ignored it.

To know that he had cancer, and to willingly bring a child into the world. For the next two decades, James would have to raise Nova on his own.

And somehow I couldn't place all the blame on him. It was my fault for agreeing to his conditions. If only he would have actually went to an adoption agency, he would have actually had to sit down and consider what his absence would do to that child.

I kissed Nova on her head, and melted into James. There were silent tears streaming down his face, and in his hand rested tensely on my thigh.

"Everything is gonna be okay, Victoria," James says aloud.

But something in me can't help but think that he wasn't necessarily saying those words to me.