Chapter 48
NIGHT TERRORS
Zane was dreaming, and then he wasn’t. At first, he thought, Stiff, that’s all.
He was a pretty fit bloke, but his inner thighs weren’t used to riding horses.
He’d gone to bed early, but only because everyone else had.
Nobody earlier than Skylar, though, because she’d well and truly worn herself out.
He should’ve thought of that. Ziplining and horseback riding was a pretty full day.
The kids had liked it, though, and it hadn’t been one bit bad to put the little kids to bed himself.
There was something satisfying about caring for your kids when they were small.
Bathing them, reading to them, all that.
Something you missed when they got older.
He was thinking about it in a sort of dozing half-awake way, and then he woke up, because something was wrong.
What was it? Kids? Something at the resort?
Earthquake? Fire? All he heard was the gentle lap of the sea against the sand and the rhythmic sound of the fan turning overhead, but his heartbeat was telling a different story.
A stifled moan from beside him. Not the right kind of moan. More of a whimper. Was that what had woken him?
“Skylar?” he asked, reaching for her. He got her shoulder, because she was turned away from him. That shoulder was rigid. “Skylar,” he said, a bit more loudly. “What is it? Nightmare?”
“N-no.” She was still stiff as a board, and suddenly, she cried out. “Something’s … wrong. Belly.”
He hauled himself up to sit and switched on the light, and she cried out again. “Bright,” she said. “Too … bright.”
He didn’t listen to that. He pulled the blankets back instead. She was curled into the fetal position, her hand pressing against her right side. “How bad?” he asked.
“It was just …” The words came out in jerks.
“Like cramping. But now it’s worse. Oh. Oh, no.
My … my shoulder blade. My … my …” Not in the fetal position anymore, because she was rolling back and forth, from her side to her back, as if she couldn’t stay still.
Like a player on the field with an injury that hurt so much, it took him all the way past stoicism.
He said, “I’ll get help.”
“N-no. Kids. Kids.” She was biting her lip, and he saw blood. Then he saw blood somewhere else. Just a few spots, underneath her. Not red spots. Dark. Nearly brown. That blood was all wrong. “Going to be … sick.” It was another moan. “Please. Sick.”
He grabbed the little rubbish bin and handed it to her, and she was sick. Crying along with the retching, her other hand still on her belly.
Food poisoning? Something perforated? What?
He had the phone receiver in his hand, was pressing the button.
“Good evening,” came the lilting, sing-song Fijian voice. “How may I help you?”
“Medical emergency,” he said. “We need the ambulance. It’s Mahuta.”
“Of course, Mr. Mahuta,” she said, her tone getting serious. “Straight away.”
“The best hospital,” he realized. “What’s the best?”
“Oceanic Hospitals. Close by, in Suva. It’s private, though, so you’ll have to pay.”
“Not an issue. I’ll pay.”
“Then I’ll tell them to go there when I ring up, but you should tell them as well.”
“My kids,” he realized next. “Our kids. It’s my partner who’s ill. We need a nanny. Or somebody. Please send somebody.”
“Yes. It may take a few minutes. What shall I tell the ambulance? What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. Pain in her abdomen. Appendix, maybe? But she’s bleeding as well. It’s serious.” Skylar was moaning more now, and still rolling. Trying to be quiet, and unable to do it. “Tell them to bloody hurry.”
“Of course. Straight away.”
She rang off, and he thought, What’s ‘straight away’ in Fiji?
Please let it really be straight away. He needed to do something to help Skylar, but what?
How? He told her, “Hang on. They’re coming.
Just hang on.” She didn’t even seem to hear him.
She was keening now, a horrible high-pitched sound like the scream of a wounded rabbit.
Scarlett’s voice from the doorway. “Dad?”
He was out of bed, pulling on his shorts and T-shirt, not caring that Scarlett was seeing too much of him.
“It’s Skylar,” he said. “She’s ill. I’ve rung for the ambos.
” He needed to hold Skylar, but he needed to say this too.
“They’re sending a nanny, but I don’t know how—” Skylar’s keening was louder now.
“How long it’ll be. I need you and Finlay to be in charge until they come.
Tell him I said so, and no fighting. I need your help here. I need your maturity.”
“O-OK,” she said, with no attitude at all.
“Keep the other kids out of here,” he said, because there was some more noise out there, like they were waking up. “I can’t deal with that now.”
“I’ve got it,” she said, then backed out and closed the door. Zane spared a moment to be grateful, then crawled back onto the bed, got one hand on Skylar’s shoulder and the other on her hair, stroked it as she keened and rolled, and thought, Come on. Hurry up with that ambulance. Come on.
She was in a bright red tunnel of pain. It was all around her, radiating from inside her. Like having the kids, but the worst part. The pushing part. It hurt so much, and it wouldn’t stop. Something was going to break. Something inside was dying.
An eternity of it, barely feeling Zane’s hand on her head, his voice in her ears, just the rolling.
Trying to escape, but there was no escape.
Then new voices, and other hands on her.
Picking her up and putting her onto something, fastening straps around her.
On her back, which made the pain worse, and she was sobbing with it now.
Voices telling her they had her, that she’d be in hospital soon, that it would be better.
Rolling her out into the lounge, and the sight of the kids’ white faces floating like moons. She wanted to say, Who’ll care for them? They’re not safe, but she couldn’t. Words were beyond her. Zane was behind the men, she knew that, and then she was being lifted into a vehicle and he wasn’t there.
Oh. With the kids. But … but I …
They had something over her nose and mouth now, and there must have been something for the pain in it, because it receded. It was still there, but at a distance, like she was floating above it.
The doors opening. A jolt as the gurney hit the tarmac, and the night sky overhead, then ceiling tiles. Zane, she thought. Zane. Please come. I’m scared. Please come.
Afterwards, Zane knew that it hadn’t been as long as it had felt. Probably not long at all. He was sitting in a nearly deserted lobby after four in the morning when a tired-looking Fijian doctor in green scrubs walked across the floor, stopped before him, and asked, “Are you with Skylar Fairburn?”
“Yeh.” He’d stood as soon as he’d seen the man, and now, his arms were oddly weightless, his skin tingling. He knew this feeling, though he hadn’t had it often. It was fear. “How is she? Is she—is she going to be OK?”
“She should be,” the doctor said. “She’s being prepped for emergency surgery now.”
“Her appendix? Or what?”
“No. An ectopic pregnancy.”
“An—” Zane couldn’t go on.
“She didn’t know she was pregnant, apparently,” the doctor said.
“But the embryo has implanted in the fallopian tube, not the uterus. It must come out, and it’s too large to be handled with medication.
The surgeon may be able to spare the tube, but we’ll see.
The important thing is to get it out before the tube ruptures.
Ectopic pregnancy is very serious and must be handled immediately. ” The dark face was grave.
Part of Zane wanted to think about the “pregnancy” bit, but he couldn’t, not now. “When will I know how it went? How she is?”
“Soon, I hope,” the doctor said. “They may even be starting now. Sit here, and somebody will come find you when it’s over.”
The surgeon came in before Zane would’ve expected him. How long had that been? Forty-five minutes? Surgery was never that fast. Did that mean …
No. It couldn’t be happening again. Not possible.
He knew it was possible.
This doctor wasn’t anything like Fijian. Tanned, fair-haired, and lanky, he had a beaky nose under the green surgeon’s cap. Zane stood again as if he were on strings. He couldn’t read the man’s face. Not at all.
The dread was cold.
“With Skylar, erm, Fairburn?” the doctor said. His accent was British.
“Yeh,” Zane said, and couldn’t manage anything else.
“I’m Dr. Willingham. The surgery went well. We were able to remove the pregnancy without taking the fallopian tube, though there may be some scarring. Also to go in laparoscopically, which will make her recovery easier. It’s a good thing you got her in when you did.”
“Oh,” Zane said, and again, groped for how to go on. “What does she—what will she need?”
“The nurses will go over that with you. She’ll be here for a day or two, but after that, recovery should be pretty quick. A week or two off work, a couple of weeks more taking it easy.” He hesitated, and Zane said, “Yeh?”
“Emotionally,” the man said, “it can be harder. I’m not supposed to say things like that as a surgeon. No bedside manner, that’s the idea. She may need to know that it wasn’t anything she did. Nature doesn’t always get it right, that’s all.”
“Thanks. I’ll tell her. Can I see her?”
“The nurse will tell you when,” the man said, and walked away. Which left Zane to sit in his chair, look down at his clasped hands, and think, What the hell? Also, What do I do now? What do I even say?
It wasn’t one bit comfortable. But how much worse would it be for Skylar?