Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
TEVENNE – MATERNITY WARD HALLWAY
The sound of the crying twins followed Ford out into the corridor. For a few seconds, he simply walked, the sounds of the room fading behind him. His hands were still shaking. He stepped to the wall beside the nurses’ station and pulled off his gloves slowly. Blood and antiseptic clung to his skin.
The strength went out of his legs. Ford slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor.
Rourke crouched beside him, holding the satellite phone Ford left on the tray. “You planning on sleeping there?”
Ford let his head fall back against the wall. “Considering it.”
Rourke offered him an electrolyte drink. Ford didn’t move.
Rourke tapped the bottle against his knee. “That’s the adrenaline ebb.”
Ford twisted the cap and took a long swallow. The phone crackled in Rourke’s hand.
“I’m still here,” Eira said.
Rourke glanced down at Ford and handed him the phone. “She heard everything.”
Ford lifted it slowly. “Hey.”
Across the Somali Sea, Eira closed her eyes when she heard his voice. For more than an hour, she stood beside Véronique’s ventilator listening through the phone as Ford fought through delivery after delivery.
She could hear the storm around him now and the distant crying of babies. “You’re still alive,” she said softly.
“Barely.”
Eira smiled. “I counted.”
Ford opened one eye. “You counted?”
“Yes.” She looked toward Véronique’s small body sleeping under sedation, the ventilator breathing steadily beside her. “Adrian helped me with the numbers. You delivered five before the surgery.”
Ford stared at the floor. “Feels like a hundred.”
“The breech C-section.”
He rubbed his hand across his face. “Yeah.”
“And the twins.”
Ford sighed.
Eira’s voice softened. “That’s eight babies tonight.”
Ford blinked slowly. “Eight.”
“And the nursery already had twenty-three.”
He did the math without meaning to. “Thirty-one.”
“Thirty-one newborns,” she repeated.
Ford closed his eyes. Down the hallway, the nursery door opened and another baby cried.
“Thirty-one,” he repeated.
Eira listened to his breathing through the phone. She could picture him sitting on the floor of a hallway in a collapsing maternity wing, soaked in sweat and blood, still thinking about the mothers who were left. “You saved them.”
Ford shook his head slightly. “I kept them alive.”
“That’s the same thing tonight.”
He didn’t answer. The storm roared across the island.
After a moment, Eira spoke again, softer now. “You scared me.”
Ford gave a tired breath that almost sounded like a laugh. “Seems to happen with us.”
“You can’t keep doing this.”
“I’ll try to schedule emergencies better.”
She laughed despite herself. With a breath, she said the thing she was holding back all night. “I love you.” The words slipped out before she could stop them.
The only sound between them was the storm. Ford opened his eyes slowly. Across the hallway, a newborn cried again. He lifted the phone slightly. “I love you too.”
Eira closed her eyes. The tension that wound through her chest for hours loosened just enough for her to breathe again. “You still with me?”
“Yeah.”
“You sound wrecked.”
“I am.”
“Did you finish that electrolyte drink Rourke gave you?”
Ford shook the half-empty bottle in his hand. “Working on it.”
“Finish it.”
He huffed. “Yes, ma’am.”
Across the pediatric ward on Kasavoa, Hunter glanced over from Véronique’s ventilator as Eira leaned against the counter with the phone pressed to her ear. She was sure he could hear enough of the conversation to understand what happened.
“How are Kavi and Véronique?”
“Kavi’s fever broke.” Eira looked down at Véronique. The little girl’s chest rose and fell with the steady rhythm of the ventilator. “She’s still stable.”
Ford said, “Good.”
“Hunter hasn’t moved from her bedside.”
“That sounds like him.”
Eira shifted slightly, fatigue settling deeper into her bones now that her fever broke. “What about the mothers?”
Ford turned his head down the hallway. Through the open door, he saw Aurelia moving between beds. Rourke stood near the nurses’ station organizing supplies while Garcia, Marino and Liana stacked blankets and water bottles.
“They’re holding,” he said. “Most of them.”
“That doesn’t sound reassuring.”
“It’s the truth.”
Another gust slammed rain against the windows. Ford closed his eyes. “How bad is the storm on your side?”
Eira sighed. “Ugly.”
Hunter’s voice carried faintly behind her as he adjusted Véronique’s ventilator settings. “Tail winds still hammering us, but the building’s holding.”
Ford said, “Good.”
Eira hesitated. “Ford…”
“Yeah.”
“When the storm breaks, we’re coming for you.”
He let out a tired breath. “I know.”
“Ian’s already staging aircraft in Nairobi.”
Ford opened his eyes. “Figures.”
“Kieran’s building the evacuation plan.”
Ford looked down the hallway again. Thirty-one newborns. Sixty-five pregnant girls. A maternity ward barely holding together under a typhoon. “They’re going to need a lot of boats and planes.”
Eira didn’t argue with that. “We’ll bring a lot of boats and planes.”
Neither of them spoke. The distance between the islands felt enormous, but the connection between them felt smaller now. Finally, Ford pushed himself up from the wall.
Eira heard the movement. “You getting up?”
“Yeah.”
“Already?”
He picked up the electrolyte bottle and took another long drink. “Adrenaline’s done,” he said. “But the night isn’t.”
Eira laughed. “That’s the man I know.”