Undo by Joe Hutsko (first ebook reader .txt) 📕

“I’m so sorry,” Peter said to Mrs. Green.

“To say the least,” she said, joining her husband and daughter.

Peter exited the room carrying the knapsack. From the hallway he took one last look at Ivy and her parents before the door closed, shutting out the image huddled behind it. He was dazed by the events of the last forty-eight hours. He slowly made his way down the corridor, turning once to look back at the closed door to her room. The first thought to surface through his haze of emotions was of the baby. He had promised these people that he would care for her.

He paused before the nurses’ station and asked how to reach the neonatal care unit. He tramped down the corridor, rounded the corner, and pushed through a set of swinging double doors. To the nurse sitting at a small desk, he said, “Pardon me, which baby is the Jones-Green baby? I’m her father.”

The nurse led him into a clean room and instructed him to put on a sterile gown and a face mask. He followed her orders in silence. Dressed in the sanitary outfit, he followed the nurse into a room containing a row of clear plastic bubble-like incubators, one of which held his baby’s fragile baby. It was a strange setting, surreal, like something out of a science fiction film.

“Here she is,” the nurse said.

Encased in the hygienic shell lay his baby girl. She was tiny, and he could see thin, pulsing veins through her skin and bruises all over her body. Her head! It looked so huge and unnatural, he thought with alarm. He leaned closer, panicked.

The nurse saw his aghast expression and touched a gloved hand to his arm. “Oh, don’t worry. That’s normal,” she said. “All the rest of her will catch up in the next couple of weeks. The head develops a little faster at this stage. It’s perfectly ordinary.”

“What is all this?” he asked, studying the clear tubes entering her nostrils and poking into her arms and belly, the wires and probes taped to her impossible little body.

“Respiratory, protein, waste, heart,” the nurse said, indicating the various points, all of which appeared crudely connected and held in place by swatches of white tape.

“How is she?”

“We’re keeping a close eye on her. It was a difficult birth, but she seems like a fighter.”

“Hang in there, little girl,” Peter whispered.

“I’m afraid we have to leave now. We need to be extremely careful about exposure.”

Peter and nodded, and through his paper face mask he kissed his gloved fingers and touched the plastic shell. He straightened and followed the nurse out of the room. Pulling himself free of the green scrub outfit, he glanced one last time back through the glass window into the neonatal room. He collected the knapsack and pushed through the doors.

Sitting outside the room in one of the hard plastic waiting chairs, was Kate.

Without a word she stood and caught him in her arms. She held him for a moment, stiffly, then guided him to the seat beside her.

“Jesus, Kate. How did you - ?”

“I called Peggy. She told me you were here.”

Peter looked at the silver doors. “She’s so tiny. “

“I heard,” Kate said. She pressed her folded hands into her lap and cleared her throat. “Peter, why? Why didn’t you tell me?”

He closed his eyes. He felt precariously close to throwing up, surrounded by riddles and agony. Ivy. The baby. Kate.

“Kate,” he said, “I didn’t think this would happen.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “You have to believe me.”

“How many does this make?” Kate said, bitterly. “We could have adopted.”

He tried to put his arm around her, but she pulled away and stood, hugging her arms tightly around herself.

“Kate, none,” he said, moving closer. “There have never been any others. I didn’t plan this to happen.”

“And she did?”

“No. Yes! I don’t know,” he said. “She was desperate. It just happened. I didn’t want it to, but it just did. We’d had too much to drink. It was the wine - “

She slapped him hard across the face.

Without a word, he dropped his chin to his chest. He knew that the blow he had struck her, this whole situation, had cut deep. The damage would take a very long time to heal. But he had to have her forgiveness, because without her he would never get through this.

“Kate, please. I don’t know what we’ll do,” he said. “But please don’t leave me. I need you.”

Dr. Chen appeared from around the corner. “Mr. Jones?” he said. He looked at Kate and gestured politely for her to sit down. Then he led Peter away, around the bend in the corridor. They sat down.

“Mr. Jones, we need for you to name your daughter.”

No name. Their baby girl had no name. This thought seemed to be the final blow to drain him of his last ounce of energy. It was real, and final. His life was changed now and forever. Somehow the knapsack fell from his hands, its contents spilling onto the floor. Kate. He had to ask her.

“Wait,” he said to the doctor. He jumped to his feet and ran around the corner, calling out her name. But she was gone.

His shoulders slackened and he went back to the doctor, who was collecting the contents that had spilled out of the knapsack. Peter bent down to take over. He was overcome by a wave of dizziness and the nausea. Then, just as abruptly, the spinning halted and the sickness retreated, forced back by a keening sound that arose in his throat.

There, among the clutter of notes and pens and the little black box with its exposed circuits and wires, he found, written in her mother’s own hand across the label of the topmost disk, their baby’s name.

“Isle,” he whispered.

“Mr. Jones?” the doctor said, not sure he had heard correctly.

“I said, Isle,” Peter said, louder this time, taking the disks in his hand. “My daughter’s name is Isle.”