Chapter 5 #2
He could not have known that his words had struck not the wound but its very center.
Over men. No, not over men. Over one man who had once become my entire world, only for me to discover that the world was titled in his mother's name, his mistress's name, and the family attorney's.
Nausea rolled through me again. I turned onto my side and dug my fingers into the wet planks.
My belly ached. Low down, unpleasant and delicate.
In an instant, fear rose higher than the pain.
"It hurts," I whispered. "My stomach..."
The man's face changed. All his rough humor vanished, leaving only focus.
"Mike, faster!" he shouted. Then he bent over me.
"Listen to me, beautiful. Take shallow breaths. Don't move around. We're almost there. The doctor's already on her way."
"Don't call me beautiful."
"What am I supposed to call you when you won't give me a name? Drowned woman is rude, mermaid is tacky, ma'am is boring."
Even in that hell, a faint, nearly soundless snort escaped me. The laugh sent pain through my chest, but for one second, I felt better. That meant I was alive. Dead people probably did not argue with strangers over nicknames.
"Lana," I breathed.
"My name is Lana."
He nodded.
"Andrew. Pleasure to meet you, Lana. The circumstances could use some work, but the view is beautiful around here. If you live, you'll appreciate it."
If you live.
The words were honest. Not "everything will be all right," not the cotton candy people use to seal your mouth when disaster strikes. If. There was more respect in that if than in all Adrian's promises, because Andrew did not lie. He did not know whether I would live. But he kept pulling me through.
The shore appeared without warning: a dark dock, several lights, wet boards, silhouettes of people. The boat struck the dock. They lifted me out, transferred me to a stretcher, and the world began breaking into fragments again. Strange hands. Harsh light. A woman's voice:
"Her blood pressure is dropping."
A man's:
"Careful, she's pregnant."
Cold air against my torn dress. A jacket over my chest. Pain low in my abdomen. My own ragged voice:
"Please."
I do not know who I was begging. The doctors. God. My baby. Myself. Please do not leave. Please hold on. You and I have not had time to do anything yet. No one has ever held you in their arms. I have not had time to become strong. Wait for me, little one. I will catch up.
They carried me into a house. Not a hospital, as I expected, but a large, dark house with wide doors and the scent of wood, medicine, and rain. The ceiling floated above me, and the lamps stretched into smears of light. Somewhere nearby, a woman issued orders, fast and assured:
"Take her to the treatment room. Get the warming blankets. Start an IV. Prepare the ultrasound. Who is she?"
Andrew answered:
"Lana. That's all we know."
"Identification?"
"What identification, Irene? I pulled her out of the river, not the DMV."
"Very funny."
"I thought so too."
Their bickering kept me strangely close to the surface. People were arguing, which meant the world still existed. People were debating paperwork, which meant I had not yet become a nameless body.
Then the pain came. Real pain. Not the kind found in novels, not something beautiful, not the kind you could describe by saying "her heart broke" and trailing off into an ellipsis.
The pain was low, dull, terrifying, arriving in waves that made me clutch the sheet and gasp for air.
They warmed me, injected me, listened to me, turned me over, and asked questions I could not answer.
"When was your last period?"
"Did you take a test?"
"Was there any bleeding?"
"Did you lose consciousness?"
I looked at the dark-haired doctor with the stern face and hated her for every question, because every answer seemed to open another possibility of losing my baby. Finally, I grabbed her sleeve.
"Is the baby alive?" I asked. The voice was not mine. It was broken and childish.
"Tell me. Don't spare me. I don't want comforting lies. Is the baby alive?"
She looked at me for a long time. Too long. An entire eternity fit inside that look, long enough for me to die a thousand times. Then she said:
"For now, yes."
For now.
I closed my eyes, and hot tears streamed over my frozen temples. For now, yes. Never in my life had two such small words been so enormous. I did not know whether it was possible to be grateful for for now, but I was. With every trembling cell. Every breath. Every beat of my heart.
"We'll do everything we can," the doctor added. "But you have to fight with us. Do you understand? No hysterics, no trying to get up, no heroic confessions. Lie still. Breathe. Live. That is your job for the next few hours."
I opened my eyes.
"I'm very good at working for free."
She blinked, then suddenly gave me a brief smile.
"You still have sarcasm. I like your prognosis better already."
After the injections, the world turned soft and muffled.
The pain retreated to a distance but did not leave.
It merely watched from a corner and waited.
They changed me into a dry nightshirt, covered me with a heavy blanket, and hung an IV.
Someone blotted my hair with a towel. Someone removed the remains of a torn bracelet from my wrist. I kept my hand on my belly the entire time.
Whenever I drifted off, I woke in terror and checked first: I am here, the baby is here, we have not lost yet.
Darkness fell outside the window. Or perhaps dawn had come.
Time had lost its shape. The house was quiet but not empty.
Somewhere a door creaked, a generator hummed, footsteps passed in the hall, and muffled voices argued behind a wall.
The sound of a television brought me fully awake.
It was not loud. Someone must have turned on the news in the next room, thinking I was asleep.
The anchorwoman's voice was even and professionally composed, using the same intonation reserved for other people's tragedies between the market report and the weather.
"...the tragedy at a Mercer Foundation charity gala.
Preliminary reports list several people as missing.
Among them is Lana Mercer, wife of prominent philanthropist Adrian Mercer...
" I went still. I even stopped breathing.
My name came from the television as the name of a dead woman.
Not a woman lying on the other side of the wall with an IV in her arm and a baby beneath her heart.
A dead woman. "Sources close to the family report that in recent months, Lana Mercer had been in an unstable emotional state...
" I was no longer lying down by the time the next words came.
I jerked upright despite the pain, despite my body's cry of protest, despite the tube in my arm. The room swayed.
"No," I breathed.
The door flew open, and the doctor came in.
"Have you lost your mind? Lie down immediately!"
"Turn it up," I said.
"What?"
"Louder."