Chapter 3 #2
Jesse always turns off his devices when he’s in the thick of a test; it allows him to focus all his attention on the suspect.
“Thanks for letting me know,” I say.
“What’s going on there?”
“A bona fide blizzard. We’ve got about four feet already and it’s coming down like crazy.”
Jesse gives a low whistle. “Glad I’m not flying in that.”
“So am I.” My phone beeps, and I see Toby’s name flash. “I have to go.”
“Okay. Be safe. Love you,” Jesse says, and I echo the same. Then I swap calls. “What’s happening?”
“You remember The Pines in Smithfield?” Toby asks.
It’s a nursing home. “A young new director, right?”
“Yes. One who has ninety--eight residents in a facility without a working heat system. Oh, and did I mention the temperature’s dropping?”
I turn off the television. “Okay. I’m guessing it’s easier to get the power restored than to evacuate ninety--eight people.”
“Yeah, I called the electric company. They sent a truck, but the road isn’t plowed and the driver can’t get there. A message was sent to the company that plows, but we haven’t gotten through, and now I can’t reach the nursing home. Phone lines are down.”
I press my fingers to my temples. “Where are you?”
“In the EOC, finding beds for ninety--eight residents,” Toby says. “And running point for everything else that’s going on because of the storm.”
“Miguel?”
“He’s next to me. Dealing with a ten--car pileup on I--195.”
We run through the rest of my team, but in a storm of this magnitude, all hands are already on deck. Literally the only member of the Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response who isn’t deployed is me.
“Do you have the cell number of the new nursing home director?”
“No,” Toby says. “File wasn’t updated when his predecessor left.”
Well, someone needs to be in contact with him, so he knows we are going to take care of his residents. “I’ll go to Smithfield,” I decide, and Toby shouts into the receiver.
“Absolutely not. Jesse will cut off my balls and serve them to me for dinner.”
“That’s . . . graphic,” I say, putting Toby on speaker so I can pull on a sweater and step into my snow boots. I put on Jesse’s coat—-which no longer zips but still covers more of me than my own. “I’ll drive slowly. We need eyes on the situation.”
“Molly. Do not go out in this. I’m not kidding. If you—-”
I hold the phone away from my ear. “Bad service,” I say, and I hit the disconnect button.
Toby is not wrong. The roads are glassy with ice, riddled with drifting snow.
But I cannot in good faith sit in my living room while ninety--eight elderly people freeze to death.
I creep twenty miles an hour on Route 44, and when I turn onto side roads I’m thwarted by fallen trees and downed power lines that snap with sparks.
A few times, I seek an alternate route. Finally, as I approach the road that leads to the nursing home, I see the electric company’s truck creeping toward me.
The driver raises his hand in greeting as I get out of the car, the snow already reaching my knees, even though it’s obvious the road has been cleared.
A moment later, all the lights in the nursing home blaze to life.
With a sigh, I trudge up the steps to the front door and open it. A man, definitely on the younger side, stands holding a flashlight. “I’m Molly Fitzgerald with the Center for Emergency Preparedness and Response,” I say.
He holds out his free hand. “Luther Grenault. I wasn’t expecting personal service.”
“I assume that the power’s on again?”
Luther nods. “Turns out the plow company we hired went out of business in July and didn’t tell anyone. So National Grid came and couldn’t get to the building because of the snow.”
I close my eyes for a second and count to ten. This was a simple failure of communication. The reason the plow company didn’t respond was because they were out of business. Had we known that, we could have sent the National Guard or a neighboring town’s plow in.
“So you’re good now?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Luther says. “I mean, except that I need a new plow company.”
I turn on my heel and walk out of the nursing home, gripping the railing carefully.
I trudge through the snow toward the white lump of my car, unlock it, and fumble in the back for an ice scraper.
I’ve just finished clearing the front headlights when a snowplow passes, throwing up a tsunami of slush, and I step quickly out of the way.
But somewhere under the snow, there is a curb. My foot catches it, and before I can stop myself, I fall forward, landing hard on my belly.
I scramble to my hands and knees and use the car door to leverage myself upright, shaking so hard my teeth are chattering. I sit in the driver’s seat and crank up the heat, but I’m not shivering from cold. It’s shock.
I cup my hands around my belly. Kick, I will. Please, please, kick.
But this baby, who has moved constantly since that first poke, is utterly still.
With tears stinging my eyes, I reach for my phone and dial Jesse. When his voicemail picks up, I remember that he is doing a polygraph.
I consider calling an ambulance, but I know that virtually every first responder in Rhode Island has been deployed for an emergency elsewhere.
Without thought, I put the car into drive and pull gently onto the road. My hands tremble on the steering wheel.
I swipe one hand across my eyes, crawling forward at ten miles an hour.
A pickup passes me and honks, but my attention is focused inward.
I start making bargains with a God I do not believe in: If she kicks, I won’t go out in the field again until after she’s born.
If she kicks, I will stop snapping at Jesse when he’s overprotective. If she kicks . . .
Then this will not be my fault.
By now I’m sobbing, crying so hard in fact that I almost miss the movement of my abdomen.
Except, it’s not a kick, or a roll. It’s a spasm, as if the whole womb has clenched, before it unknots.
I do not realize where I’m going until I turn in to the parking lot for Dr. Mantillard’s office.
It is about fifteen minutes closer than the hospital, plus, walking into an ER right now would be sheer insanity.
All I need is for my doctor to run a Doppler stethoscope over my belly, to let me hear the baby’s strong, steady heartbeat so that I know she’s going to be fine.
As soon as I stand, another tight band twists my abdomen.
I wait for my muscles to relax, then pick my way gingerly through the snow into the building.
But when I open the door to the doctor’s office, it is empty—-except for the receptionist, who stands by the wall, flicking off the lights, a ring of keys in her hand.
“Molly?” she asks, her brow furrowing.
Panic fills me. “I fell. Down. In the. Snow. On. My stomach.”
Immediately, she is at my side. “Okay, let’s sit you down. Are you having contractions?”
My teeth chatter. “Can I just see the doctor?”
“She left last night for a conference because she wanted to get out ahead of the storm. You need to go to the hospital.”
“The hospitals are a zoo—-”
She cuts me off. “Contractions?”
Is that what I’m feeling? “I don’t know,” I cry. “I don’t know what one feels like.”
“Any bleeding?”
“I haven’t checked.”
“Who drove you here?”
“I drove myself.”
Surprise flashes over her face. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I can’t lose my baby,” I blurt out, and the minute I do, the possibility is in the universe, hiding in the shadows, ready to strike.
She softens. “I’ll drive you,” she says.
I lean on her for support. As we are walking out, I confess, “I don’t . . . I don’t remember your name.”
“It’s Georgia,” she says gently. We stop once in the lobby when another ripple—-a contraction?—-shudders through me. “Like this,” Georgia says, baring her teeth and breathing through them until I match her. She sits me in a chair by the door and runs to pull her car to the door.
On the way to the hospital, Georgia calls Dr. Mantillard and leaves a message on her cellphone.
She asks if I’ve called Jesse, and I tell her he is in California and not picking up his phone.
She asks if there is anyone else she’d like me to call, but my dad and Evie are in Hawaii, and I don’t want to call Kate or Sara or Brian because they’ll drop everything and rush to the hospital, which will just endanger them.
I could call Toby, but he is juggling enough without me being another problem to solve.
“No one I’d want to go out in this weather,” I say.
Georgia slides a glance my way. “I’ve got you,” she replies.
Georgia parks in a loading zone at the ER and rushes inside for a wheelchair. She loads me into it, then pushes me through the snow, all the way to the triage desk. “This is Dr. Mantillard’s patient, Molly Fitzgerald. She fell and hit her abdomen.”
The nurse looks me over. “How many weeks?”
“Twenty--three,” Georgia answers. I think of the app on my phone: Your baby is the size of a grapefruit.
“Are you having contractions?”
“I don’t know,” I answer. “I can’t feel the baby moving.”
The nurse continues to type into her computer as Georgia leans down to look at me. “I’m going to move the car. I’ll be back in a minute.”
True to her word, Georgia returns before the nurse has even fastened the little ID bracelet I will wear as an ER patient.
When she turns the wheelchair, I get my first look at the overcrowded waiting room.
There are people gingerly holding limbs, babies screaming, someone throwing up in a bucket.
“You should call your husband again,” Georgia prompts.
Since I know he won’t answer, I send a text instead.
Slipped on ice, I type. Getting checked out @ Women & Infants.
I shove the phone into my coat pocket. “You probably have things you need to do,” I say.
“I promised Dr. Mantillard I’d make sure you were seen.”
“She was the doctor who gave me birth control,” I murmur.
Georgia looks down at my belly. “Well, it didn’t work.”