Chapter 44 Counting Blessings
COUNTING BLESSINGS
“Time to wake up, trouble.” A large hand held me by the shoulder and shook me slightly, pulling me unwilling from my slumber into an upright position.
I groaned, not at all pleased at finding myself vertical all of a sudden.
“It’s time to go, Ren,” the voice, like a lion’s rumble, urged.
Meanwhile, the hand and its pair settled around my midriff, resting flat on my round, protruding stomach.
With an immense effort, I forced myself to open one eye and then another.
A lone, inconspicuous candle stood on the nightstand further away from the window, the warm light falling on the rickety chest of drawers that creaked in mortal throes whenever pried open.
It cried like that many times the day before as we packed . ..
Realising what day it was and why I had been so rudely awakened, I shot out of bed. Or rather, I performed a much slower and inelegant version of shooting out of bed; the only kind I was capable of, given my predicament.
“I can’t believe I fell asleep! You shouldn’t have let me!” I complained, putting clothes on as hastily as I was able to, which was not saying very much.
“Ah, you need your rest.” Einar planted a kiss on my forehead, struggling to wrap his hands around me in a vain effort to calm me down. “All three of you do.”
I was wrong to think that my pregnancy would be the biggest surprise of my life, as even a bigger revelation was about to hit me like a thunderbolt soon after.
“I was training to be a plastic surgeon so in an ideal case you’d only come to me for a mommy makeover after,” Dave said as he squirted a generous measure of cool gel on my stomach on the day I finally brought myself to visit him in the hospital.
“But I’ll do my best. It’s a good thing we got this ultrasound in working order—just in time.
” He smiled at me encouragingly and then focused his attention on the screen, sliding the ultrasound probe across my belly.
Then he frowned in a manner that I recognised all too well in doctors.
Something was not quite right. Years of constant examinations had taught me to identify various parts of my internal anatomy hidden in the maze of black, grey, and white pixels.
And as Dave pressed the probe a little harder into my expanding abdomen, I easily discerned the black splotch of the amniotic fluid.
And grey-white against it, the distinct shape of a head and a torso.
Before I managed to express myself with anything more eloquent than a choked sob, Dave moved the probe slightly higher up, and another, more obscure shape, came in view.
“No, there’s no way in hell ...” I gasped.
“Well, life does have a strange sense of humour,” Dave remarked dryly but without a trace of his customary jocularity. “Both measuring on track and ...”
A sound like the fast galloping of antelope hooves filled the room.
“We have two strong, healthy heartbeats. That’s where the good news ends, I’m afraid.”
With a sigh, he set the probe aside and handed me a towel to wipe the gel off.
“After my surgery, they told me that I shouldn’t carry multiples.” I rolled my shirt down, straightening up. “That the uterine wall of my womb is too weak in too many places.”
Pushing a stray strand of tawny hair from his warm, brown eyes, Dave grabbed my hand and held it in both his.
“As I said, this is not my area of expertise. But I would fully agree with that assessment. The risk of uterine rupture is high, all things considered.”
I gulped down in a vain attempt to swallow the ball of ice that was forming in my throat.
“They also told me that whilst natural delivery is possible for me, it may not be the safest option.”
Dave nodded.
“Caesarean is the gold standard for any woman who has undergone such a complex uterine surgery. It’s usually not worth taking the chances with natural labour. I’m sorry, Renny.”
I scoffed, shaking my head.
“That’s fine, trust me, after everything, I place no importance on which hole they enter the world through,” I told him, my voice shrill. “But just what the hell do I do now?”
Pulling my hand away from his clasp, I threw my arms wide in a gesture of exasperation, indicating the ghost-like space all around us.
“Well, I’d suggest constant monitoring, ideally from about the twenty-fifth week of gestation onwards, with the caesarean planned at about the thirty-sixth week if the uterus can last until then.”
“You mean staying in a hospital? For ten weeks?”
I gaped at him, my mouth working, opening and closing with a will of its own like that of a fish tossed ashore.
“Renny, I know you dread hospitals after what you’ve been through, but—”
“Dave, never mind that now! Einar and I must leave in the spring, or our lives will be in danger! You know that! Just how am I supposed to be here in a hospital and travel to Iceland at the same time?”
Sliding off the ultrasound chair, I paced around the room, cursing internally, my breath coming out so fast and shallow I felt as if no air at all was reaching my lungs.
“Renny, slow down. I’ll make this easier for you.
” Grabbing my shoulders, Dave stopped me in my tracks.
“Here.” He spread his arms to indicate the whole building.
“This hospital won’t be ready for proper patient care for a long, long time.
Bastia is in better shape, but its resources are stretched thin, and you cannot go there because of Santini.
There is no hospital for you in Corsica,” he told me slowly and emphatically, not taking his eyes off my face.
“Yeah, that makes everything much easier, thanks ever so much!” I snickered, my voice booming with unveiled sarcasm.
“It does. Because there’s only one thing you can conceivably do.”
“Oh?”
“Leave as soon as possible. And head to Lausanne, Switzerland. Their hospital is currently the best-staffed and best-equipped one in Europe. That’s it. It even fits right into your plans, doesn’t it?”
I considered this, biting my lower lip until my mouth filled with a metallic taste.
“I suppose,” I conceded at last. “Gibraltar is blocked off, so we would have had to cross the mainland anyway. The only difference is we’ll stay in Switzerland for some time ...”
“Exactly.” Dave smiled at me encouragingly. “And you’ll depart from there as a family of four. And Kevin and I will come with you.”
It was my turn to smile widely at him.
“You will?”
“Last time I saw him, Paoli brought me the news that Lausanne now offers medical training. Kev and I can finally become proper doctors. So, we’re coming with, and I can be with you the whole way. Einar will be thrilled, I’m sure.”
Dave finally laughed then, and impossibly, so did I.
Cool winds of early March assailed me as we stepped outside, snapping me back to the present.
Einar had a small but heavy backpack, and he also carried a black duffel bag in one hand while his other hand rested on the small of my back.
We walked towards the train station where our silver Mazda and other vehicles were parked.
Helga and Emma were already waiting there with their suitcases.
Mickey and Cyril joined us soon after with bags of their own.
Laura arrived last, a rucksack almost bigger than she was on her back.
I looked around the quiet village. Light only spilled out from one window in sight, and it didn’t come from the cottage where Monika lived with her new tormentor. With luck, he wouldn’t even wake up. We were in the clear.
I took a deep, shaky breath and, looking around, my eyes landed on the sleepy pink train station for the final time, willing the image to imprint itself firmly in my mind.
After driving for only a few minutes, we stopped in the middle of the forest, the men dragging a sailboat from its hiding place. The vessel was fastened on a chassis that the men hooked onto the car, sweating and swearing profusely all the while in several languages. Then we drove on.
I woke up at the crack of dawn just as Einar brought the silver Mazda to a full stop on a beachside road. It was noticeably warmer there, early spring fragrant and palpable in the air.
“Well, good morning, sunshine.” Einar opened the car door for me. “Ready to sail away to our new life?”
“You bet.”
With his help, I managed to exit the vehicle, however inelegantly, my feet sinking into the sand.
Straightening my back, I looked around. Dave and Kevin both waved over to me whilst unhooking their own boat-laden chassis.
Russell’s girlfriend, Julia, stood nearby with their infant son in her arms, watching Russ unload their bags.
I went over to her, the moist sand squelching with each step.
A primordial odour of salt and algae reached my nostrils, carried on the mild breeze.
“Hi, Julia.” I wiggled my fingers at the baby in her arms, who froze at my greeting, eyes going wide.
Interactions with new mothers and their small children had become significantly easier for me ever since I learnt that I would soon join in their midst with not one, but two babies of my own.
Admittedly, a small part of my prior jealous inadequacy remained, like an ingrown bullet fragment left to fester in a wound.
They had it easier. They didn’t have to wait for so many uncertain years.
They didn’t need to fear as much during their pregnancy, trusting their bodies, where I could not. But it was no longer painful.
“Hi, Renny.” Julia looked at me, sizing me up. “Oh my, you’re almost as big as I was in my final month, you poor thing! How are you?”
“Oh, you know.” I shrugged. “Tired all the time. Unbalanced, knocking things over wherever I go. But it is so incredible to feel them move. Two actual human lives growing inside of me.”
“Aww.” She freed one of her arms and rubbed my shoulder. “Well, Russ and I are chuffed to bits for the two of you. I bet Einar’s over the moon?”
I bit my lip. The sound of sea waves advancing and receding filled my ears, and I counted to ten before replying levelly, “I’m sure that he is, deep down. But for now, he is mainly worried. I think.”
The fact of the matter was that Einar rarely ever spoke of the pregnancy as anything but a health condition that endangered me, too consumed by his concerns ever to bring up the subject of baby names or child-rearing.
“Oh, well, of course he is. He adores you. I never thought I’d see the day when he’d dote on someone the way he does on you.”
“Yes. I just hope he’ll dote the same way on them.” I indicated my stomach.
“But of course he will!”
Julia and I stood in silence for a few moments, taking in the intense preparations.
About fifteen people were joining our exodus, and most of them were rushing about, carrying luggage and pushing our three boats out to the sea with shouted commands, muffled over by the shifting of the sea, rhythmic like a heartbeat.
My eyes lingered on Laura on the opposite side of the beach, bothering her long braid, trampling to and fro nervously with the air of a person who would very much like to help but doesn’t quite know how.
She had never fully recovered from Finlay’s death.
More than a few men had tried making advances towards her, but she had steadfastly refused them all.
“So, you’re heading back to Edinburgh with Mickey and Laura?” I asked Julia absent-mindedly at the sight of her friend, though of course I already knew that to be the case.
“Well, Mickey’s heading to Liverpool, if it’s still there. But yes, back to the good ol’ homeland.”
“Nice.”
The protracted silence that ensued only grew more awkward by the minute.
To distract myself, I replayed in my mind all the goodbyes that I had said in the last twenty-four hours.
The tears that rolled down Jean-Luc’s withered cheeks, Joshua’s spindly embrace, and Amit’s firm handshake.
When I ran out of this particular fodder for my ever-churning mind, I resorted instead to the goodbyes I could not say, most notably to Monika, for fear bordering on certainty that she would have betrayed our imminent departure to her paramour.
As the bustle on the beach gradually subsided, Julia walked over to Russell. He got into one of the boats, swaying precariously as it rocked underneath him, and she handed him the baby before boarding herself.
Einar strode over to me in turn with a beamingly excited smile, relieved no doubt to be at last departing from Santini’s clutches, his hair whipped back from his face into a semblance of a lion’s mane.
“My queen,” he said good-humouredly, taking hold of my hand to lead me forward towards our boat, “your carriage awaits.”