The Families in Rossford

Logan walked across the waiting room and told Billy, “I really appreciate everything you did.”

“You’re welcome,” the pudgy man said. “It really wasn’t anything, though.”

“Of course it was, and Meredith got to the hospital on time because of you.”

“Do you need me to stay?” Billy said.

“No,” Logan gestured back to Chay and Casey. “I got those guys, now. We’ll be fine.”

Billy stood up and reached into his pocket.

“This is for the,” he whispered, “massage.”

“Are you crazy?” Logan said, pushing him to the elevator door.

“You don’t owe me anything.”

As the elevator doors closed, Logan said, “But let me know when you want me to come by, and I will earn my money then.”

“I’m home for the next few days,” Billy said, putting his foot out, as the elevator door was about to close.

“Just surprise me.”

He smiled, and then he was gone.

Logan was coming back toward the worried Chay and Casey when the adjoining elevator doors opened, and this time Marta Fromm entered with Laurel, Maia and a tall, decent looking boy Logan hadn’t seen before.

“How’s Meredith?” Maia demanded.

“Things weren’t going well,” Chay said. “Not last time I checked.”

“I’ll go see.” Casey got up. He looked like he’d had enough, and Logan thought this was strange because he didn’t think Casey knew Meredith that well. He went into the room for a moment and he was gone so long that eventually, beginning with Chay, and then Maia and finally Logan, they all looked toward the door.

Chay lifted a finger and left them, going past the doors.

A doctor was talking to Casey and he looked up and said, “Are you Chay? Her brother?”

“Yes,” Chay said. He assumed that was the lie Casey had told, but it wasn’t really a lie, was it?

“You won’t be able to see her for a while.”

“Is she alright?” Chay squinted, and looked toward the room.

“She will be alright,” the doctor said. “She’s lost so much blood, and right now, she’s heavily sedated.”

“But the baby’s born?” Chay looked confused. “In the movies they always come out and say it’s a boy! Or whatever, and… we’ve been waiting for hours.”

“They baby was born,” the doctor said, looking like he didn’t know how to continue.

“Meredith’s baby died,” Casey said.

“What? How?”

“Can you get a hold of her husband?” the doctor continued.

“We’ve been trying. He didn’t come back here with her. We can’t get a hold of him. We gotta go get her son from day care.”

“Day care turning into night care,” Casey said. “I’ll go if you want to stay here.”

Chay nodded.

Casey kissed him on the cheek, and as he left he heard Chay say: “Does she know?”

“She knew as she went out,” the doctor said. “But she’s asleep. It won’t really hit her till she wakes up.”

She hurt so bad. She felt more beat up than she had in the other births. Someone had told her that childbirth was an experience that, after the joy of holding a child, made you forget the pain. But she hadn’t forgotten the pain, and the truth was, talking to Dena and Nell, she realized no woman had.

Groggy, feeling odd about being in a bed that was not her own, she turned slowly and saw Chay sitting at her side.

“What time is it?” Meredith wondered.

“Only about two o clock.”

“In the afternoon? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Funny. It feels like it should be the middle of the night.”

Immediately Meredith bursts into tears.

“No,” Chay said, softly. “Everything will be alright. It’ll be alright.”

“No,” Meredith sobbed, sitting up. “It’s not that.

“It is that,” she corrected. “But, it’s also that… you’re always here. You’re always here.”

While she wept into her hands, shaking, weak where Chay had never known Meredith to be weak, he said, “Mere, there are so many people here for you. Right now. Outside of that door.”

Meredith took her hands from her face. Her eyes were rimmed with red and her face flushed.

“Sheridan is here, with Brendan. And your Dad and Nell. Dena and Milo are here.”

“No,” Meredith said in a small voice.

Then she said, “My baby died.”

“Yes,” Chay said, because it sounded like a question.

“I had to say it,” she explained. “I didn’t think it would be real until I said it. And I thought, if I don’t say it, he’ll just be in Limbo. Just not alive, and not dead. It’s better to be one or the other.”

Then she said, “I don’t even know if he was a he. What was my baby?”

“You had a daughter,” Chay said.

At this, Meredith crumbled and put her face into her hands.

The door opened, and Bill Affren stuck his head in, but Chay, against his wishes, put up a hand to signal Bill out, and he obeyed.

“A little girl.”

Chay said nothing else.

“I want to see my little girl.”

“Right now?”

Meredith nodded.

“I’ll go and… see what I can do.”

Chay stood up, but Meredith caught his hand.

“Yes.”

“I know,” Meredith said, “that this is terrible. But… don’t let anyone in. Not yet. I just… I’m ashamed.”

“What?”

“I can’t,” Meredith shook her head. “I can’t let them see me like this. They were here for a birth—”

“They are here for you.”

“Chay, not right now. Please. And… they’ll want to know why Max isn’t here.”

Chay turned to her.

“Why isn’t Max here?”

“Where are my kids?”

“They’re out there too.”

“Please tell Nell and Dad to take them home. And… Max won’t be there. Max is gone. Max left.”

“That shit!”

“No,” Meredith said, becoming firm now. “No.”

“Why not no?” Chay was angry. The grief left him and the anger felt good.

“Because he had a good reason.”

“There is no good reason.”

“He found out I didn’t love him.”

Chay waited, sensing she was not finished.

“And he found out that Elijah isn’t his.”

“What?”

Chay came closer to the bed.

“I said he found out that Elijah isn’t his.”

“Whose, then?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Meredith said, wearily. “He’s Mathan Alexander’s. Elijah is Mathan’s son.”

Before silence could fill this revelation, Meredith said, “Now, please, Chay. Tell them I want to see my baby.”    

“That’s crazy!” Bill Affren said. “I want to go see my daughter.”

“She needs us,” Milo agreed. “She doesn’t know what’s going on. She’s out of her mind. Who wouldn’t be?”

“You can’t just barge in,” Chay told them.

Bill and Milo looked at each other and Sheridan repeated Chay’s words as he closed his cell phone:

“You can’t just barge in.”

“We weren’t,” Milo said.

“Of course not,” Bill said, but his nostrils were still flared.

“Chay, could you just tell her we want to see her?” Milo said and Chay nodded.

“Can we see Mommy?” Elijah asked. Cayla was asleep on Nell’s lap.

Bill knelt down to a golden skinned boy who had his golden waves and blue eyes.

“Maybe you had better wait, Lije.”

“No,” Nell said, quietly.

Bill looked at his wife.

“I’m a mother,” Nell said, “and almost the only mother Meredith knows. I understand why she can’t see us, and she doesn’t have to. But mothers don’t get to take off from their children.”

She looked up at Chay.

“They don’t,” she told him, waiting for him to challenge her.

Nell shook Cayla awake and lifting her up. Taking Elijah’s hand she said, “Com’on.”

They were all quiet as she went into the room and shut the door behind her.

“Meredith,” Nell said, “here are your children.”

“Mommy,” Elijah said coming to her and throwing his arms onto the bed. Nell sat on the bed with Cayla.

“I know you want to be alone, but I had to bring the babies—”

“I know,” Meredith said, weeping again and marveling, “Who knew you could cry this much?” as Nell helped Elijah onto the bed.

“Mommy?” Elijah wondered. “Where’s Daddy?”

“Oh, God!” Meredith cried, and pulling Elijah to her chest, she cried the hardest she had that day.

When Layla came back into the hotel room, laughing that evening, she saw Will, and ran to him, throwing her arms about him.

“Hey, babe,” he said, his voice slow.

“Hey, babe? What’s that all about? You look so down in the mouth.”

The toilet flushed, and Layla turned her attentions to a little Indian boy—she guessed he was Indian—who came out.

“Hello,” he said in a very British accent, “I’m Liam.”

Layla went to shake his hand. “I’m Layla.”

“I know. Will told me.”

“I’m watching Liam for a friend I met at the conference,” Will explained.

“Well… That’s great. But… you look really down, and I don’t think Liam’s the cause.” Still high on the afternoon she tousled the boy’s hair, and lifted him a little in the air, while he laughed.

“Because Liam is only a cause for joy. I can tell that right now.”

The little boy laughed, but instantly he sobered and said, “Will got bad news.”

“What?” Layla said.

“I guess it’s good you don’t carry your phone with you,” Will said. “Check your messages.”

“Just a minute, Liam,” Layla said, and went to her phone.

“Mama. Dena. You. Claire. Good grief, what the hell is going on?”

“Meredith went into labor.”

“Well, that’s good,” Layla began, then taking in Will’s face she said: “But Will?”

“Max left her—”

“Shit!” and then Layla remembered Liam and put a hand over her mouth, but he didn’t seem to notice.

“I’m not finished, Baby,” Will said. “Sheridan called me from Saint Francis up in Evanston. Meredith lost the baby. It was a little girl.”

“Oh, my God.”

Will put a hand on her shoulder, but tears were springing to her eyes.

“Oh, Liam, excuse me,” she said, quickly, and went out of the suite as fast as she could, closing the door behind her.    

“She won’t let anyone see here, and Max isn’t here, and Chay says he’s not coming back,” Bill stopped, breathing hard into the phone.

“I’ve lost so much and it hasn’t done anything to me. I lost millions of dollars. I lost a marriage. And… I was alright. But this! This is my baby girl… And she has lost her baby girl. And her husband. She can’t stay stranded up in Chicago. I know she has friends. I know Chay is here. But, it’s not the same. Not to me. And I can’t help. I don’t know what to do, Mama.”

There was silence on the other side of the phone, and then the old voice of Barbara Affren said, “Bring her home, William. Bring my granddaughter home.”

“Do you guys want to stay with us tonight?” Chay offered.

Sheridan looked up at them, and Brendan touched his hand.

“We got plenty of room,” Casey said.

Sheridan nodded and said, “That would be nice. I appreciate it.”

“I’m going to get the car,” Casey told them. He turned to Chay, “You coming with?”

Chay nodded. “We’ll come out to the front.”

“I’ll be there in a moment,” Sheridan told them.

As they went to the elevator, Sheridan said, “Brendan, you don’t have to stay.”

“Actually, I do,” Brendan said.

“Dena and Milo are going back home,” Sheridan told him.

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No,” Sheridan said, suddenly. “I just didn’t want you to think I had to—”

“Sheridan, don’t you get it?” Brendan told him.

“I’m afraid I don’t.”

Brendan shook his head.

“You told me you loved me, and I know I love you. And all these years I’ve been watching out for you, calling it something else. You always come to me when everything’s falling apart. Right now, tonight, Meredith lost a baby that never even got to know what life here was like for a day. And… it makes me understand what I want, and what I care about.”

“You care about me?”

“You say it likes it’s a revelation.”

“In a way it is.”

Brendan stood up and held out his hand to Sheridan.

“I’m not afraid anymore,” he told him. “Come on, Sher.”

Even with all that was going on, Sheridan couldn’t help the smile that came to him. But there was so much going on and the smile came with tears. He rose and took Brendan’s hand, and as he did, Nell came out of the room and said, “Sheridan, say goodbye to Meredith before you go.”

“But—”

“She’s ready now,” Nell said. “As ready as she will be.”

“I’ll stay out here,” Brendan said, as Sheridan went into the room.

The waiting room was mostly empty except for Nell and Brendan and she said, “So here we are. My favorite boy.”

Brendan shook his head and smiled.

“You’re always here when we need you,” Nell said, touching his hand.

“When you were a little boy I knew you were special, and then I thought you would be with Dena forever.”

“Things worked out differently.”

Nell laughed at this, but said, “Well, yes they did. And Milo came and made her happy, and Kenny made you happy. I thought.”

“He did. We were happy.”

“But Sheridan?”

“Yes?”

“You came for him. You’re here for him. I don’t really know what I’m saying,” Nell confessed. “It’s just, you’ve always been there for Dena and Sheridan’s always been there for Meredith and so often so many people lose the people who matter to them, and you’re still here and I think Sheridan loves you and I think you love him and—”

“I do,” Brendan said. “I don’t know how Will’s going to take it, but I do love Sheridan.”

“Well,” Nell said, rubbing her hands together, “I guess that’s what I had to say, then. My work is done.”