Page 33 of Doctor Daddy Dilemma

“Three CCs of epi now.”

“Yes, Doctor.”

The voices were foreign, distant as if I were far away from them. I reached for someone, but my hand was restrained.

“Ow…” I winced at the pain in my chest, then struggled to move my arm again.

“Hold still, Dr. Hartman, please we’re trying to help you.”

Again, I didn’t recognize the voice speaking to me, but whatever they were doing didn’t feel like helping. It hurt like hell. I swatted at them and passed from consciousness to unconsciousness several more times until I slept hard.

My sleep was fraught with dreams of being on my boat and it sinking. Nightmares of Charlie screaming at me and leaving, me reaching for her but failing. My body shook and tossed. I remembered moaning and crying for pain relief, though I didn’t know if I was awake or asleep when that happened, but I did feel the ache in my body every time I rolled over.

After a long while of fitful rest, I woke up. I blinked my eyes as they adjusted to the light overhead. The window in this room overlooked the bay, just like that in my office, though from where I was lying, I couldn’t see much but sky and clouds. I heard the rhythmic beeping of a monitor and knew what happened. I’d done it this time, and there was no undoing it.

“Ah good, you’re awake.”

I turned at the voice, seeing the same petite doctor who had cared for me a year ago. She stood over me with a look of concern I’d seen before. I’d done their diets, started walking more, even cut back on drinking, and this still happened.

“How are you feeling?” she asked, and I said nothing. All I could do was stare at her. I knew what this meant.

I had to quit drinking. I had to give up the crutch that had helped me get this far without breaking down. I had no clue how to do it either. How to feel and grieve and face the fact that I was alone, and I’d probably always be alone.

“You understand that you’ve had a heart attack and that you’re going to be in the hospital a while?” she asked and nodded at a nurse who walked in after her.

“How bad?” I asked, but I honestly didn’t want to know.

“We placed two stents. The blockage is pretty severe.” I didn’t remember this doctor’s name, and I was starting to not like her. “You need to take time off work and get your drinking under control, Dr. Hartman, or you’re going to die next time. We won’t be able to save you.”

I knew what she was saying was true. Even being a plastic surgeon I understood the health ramifications of my drinking issue. I hated it, but I felt like a slave to it.

“We can get you hooked up with a good drug and alcohol counselor, sign you up for AA, get you on the right path. But the rest is up to you. You need to get clean, and you need to do it for yourself. You’re too young to die.”

Take time off work? No drinking? How would I even function? The crippling pain of knowing I’d lost the only woman in the world who’d ever given me a chance and that at forty-four years old I was destined to die alone was enough to paralyze me. Grief consumed me without something to numb it. I couldn’t face that.

But I had to.

What was better? To drink myself to death and not feel anything the last few years of my life? Or to walk head-first into the chasm of depression that awaited me, knowing a road to sobriety was the only road toward my future? Part of me wanted to choose drinking and inevitable death. Part of me wanted to live.

I just didn’t know which part of me would win yet.

25

CHARLIE

Sebastian’s cries woke me again, this for the fifth time since nine o’clock last night. He hadn’t woken up this much in over a year, having slept through the night at nine months. And even before nine months he only woke a few times a night.

I forced the blankets off my shivering body and sniffled as I groped around my nightstand for the thermometer. I’d had him in for a checkup yesterday after his fever spiked and wouldn’t come down for two days straight. This being the third day, and now with my own symptoms, I had a feeling I’d be home from work again today. The doctor said it was a virus that had to play out, but I was still skeptical. He wasn’t eating much and the only fluids he’d take were popsicles.

I shoved my feet into my slippers and yanked my robe on over my nightgown, then shuffled down the hall to his room, with my phone in the pocket of my robe. It was still before dawn, as evidenced by the clear skyline of San Francisco in the distance out the windows of the living room. Bash and I had lived here now for three months, after moving closer to the studio for the added space this three-bedroom unit provided. The empty room served as my home office, but when my parents came to stay, as they regularly did, it was also the guest bedroom. I’d love for my mother to be here and nurse us both back to health.

“Oh, hey buddy,” I cooed as I opened his bedroom door and saw him standing in his crib. His tiny hands gripped the bedside and he shook it hard, sobbing. I hated seeing him sick. If I could’ve taken every germ and bacteria and put it into my body to defeat it for him, I would. No one ever told me how painful parenting could be, especially when your child suffered.

Bash shook his head and swatted at me, but I scooped him up and maneuvered him until the thermometer was under his arm, then I pinned it in place and bounced a little as I waited for the thing to process his temperature. “Shh, hey buddy, Mommy’s here.”

I hummed and pressed kisses to his cheeks and forehead. He didn’t feel as warm as he had the past few days, but then I could’ve been running a fever myself. Who even knew where we picked this up. None of the children who went to the in-house daycare at the studio were sick recently, and it wasn’t like I brought it home. I had zero social life. Outside of Amy’s visits twice a year and Mom and Dad popping in every other month, my life was boring. No chance of catching something.

When the thermometer beeped, I pulled it out and flicked on the light to see. His temp was coming down finally, thanks to lots of cold medicine and a lot of popsicles. But my own body was feeling worse by the second. My head throbbed and my chest ached. If I didn’t get rest I’d never get better.

---