Page 34 of Just One Look

People thoughtthat surgeons were heroes, or maybe cowboys who rode in and saved the day. The reality, as in most things, was so much more complex.

Elizabeth stood over Nyree’s bed, the way she had so many times, but this was different. Nyree wasn’t her patient, and she was. She also felt a little bit like a friend.

Nyree turned her head on the pillow. Her face was bleached white, and there were dark shadows under her eyes. Elizabeth longed to look at her chart, but she had no right. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Good,” Nyree said, the word a rasp. Marko held a cup of water for her, and Nyree sipped from the straw and said again, “Good. Did you see … my baby?”

“Not yet,” Elizabeth said. “I wanted to see you first.”

“She’s in the … nursery,” Nyree said. “Because I’m not … strong.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I wanted to say … thank you. I think you may have … saved my life. And … Arielle, too.”

“I think,” Elizabeth said gently, taking her hand, “that your husband would have had you in here pretty quickly. I think he loves you. What do you think?”

Nyree smiled, just a little, but her eyes were still worried when she asked, “Did I … do something wrong? Working? I’m a … painter. On my … feet. Did I … hurt her?”

“I doubt it,” Elizabeth said. “You can ask your doctor, but I doubt it. Preeclampsia can be mysterious. It happens more with first babies. First for the mother, and first for the father. There are risk factors, but nobody ever knows exactly why. It’s just one of those things that happens. The main thing now is to take care of yourself, so you can take care of that baby.”

Nyree’s face softened. “She’s beautiful. She’s … silver. And you’re …” Her voice faded, her eyes closing. “Purple. Powerful, and spiritual.” Elizabeth thought she was asleep, but Nyree’s lips formed one more word. “Sensitive.”

Marko asked, “Is she all right?”

Elizabeth checked the monitor. “Looks that way. She’s tired, though, and she’ll be tired for a while. Her body took a beating. Delivering the baby is the most important step in recovery, but it’s only one step.”

He said, “You can say that I’d have brought her in, and I would have. But I wouldn’t have done it soon enough. They were taking the baby in about fifteen minutes, and they hurried. I know what I owe you. What we owe you.”

“You don’t owe me anything,” she said, keeping it quiet, not wanting to upset Nyree. People could hear, even half-asleep. They could hear, and what they heard could hurt. “This is what I’ve trained for. This is what I do. I’m glad I was there. And now I think you should rest with your wife. She and the baby are in good hands here.”

“I will. Do you want to see the baby, though?”

She smiled. “I’d like that very much. But I think you should take off the gown and cap first. You look a little ridiculous.”

They collected Luka on the way out. He looked almost as worried as Marko, so she smiled at him reassuringly and said, “She’s doing well. We’re going to see the baby. Want to come?”

“Yeh,” he said, and expelled his breath. “Not how I thought this day would go.”

“Me either,” she said. “It’s what I told you. I can’t escape medicine.”

Arielle, when they found her swaddled tight in her Plexiglas bassinet, had her lips pursed in sleep, skin like pale caramel, spiky dark lashes that lay against her cheeks like feathers, and a head of dark curls. Marko put his palm against the glass like he could touch her and said, “She looks like my Amona. My grandmother. How can she look so much like her?”

Elizabeth said, “Maybe it’s her spirit you feel,” and then wondered why. She didn’t say things like that. She focused on what she could touch, what she could know, but something about this little family moved her.

Marko said, his hand still against the glass, not turning his head, “She sees people in color. Nyree.”

“She … does?” Elizabeth looked at Luka, who shrugged,

“Synesthesia,” Marko said. “When she looks at people, she sees their color. Arielle is silver. Shining, she told me. On our wedding day, when my Amona told us we were having a girl, Nyree saw that she was silver. A shining girl, she said. You think all that is impossible,” he told Elizabeth. “But my grandmother’s Noongar. Aborigine. And it’s possible.”

“There are things we don’t know,” Luka said, so unexpectedly that Elizabeth almost jumped. “Or things we know inside.”

“Yeh,” Marko said. “So when she says you’re purple, she means she sees something in you.”

“Sensitive, though?” Elizabeth said. “Spiritual? I’m not so sure about that. Heaven knows I’ve never been described like that before. ”

“Powerful,” Marko said. “She said that, too. You can think she’s wrong, but she’s never wrong. She sees it because it’s there.”