Lately, he had been sleeping more and more. Some would say this was a symptom of his worsening heart failure or maybe a side effect of his medications. Others might think he was just bored or depressed. They may have been right. But Nick knew the main reason he’d been sleeping so much was because it was his only way to escape.
In his dreams, he could leave his hospital bed and go somewhere else - wherever his mind took him. He had traveled far and wide, to the strangest and most mundane places. No matter where he went, his family was never far from his thoughts.
“Look, Daddy!”
He grinned at his son, Odin, who was standing at the bow of his boat, gazing out across the open water with a fascination Nick knew well. The Florida sun shone down on the little boy’s blond hair, making it appear even lighter than it was already. Seated beside him was Lauren, looking beautiful in her black bikini, her long, dark hair blowing in the warm sea breeze. There was nothing like being out on the ocean with his family, thought Nick with a smile. He was back in his happy place and feeling better than he had in months, both physically and emotionally. As he perched on the deck rail, resting his hand on Lauren’s bare shoulder, he was relaxed and at peace with the world.
“You watching for sharks, bubba?” he asked Odin.
“Der’s a baby!” Odin replied, pointing down at the water.
Nick chuckled. “A baby, huh? Baby shark, doo doo doo-doo-doo-doo...” he sang, expecting Odin to laugh and sing along, as he always did. But Odin shook his head and pointed again, more urgently this time.
“No! Not baby shark!” he shouted. “Baby sissy!”
Nick’s heart skipped a beat as he suddenly heard an infant’s cry. He leaned over the rail, looking down at the water, and his heart lodged in his throat when he saw what Odin had been trying to show him.
There was a baby in the water. A human baby, wrapped in a pink blanket and nestled inside a wicker basket that was somehow floating on the surface. “Oh my god!” Nick gasped. He blinked in the bright sunlight, unable to believe what he was seeing, but every time he opened his eyes again, the baby was still there, wailing helplessly in her basket as it bobbed gently upon the waves.
As he leaned closer for a better look, Nick’s heart skipped another beat when he realized he recognized the baby’s face. Her big, blue angel eyes and little rosebud mouth were open this time, and her cheeks were bright pink, but he had memorized every inch of that sweet face when it was gray and still. Even though she looked different now, Nick would know his daughter anywhere.
“Arya!” he cried. “It’s Arya!”
“Baby sissy!” Odin exclaimed again, bouncing up and down. He had never laid eyes upon his sister before, yet instinctively, it seemed he had known her from the start.
“What?!” gasped Lauren. “It can’t be...”
Nick didn’t understand how it could be possible either, but there wasn’t time to question what he was seeing. The wicker basket was beginning to flood. The waves sloshed over the sides, filling it with seawater. The baby shrieked louder as her face and blanket got wet. Nick watched in horror as the basket started to sink.
He didn’t hesitate another second. Hurdling himself over the side of the boat, he dropped to the water below, desperate to get to his daughter before she disappeared beneath the waves.
“Nick, what are you doing?!” he heard Lauren call down to him, but he ignored her, swimming frantically toward the small basket. It was farther from the boat than it had appeared, and it was foundering fast. Before he could reach it, the basket overturned, dumping his baby into the ocean.
“Nooo!” Nick howled, as he watched her slip below the surface. He sucked in a deep breath and held it as he dove after her, using his arms to propel himself downward. Ignoring the sting of the saltwater, he forced his eyes open, but the water was dark; he could only see a few feet in front of his face. He wished he was wearing goggles.
Through the murky water, he caught a glimpse of a small body drifting below him. He kicked his legs harder, but kept his arms stretched in front of him, fingers groping blindly in the hope of grabbing hold of a tiny hand or foot. But no matter how far or fast he went, Arya always seemed to be just out of his reach.
As he swam deeper, his chest began to hurt from holding his breath for so long. He ignored the feeling, hellbent on finding his daughter before he took another breath of fresh air. But as his lungs screamed for oxygen, he started to feel light-headed. If he didn’t resurface soon, he was going to pass out and drown, and then they would both be dead.
In the second that he hesitated, torn between swimming for the surface or descending further, he lost sight of Arya. It was then that Nick began to panic. He knew he couldn’t keep going much longer, but if he gave up now, he might never find her again.
“Nick!” Faintly, he could hear a familiar voice calling him from far away. “Come on, Nick! Come back to us now.”
I can’t, he thought desperately, his eyes burning as he squinted into the depths of the dark ocean. I can’t leave her.
But he couldn’t stay. He couldn’t leave the rest of his family behind. In anguish, he kicked for the surface, following the sound of Lauren’s voice as she continued to call his name. His chest felt like it was on fire, his lungs burning with pain as his heart beat chaotically. Darkness began to close in from the corners of his eyes as he fought to stay conscious, but from somewhere above, he saw a faint circle of light. As he swam toward it, further and further away from Arya, the pain and pressure in his chest became almost unbearable. It felt like his heart was breaking into pieces - and in a way, it was. He’d left a little piece of himself to sink to the bottom of the ocean.
Just when he thought he couldn’t go another second without breathing, Nick felt his head break through the surface. As the fresh sea breeze blew across his face, he gasped for air, filling his lungs with frantic breaths. He floated on his back for a few seconds, his body bobbing up and down with the rhythm of the waves, before he finally opened his eyes.
When he did, his dream faded away, and he found himself in his hospital bed. He was lying flat on his back with an oxygen mask over his face, forcing air into his open mouth. Dani was leaning over him, pressing down hard on his chest. It hurt so much, he moaned in pain and reached up to push her hands away.
“He’s moving,” Nick heard Rob say from somewhere behind his head, but Dani kept going as if she hadn’t. “Babe - hold compressions.” He felt Rob’s fingers probing the side of his neck. “He has a pulse. We got him back.”
The pressure in his chest was finally relieved when Dani took her hands away, but not the pain. “It happened again, huh?” he mumbled faintly, his breath fogging up the mask. Rob removed it and replaced it with the nasal cannula Nick had grown accustomed to, as Dani stepped back without answering.
Dr. Elizabeth appeared, taking Dani’s place alongside Nick’s bed, her stethoscope already in her ears. “Don’t try to talk right now,” she said softly, as she rubbed the round metal piece between her palms. “Just relax and breathe.” She let it rest lightly on his chest as she listened to his heart and lungs.
Nick waited impatiently for her to finish. He was tired of being poked and prodded, tired of being told to “relax and breathe.” The pain made it difficult to take a deep breath, and he didn’t know if the fluttery feeling in his chest was just from anxiety or another arrhythmia. How could he relax when he was worried about his heart freaking out again and dreading another shock from the defibrillator?
When Dr. Elizabeth was done listening, she draped the stethoscope over her shoulders and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Let’s sit you up a little bit so you can breathe easier,” she said and slowly raised the head so Nick was no longer lying flat. “Is that better?”
He shrugged, not sure it made any difference. It was still hard to breathe because his chest hurt so much, but that was not his biggest concern at the moment. “I almost died again, didn’t I?” he asked bluntly, expecting an equally straight answer out of Elizabeth.
Looking him in the eye, the doctor nodded. “You had us pretty worried there for a few minutes,” she admitted, “but let’s focus on the positive here. In the past twenty-four hours, you’ve survived a hurricane and an electrical storm. That’s what we call three or more separate episodes leading to an ICD shock within the same day.”
To Nick, it sounded far more negative than positive. He swallowed hard, feeling nauseous as his heart sank into his stomach. “Why does this keep happening?” he wondered, overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness. His heart condition loomed over his head like a dark cloud, threatening to unleash another storm of chaos any second. “I wasn’t even doing anything this time! I was just taking a nap!” It was terrifying to realize he had essentially just died in his sleep. Without Dani and the two doctors, he would have simply slipped away and never woken up.
“As the heart muscle weakens, it’s more prone to arrhythmias,” Dr. Elizabeth replied. “I think that’s probably what is happening in your case, but I do want to check your device to make sure it’s working correctly and delivering the appropriate therapy.”
“Does that mean more surgery?” Nick asked warily.
Elizabeth smiled and shook her head. “Not at all. It’s all done externally and only takes a few minutes. In fact, we can do it right now.”
He waited while she wheeled in a cart with a computer on top and unwound the cord of what looked like a large computer mouse. “We just have to put this wand over your ICD,” Dr. Elizabeth explained, as she draped the cord around Nick’s neck so the wand couldn’t slide off. She set it lightly on top of the bandage that covered the small incision on the left side of his chest, then stepped back. “It will communicate with the device and deliver information about your heart back to the computer so we can see exactly what’s been happening.”
He held still while Dr. Elizabeth watched the computer display, occasionally tapping on different parts of the screen with a stylus. After a while, a strip of paper started printing out of the side. She pulled a pair of reading glasses out of the front pocket of her white coat and perched them on the bridge of her nose as she studied the printout. “So what’s the verdict?” Nick asked nervously, trying to read the expression on her face. She was frowning, but he wasn’t sure if it was just because she was concentrating or if she had truly seen something concerning.
“Well… it looks like your ICD is doing what it’s supposed to. This report shows you’ve had several episodes of sustained ventricular tachycardia, an abnormally rapid heart rate that begins in the lower chambers. In every case, the device has recognized it and attempted to correct it with cardioversion, sending a small electrical impulse across your heart to reset its rhythm. It worked once, but the other two times, you went into ventricular fibrillation and had to be defibrillated. During both of those episodes, it took more than one shock to reestablish a normal sinus rhythm, which means you may have a higher defibrillation threshold than we initially thought.” She put down the piece of paper and picked up her stylus again. “I’m going to adjust the settings so your device is programmed to deliver a slightly higher-powered shock from the start.”
Nick winced, hating what she was suggesting. “Won’t that make it hurt even more?”
“Maybe, but if it works, it means you won’t have to be shocked multiple times,” she replied without meeting his eyes, her stylus poised over the computer monitor.
He sighed, as a sense of desperation descended upon him again. “What if I don’t want to be shocked at all?”
Dr. Elizabeth looked up in surprise, blinking at him from behind her glasses. “No one wants to be shocked, Nick, but it’s the only way to treat a life-threatening arrhythmia. If you were to arrest again, you would die without a defibrillator.”
“Then maybe you should just let me die,” Nick muttered, tears prickling in the corners of his eyes. The more he reflected on what had just happened to him, the more he realized that dying in his sleep, without any awareness of it, wasn’t a bad way to go. It wouldn’t hurt nearly as much as being shocked or having his rib cage repeatedly crushed in the effort to resuscitate him. He wasn’t ready to die, but if it had to happen, he hoped to pass away more peacefully than the woman with the bird tattoo who had died in Brian’s bed.
Dani came around to the other side of Nick’s bed, looking at him in concern. “You don’t mean that,” she said softly.
“Maybe I do. I’m sick and tired of this!” he snapped, the tears spilling out. “This is torture!”
Dani picked up his hand and held it tightly in hers. “I know it may feel that way now,” she said, stroking his knuckles with her thumb, “but Nick, it’s going to get better. Once you get your new heart-”
He shook his head, not wanting to hear her talk about the heart transplant again. “Isn’t there something I can sign?” he interrupted her. “A ‘Do Not Resuscitate’ order? That’s what it’s called, right?”
“Well, yes, but we usually only discuss DNRs with patients who are reaching the end of their lives or have little chance of recovering,” Dr. Elizabeth explained. “Like Dani was saying, a transplant will give you a new lease on life.”
Dani nodded emphatically. “Once you get your new heart, this will all be nothing but a memory… like when you wake up from a bad dream,” she added, flashing him a hopeful smile. “You just have to be patient and wait for it to happen.”
Nick stared at her, tears streaming down his face. “Do you know what I was dreaming about before you woke me up? I was dreaming about my family. Lauren… Odin… and Arya. Our daughter. She was alive in my dream.” He wiped the tears away. “We were all out on the ocean. She fell into the water, and I went in after her.” His breath caught in his throat as he saw his baby sinking below the surface. “I stayed underwater for as long as I could, but I couldn’t find her.”
He remembered his frantic search, the desperate feeling of not being able to breathe, and the heartbreaking decision he’d been forced to make. Had it all been a dream, or was it something more? In choosing between the rest of his family and Arya, had he really been deciding whether to live or die?
Nick swallowed hard, his breath rattling in and out of his lungs. “I had to leave her there to come back here… but I shouldn’t have. She’s all alone down there. She needs her daddy.”
Dani seemed to understand what he was suggesting. “What about Odin?” she asked. “Doesn’t he need his daddy, too?”
Guilt stabbed at Nick’s heart, making his chest ache even more. “He’s got his mom. Arya needs me more.”
“You don’t think her grandpa and aunt are taking good care of her?”
Nick’s eyes welled with fresh tears. He’d had such a complicated relationship with his family, but still, it was comforting to imagine Arya being with his father and sister in the afterlife, if there was such a place. Leslie would know exactly how it felt to be without her baby, and Nick could picture her cradling Arya in her arms and loving her just like Alyssa, the little girl she’d left behind. The image made him feel a bit better. “Yeah,” he whispered with a nod. “Of course they are.”
“Then don’t worry,” said Dani, squeezing his hand. “It was just a dream anyway. You’re awake now. You’re alive. You need to concentrate on getting better so you can go home and be there for your wife and son.”
Nick nodded, but he still wasn’t convinced what he’d experienced had been a dream at all. He had been dreaming about Arya ever since her death, but something about this was different. Having come so close to dying himself, had he finally had the kind of near-death experience he’d heard others describe in the documentaries he had watched? In a way, it would almost be worth it to allow himself to be resuscitated if his heart stopped again, if only so that he could come back with a better understanding of the in-between in which he had seen her - and, of course, live to see Lauren and Odin again, too. Yet his family felt so far away, and with his condition seeming to worsen each day, Nick wasn’t sure whether he would survive long enough to see them ever again.
***
