Mending Broken Hearts

9. Hard Truths

September 2019

Madiha

4:00 PM

The obstetrician had just completed Noor's C-section when Salman arrived looking surprisingly less distraught than he had that morning. I suppose getting a couple of hours of sleep and knowing that your wife and child were in capable hands was the reassurance he needed. 

But that wasn't all that had surprised me in the last hour. 

Her husband loves her, were not the words I thought I would ever hear from Omar. The same guy who literally ran away from Noor when he saw her in the food court mere weeks ago. And was ready to tear up everything around him when he heard of her in the ER. 

The man who now stood in front of me updating Salman was not the man who had told me that love is vulnerability, in a voice so thick with regret and longing that I had found myself holding my breath, wondering if I would ever have the kind of love that made you feel so deeply even in its absence. 

I did not know what to think of that at all, or maybe I needed to ask myself why I was thinking of it at all. How Omar felt about his ex-fiancé had no bearing on my life, I told myself, so stop thinking about him and do your job.

Annoyed at myself for getting distracted I went to join the two men. Omar had just finished explaining the changes we had made in Noor's ventilator setting when the neonatologist opened the ICU door and asked Salman to come in to meet his baby.

"Congratulations, you have a girl! And she is a feisty little one too. We had planned to put a ventilator tube in her to help her breathe but it looks like she will do fine with just supplemental oxygen through a mask"

"Well, she is her mother's daughter", Salman replied with a tired smile, while Omar and I looked at each other with relief and immediately joined the ICU team to discuss starting Noor on epinephrine, a medicine which helps the heart muscle pump better. With that her blood pressure started to climb, and everyone in that room felt a little bit lighter.

The friend, colleague, wife, that we knew had a long way to go. But the improvement we saw in her condition, however slight, was the most reassuring news all day we had received all day. 

The neonatologist team started to wheel 'Baby Girl Noor' out in her little incubator and I could see that Salman was trying to make yet another decision; go with his newborn or stay with his wife, "Omar or I could go with your daughter if you want to stay with Noor", I offered. 

"Thanks guys", he looked at us and nodded, "Omar could you go? Just want to make sure she does ok on the way there"

"Of course, and...", Omar replied with a slight smile, and extended his hand, "Congrats man"

Salman did not hesitate in reciprocating that gesture, and it struck me how these two men who were arguing in this very room just a few hours ago had managed to put aside their differences for a woman who they both truly cared about. 

It was impressive and strange. 

*******

5:30 PM

Salman had made a couple of trips to and from the the Neonatal ICU. His daughter was hanging in there, still breathing comfortably through the mask with supplemental Oxygen. She was undergoing a slew of tests to determine if she had the same infection as Noor, putting her father through one anxious moment after another.