After the Fall by Kylie Ladd

hair fell out and the white-cell count rose. I’d never been wrong before. I suppose it was bound to happen eventually, but not with this girl. Her mother, sleeping awkwardly in a chair beside her daughter’s bed, woke as I put down the file.
    “She’s better, isn’t she?” she asked me immediately, pushing tired hair out of her face.
    “There’s still a long way to go yet,” I cautioned, “but I think she’s moving in the right direction.”
    “I knew it,” said the mother, unheeded tears suddenly incandescent at the corners of her eyes. “Around midnight the color started coming back into her face, and she asked for her teddy.”
    I just nodded, and together we watched the young girl in silence. Most of my patients toss and turn in pain and fever, or lie, almost comatose, in a drug-induced stupor. This one had been through both stages, but now lay sleeping the sound and rhythmic sleep of the healthy child, limbs curled around a beloved soft toy.
    “Oh, God, I couldn’t bear to have lost her,” said the mother suddenly, her hand coming up to her mouth as if she might vomit.
    “I know,” I said quietly, reaching out a hand, then taking the woman in my arms, where she sobbed, shuddering, against my shoulder. As part of my training I’d worked in obstetrics, and seen some wonderful things. But for all its pain, this job was better, for how many children are reborn? There’s no happier ending than a second chance.
    Later that day, one of the nurses remarked in passing that there was a delivery for me in the ward clerk’s office. Chocolates and gifts from grateful parents weren’t an unusual occurrence, and, feeling hungry and hopeful, I went to have a look. At first I couldn’t see anything for a clutch of nurses surrounding the desk, leaning over something vivid and rustling. For one ridiculous moment I panicked, thinking a patient was being resuscitated. But then one giggled and they parted, revealing an enormous bunch of deep red roses. There must have been at least four dozen, with velvety petals as large as a child’s fist. The card in the center of them was addressed to me. To my darling Cress , it read for everyone to see, the most beautiful woman in the world. I’ll love you always, Luke .
    “You must have done something right,” one of the nurses joked as I stooped to pick up the enormous bouquet. Maybe what happened wasn’t so bad, I thought to myself as I smelled the flowers. Maybe it could even bring us closer, remind us of our love for each other. Maybe in the dark he did really mistake her for me. As I went to tuck the card back in my fingers brushed something soft hidden among the thorns. I pulled it out, and almost cried. It was a tiny bunch of pink daisies, incongruous amid the other regal blooms, but infinitely more precious.

KATE
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    When I first got my engagement ring I couldn’t stop looking at it. It was so shiny, so vibrant, the colors rich and mesmerizing. The ring had moods, and I knew them all. Mostly it shone green and blue, peaceful, becalmed, a little planet on my finger. Sometimes, though, it darkened to violet, the color of a bruise, or red flecks appeared, flashing like beacons against the cerulean miasma. I liked to think that the changes reflected my own emotional state, as if conducted by blood to the skin beneath the band. But when I remarked on this to Cary he pointed out what I’d suspected all along: that it was probably just the light playing tricks, some alteration in the external environment, nothing more.
    Yet after a while I stopped noticing the ring. I can’t remember when it was, but sometime after we married. One year? Two? It had lost its sparkle and no longer clamored for my attention. The second gold band beneath it seemed to draw away some of its shine; the rest was lost to dirt and sweat, shampoo or the dusting powders I used at work. Occasionally I thought I should clean it, but then I never took it off, so I never got around to it. When I did