Page 36 of My Heart Before You

Seeing Emilie for the first time, she pushed her hair behind her ears. “Oh, hi. We have an infant at home and don’t get out much. I think our drink limit may have come down several levels after becoming parents.”

Emilie’s eyes softened as she gently touched Kate’s arm. “It happens to the best of us.”

The tension around Kate’s mouth loosened as she let out a loud exhale. “Thank you.” She turned to Colin. “Can you please help me get him into the car? He’s too heavy for me to support.”

Max started singing softly to himself.

“Of course. Are you okay to drive? Or do you need me to drive you?”

“I can drive. I only had the one earlier,” she said.

Pulling his friend to standing, he heard Kate say, “It’s time to head home, Max.”

Max let out a petulant, “Awwwwwwwww.”

Colin focused back on Emilie and tried to not let the hopefulness seep into his voice. “I’ll see you later?”

Those red lips lifted high. “See you later.”

After he had Max safely buckled in the passenger side of the car and waved them off, he tried to curb the expectant resonance that swelled in his chest as the elevator made its ascent. Once back at the party, he made several rounds, chatting with other friends and trying not to be too obvious in looking for her. After an hour, he realized with a sinking heaviness that Emilie was nowhere to be found.

?Chapter 15?

An instrumental version of “Sleigh Ride” softly wafted down the hall as Emilie donned gloves. Picking up a yellow gown and slipping her arms through the sleeves, she tied the strings around the nape of her neck then reached back to tie the one behind her waist. Colin walked up to the PPE cart and momentarily blocked her view of the room as he reached past her for a mask.

“Hey.” His voice sounded distant and distracted, no doubt thinking of the impending surgery he was about to perform.

“Merry Christmas.” She placed a simple mask on her face and snapped the elastic around her ears.

“Merry . . .” He glanced at her and paused, his whole body stilling. “Your . . .” His speech stopped again while his eyes focused on the side of her face.

He reached past her ear and grasped a long wayward strand of hair that must have tufted free of her braid between his fingertips. With a slow, fluid motion, he delicately tucked it behind her ear running his thumb along her neck to her collarbone. Then he lifted the neckband of her gown and gently placed the loose end of hair beneath.

Under her mask, her lips parted as she sucked in a quick breath. A strong, tingling sensation traced the path his thumb had taken from the edge of her jaw down her neck. The soft, mechanical swooshing from the hospital room and the Christmas carols from the nurses’ station drifted away to complete silence. All she could hear was his breathing.

She became acutely aware of his proximity to her, and how his chest rose and fell as his gaze remained fixed on her collarbone. Her heart beat hard in her chest as she flushed with heat under her gown. For a moment, time seemed suspended. When she swallowed and finally exhaled, he took his eyes away from her and returned instantly to the focused, quickly moving man he’d been only a moment before.

Leaning onto the doorjamb while holding the mask across his face, he spoke to Sierra. “I’m going downstairs to check the heart right now. The harvest team said it’s in good condition. Emilie’s going to bring you down. We’ll talk about the final details in Pre-Op, okay?”

Sierra’s “okay” was meek. She was probably a little overwhelmed by the day’s activities and the prospect of finally being free of the Total Artificial Heart machine.

Colin leaned back out of the room, his voice retaining it’s professional demeanor. “Once the engineer gets here, bring her down. We’ll prep her in the OR.”

Emilie nodded and he was gone as fast as he appeared, exiting through the unit doors. For a few seconds, she stared blankly at the closed doors frozen in place until she heard a soft “Emilie?” coming from within the room.

“Be right there.” She gave herself a shake and entered the room.

Sierra was unique in that she’d had the biocompatible plastic ‘heart’ that pumped pneumatically through two large tubes placed in her chest almost immediately after she’d given birth. Most mothers leave the hospital after delivering their babies. Sierra went emergently to the OR, and the only thing they could do was remove her failing heart to save her.

Since then, she’d been confined to the walls of the hospital so that medical staff could care for her and “Big Blue,” the washing-machine sized device that kept her alive. Her husband and daughter visited the hospital almost every day. Her thirteen-month-old was as comfortable with the nursing and physician staff as she would have been with aunts or uncles, having seen them so often.

Emilie was helping Sierra into a wheelchair when Nick, the engineer, showed up at the doorway and started gowning.

“Merry Christmas, Sierra! You’re getting a heartonChristmas,” he practically shouted into the door.

Sierra lifted her head from her chair. “I still can’t believe it.”

“Believe it.” He made the necessary adjustments, mobilizing the machine. “We’re ready. Let’s get you to the OR.”

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