I scowled at the group texts from Lauren for a long moment before shoving my phone in my pocket and returning to my surgical notes. I got through two charts before pulling it out and rereading it again.
Lauren: It's time!!!!!
Lauren: Baby Froggie is coming! Shannon and Will are headed to the hospital now!
Lauren: They don't want anyone coming by yet or hanging around in the waiting room (shocker) but my mom's there and will let us know when Froggie arrives
"Um, Doctor Acevedo," one of my residents started. I called this one EMA, Even More Annoying. I hadn't stopped to learn this rotation's names. In my head, they were Really Annoying, More Annoying, Even More Annoying, Weird Hair, and Super Annoying. "Do you need someone to scrub in for that—"
"No I'll tell you when I need you go away right now," I said, all the words flying out in a single breath.
I grabbed the hospital phone and called over to Brigham and Women's while I stared at Lauren's texts. Shannon was delivering there, and I wanted to see who was on duty tonight. I had privileges at that facility, and knew many of the residents and attending physicians. Once I got through to the nurse managing the labor and delivery floor, and I asked about staffing and let her know that Shannon was a friend. That heads-up served all interests, as I wanted the best for Shannon but also knew she required a room far away from other laboring mothers. I was betting that she'd invite everyone in earshot to suck her dick at least once before this baby arrived.
When I was finished, I resumed scowling at my phone, and toggled to Erin's contact information. It was Monday afternoon in Boston, which meant it was early evening in Iceland. Odds were good that she was still in the lab. If she wasn't heading home to meet me for a video chat, time was known to fade away for her, and she'd work straight through the night without noticing. I closed my address book app, and opened an internet browser.
Not that I knew anything for sure, as we'd barely communicated since parting in Cozumel.
She'd texted from Charles de Gaulle to share that she'd landed and was enjoying some Parisian breads before her connecting flight to Heathrow, and that felt normal. Like we hadn't unraveled the past two years of us in an island airport terminal because I'd lost my fucking mind.
So it was no surprise that after confirming that she'd arrived in London and then Oxford, the texts stopped. I knew she was tied up with research and our schedules were out of whack with me back at the hospital, but it had been five weeks without an email or call, video chat or text.
Erin's silence was like a slow, painful suffocation. The oxygen was sliding out of my lungs and there was nothing I could do to stop it. At first, I struggled against it, flailing and fighting and shooting off ten emails in a single day. But then I found myself sinking deep, deep, deep as I surrendered to the reality that I was without air, without Erin. I was cold and alone, and I'd done this to myself.
She only shut down and shut out as a means of protection. She wasn't doing this to hurt me—or Shannon or anyone else she'd muted—because the one thing that mattered most was her free will. Her choice, her autonomy. Robbing her of that only guaranteed that she'd take cover in a quiet, separate place. And that was what I'd done. I'd pushed her to the point of ultimatum, and those were never choices. So I waited, emailing every day, even if only to say "I'm sorry and I love you."
There was no spectacular spin-out on my part, no epic alcohol consumption or destructive behavior. All of that required gathering a certain level of energy, and I didn't have it. I was tired and heartsick, and the worst part was that I knew she could lose herself in enough research and travel to forget all about me. I fucking hated it, but it was true.
My life shrank down to three small priorities: work, sleep, and running. That, plus the occasional visit from Riley, was all I could manage. He'd been making a habit of showing up at my apartment with a six-pack of beer to watch Monday Night Football recently, and that qualified as my only non-professional interaction with humans most weeks. He kept the discussion localized to football, and I appreciated the hell out of him for it.
Getting back to the hospital wasn't as jarring this time around, or maybe I was too numb to notice. All of this translated into a grouchy demeanor that had the residents gossiping about Africa and Central America "changing" me. To them, I was a cautionary tale, proof that the best surgeons shouldn't sully their skills on lost Third World causes.
Unfortunately, my problems were of the First World variety.
When I wasn't working, I was out hitting the pavement and reteaching my body how to run farther than the distance between operating rooms. The exercise was good for me, and it came with the added benefit of clearing my head. I could focus on the road, my breathing, my pace, and get away from all the things I should've said in that airport terminal. So I ran my soles thin, and for once, I was thankful that Boston wasn't loaded with memories of Erin.
I slept with my laptop beside me, powered up and dialed in to the video chat app we favored on the off chance Erin wanted to talk. She was most reflective in the middle of the night. Most honest with herself, too. But it was ridiculous. She wasn't reaching out. If there was one thing I knew about Erin, it was that she didn't feel entitled to taking the first step.
"Fuck it," I mumbled to myself, thumbing my phone to life. "Just fuckin' fuck it all." I tapped Erin's contact information, initiated the call, and pressed the phone to my ear, all while grousing about her penchant for only checking her phone a few times each day. "If she doesn't fuckin' answer, I'm goin' to Iceland and pickin' her up my-fuckin'-self."
"What's that Doctor Acevedo?" one of my residents called. He'd been lurking around all day, just waiting to scrub in or get his hands on a procedure, and now he was listening to me talk to myself.
Still ringing.
"Why aren't you in the ER?" I snapped. I'd been doing that with some frequency, yelling at residents. Interns, too. I feared the nursing staff enough to know better.
Still ringing.
"You didn't send me to the ER," he replied.
Still ringing.
"Go there anyway," I said.
Still—
"Hey," Erin answered. It was the bashful kind of hey that said Yeah, I have been ignoring your calls and emails but please don't forget that you like me a whole lot. It also could've been Yeah, we broke up in an airport but you won't stop emailing me and this is getting weird but I was rooting for the former.
"Hey," I said. I was stunned that she'd answered, and didn't have my response ready yet.
"Not to end this conversation before it starts, but…I'm kinda busy," she said.
Of course you are. "With?" I asked, hoping that she'd fill the silence with news of her research and data analysis problems so that I could figure out how the hell to get her back here before Shannon's baby was old enough to drive and vote.
She hummed for a second, and I imagined that crooked smile-scowl that she made when she was thinking about her work. "Lab stuff," she said.
There was a punch of dismissiveness in those words, and it was clear I wasn't getting an update on the chemical composition of the soil beneath Greenland's ice today. I cleared my throat and stepped into an empty patient room to avoid the roving pack of residents that seemed to sense I was engaged in a highly personal conversation, and chose this minute to hover even closer.
"Shannon's having the baby tonight," I said, shutting the door behind me. "Come home."
"Who's asking?" she snapped.
That right there, it brought the first true smile to my face in weeks. I loved Feisty Erin.
"Because I'm comfortable stating that I'm neither pivotal in the childbirth proceedings nor am I useful," she continued. "I know all about things that explode, but not as it pertains to amniotic sacs, or vaginas. Hell, me showing up would probably make the experience worse for her, and that would only add another crime to my tab. If anything, it will make this all about me and Shannon, and not Shannon and Will and Froggie. I don't want to force an awkward scene. Don't you think she has enough to worry about right now?"
"And I'm comfortable stating that vaginas do not explode during childbirth," I said. I laughed at that, and it didn't feel like a brittle spasm anymore. It felt good.
"But if Patrick's asking," she started, "it's because he thinks he's going to reenact the Christmas Truce of 1914, and that is ludicrous—"
"I love when you force obscure bits of history to fit your arguments," I murmured, smiling like a lunatic.
"And this isn't the trenches of Saint-Yves," she said, carrying on as if I hadn't spoken. "If Matt's asking, please tell him that he's been formally relieved of his official role as Walsh Family Arbitrator."
"But he really likes it," I said. The biggest smile possible. "Don't rob him of that joy."
"I know Sam isn't asking because he sent me an email two hours ago," she said. I could picture her in the stark white Reykjavík apartment—I still had her schedule on my kitchen calendar, and knew she'd returned from Greenland late last week—ticking off her siblings on her fingers. "Sam and Tiel, they're having a boy, by the way."
Another laugh, and that brought my total for the day up to two. Tiel was four months along, and Sam was the textbook definition of an anxious father-to-be. He texted me with no fewer than ninety-seven questions about pregnancy and babies each day. "Trust me," I said. "I've heard and I believe he's buying the Green Monster at Fenway Park so he can have it painted with that news, too."
"It's not Riley. He texts me whenever he has something worth sharing," Erin continued. "So, tell me: who's asking?"
Several things were unbelievably positive about this. First, she'd taken my call. Erin was the queen of ignoring calls from people she didn't want to talk to—her brothers, namely—and then immediately emailing or texting back to find out what they wanted. She could've done that but didn't. On top of that, she was talking to me. Real, hyperbolic babble that only this woman could pull off with a semblance of sense. And finally, she wanted to come home. She wanted this request and she had to stage some opposition in the process, but she wanted it.
All this time, I'd thought it would be me. I thought I'd be the one to convince her to end the war with Shannon and allow her siblings back into her life, but I was wrong.
Shannon was bringing Erin home, and she was the only one who could.
"Your husband," I said. "Your husband is asking because nine years is nine too many."
"Nick, you're—" she protested.
"I'm not having it, lovely," I interrupted. "It's time for this to end, and it ends here. There's a flight out of Reykjavík tonight, and it still has some available seats. Get your ass in one of them. I'm heading into surgery soon, but I'll see you in the morning."