Chapter 34
Ava
I couldn’t breathe. The pain was too great.
I kept going in and out of knowing what was happening. My lungs felt pressed from the inside like I was being crushed. I gulped for air, and panic swept over my body as my vision narrowed to gray circles.
“Breathe like this,” someone said. I could only make out a form in the haze, but I could hear her fast, hard pants.
“She shouldn’t,” said a voice. It was the man from the house. The one who had gotten the dog away.
“Stand over there,” a firm voice responded. “Stay out of the way. Now, breathe, Ava.”
I complied because I didn’t know what else to do. I focused only on breathing, and my vision returned. The panic receded.
My clothes were removed and replaced with plain blue fabric like a dress. I shivered from the cold.
The room smelled strong and strange, so different from the house. The bed was narrow with tall sides to keep me in. I grasped the hard plastic with both hands. Squeezing them helped with the pain each time it came.
Strangers surrounded the bed. A woman dressed all in green took a firm grip of my arm. She poked the inside of my elbow with something sharp. I couldn’t tolerate any more hurt and jerked away. Blood flowed down my skin in a river of red.
She quickly wiped it with a wet square, which made it sting. “Ava. Be still.” Her voice was stern and sent a tremor of fear through me. Who was she, and why was she so cruel?
On the far side of the bed, the man from the house tried to lean in. “Ava, please trust us. I know this is frightening. Let them do their work.”
I couldn’t cooperate. There was no way for me to simply sit and take it. It hurt too much to be poked. I drew my knees inside the blue dress, trying to roll into a tight ball and protect as much of my body as possible from the onslaught.
But there was no escaping the pain within. It began again, rolling through my middle like a black wave, menacing and terrible. I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to wish it away.
“Think of something good, Ava,” someone said. “Something pretty.”
I tried to think of anything. The house, the dog, the sofa, the people banging on the door.
There had been flowers. They lined the walkway of the blue house as we left.
They were yellow and fat, waving on their stems.
I try to hold on to the image in my head. The yellow flowers were close to the ground, clustered in a sweep of gold. I wanted to lie in them, to go wherever they were.
The pain passed again.
I opened my eyes. A woman with thick black braids wrapped like a crown leaned in close.
She wore yellow, like the flowers. She was not the one who held my arm and stabbed me. “Ava, my name is Kenisha. What can I do to help you?”
“Make the hurt go away so it won’t come back.”
She brushed hair out of my face. “I can help with the pain, but we need to put the needle in you. It’s called an IV.”
“Why do I hurt?”
Kenisha lowered the side of the bed to sit next to me. She smelled like comfort. Like calm. I focused on her yellow shirt and a shiny badge hanging in the center. “The pain is a contraction. It’s time for your baby to come, and the contractions are pushing it out.”
“What baby?”
Kenisha glanced at the man from the house before she said, “The baby in your belly.”
Fear thundered down my body. I stared at my distended stomach. It was large, bigger than the bellies of the other people in the room. When I placed my hands on it, something moved under my skin.
A baby? I understand the word. A tiny human. But I couldn’t picture one exactly. It was only a concept, like aliens or dragons.
“We’re having a baby, Ava,” the man said.
Why had he said we? He didn’t have a big belly.
“You’re in labor, Ava,” Kenisha said. “Do you know what that means?”
The pain rolled through me again. A low keening cry came out of my mouth, as if I wasn’t in control of my own voice.
“Breathe through it, Ava,” Kenisha said, gripping my hand. “Work with the contraction.”
I didn’t know what she meant. My shoulders shook with frustration. “I want it to stop.”
She held my hand while I breathed. Everyone stood around watching me. The woman in green. The man from the house. Another smaller woman with short hair in the back of the room.
Then, it finally stopped. I fell back onto the pillow. I was so tired. Tired of pain. Of fear. Of this confusion. I wanted to sleep. Tears squeezed from my eyes.
“Can you make it stop for good?” I asked her.
“I can. And you can rest.” Kenisha held up a tiny glint of silver. “This is the needle. It pokes through your skin. It connects to this bag.” She showed me a pouch suspended from a tall pole. “We can’t get you an epidural for the pain until we have you hooked up to this.”
I didn’t understand epidural, but I nodded and held out the other arm, the one not already hurt by the lady in green. Kenisha ran a cold cloth over the back of my hand instead of the inside of my elbow. The prick was brief, and soon, the needle was taped to me.
Kenisha tucked a thick white blanket around me. “Does anything hurt?”
“Here.” I lifted my hand to the corner of my eye.
Kenisha turned to the man who had stood by the window while she poked me. “You want to explain this bruise on her face?” She sounded mad, like maybe he was the enemy.
He moved toward us, but Kenisha swiftly stepped between him and the bed. “Answer me from over there.”
He went still. “She probably hurt it when she fell. I need to talk to her now that she’s finally calm.”
“I think you need to sit down.” Kenisha pointed at the sofa.
“Can I at least make sure she knows who I am? She needs my help.”
Kenisha glanced back at me, then over at the man, as if sizing us both up. “If it’s your baby, why doesn’t she already know?”
He hesitated. “She seems confused and lost.”
Kenisha’s eyes narrowed. “You can talk to her from over there.”
He nodded, his mouth in a frown. “Okay.” He sat on a gray cushion with his elbows braced on his knees. He rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Ava, I’m not sure what you understood when we were back at the house. I’m Tucker. I’m your husband. The baby in your belly is our son.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know you.”
His face contorted, his eyebrows drawn together. “Ava, I promise. We’re in love. We met almost ten years ago.”
“I don’t believe you.”
He blew out a long breath, as if he were in pain, too. “I understand that you don’t remember me. This has happened before.”
Kenisha straightened up at that. “What do you mean it’s happened before? I need some explanations before I call social services and, quite possibly, the police. I have a woman here, in labor, clearly in distress, with bruises on her face and a fear of other people like nothing I’ve ever seen.”
She looked over her shoulder at the first woman who poked me. “Do you have the ER report? They’re sure she doesn’t have a concussion?”
The green nurse turned the screen she was holding to Kenisha. “They checked her out. No head trauma, just the bruise on her face.”
“Do we have any records on her?”
Tucker tried to speak, but Kenisha held up a hand. “You wait a minute.”
The green nurse said, “She’s preregistered. Here’s her diagnosis.” She ran her fingers across the screen and passed it to Kenisha.
Kenisha turned to me. “You have epilepsy?”
I understood the word. “I don’t know,” I said.
Kenisha turned to Tucker. “So, she has seizures. I still don’t read anything here that explains what I’m seeing.”
But before anyone could talk, it happened again. The pain surged. I gripped the side of the bed that was still up. “You said it would stop if you poked me!”
Kenisha passed the screen back to the green nurse.
“Honey, we’re going to help you.” She turned to the man.
Tucker. “You stay over there until we sort this out.” Then to the other nurse.
“Page anesthesiology and anyone available in neurology. Let’s get her out of pain so we can assess her properly.
It would help a lot if we could figure this out before the baby comes. ”
I groaned. The pain was too much. I didn’t know why there was a baby inside me, or exactly how it was going to come out, but I desperately needed this nightmare to end.
They had promised if they poked me, it would end.
Everyone lied. Everything I knew so far was a lie.