Chapter 24
Rory
I scramble off Garrett’s lap, but before I can yell at him because what the fuck do you mean, my mom appears at the top of the stairs.
My pulse is pounding and I can’t get it under control.
“Rory,” my mom says, and something in her voice cuts through the red haze.
I blink and refocus on her worried face.
Garrett stands, too.
“Jake called. Something’s wrong with Dani.”
The drive to the hospital is completely silent.
I don’t argue with Garrett that he should drive. He can’t exactly stay at the farm with my aunts and sisters, and I don’t have a vehicle, even if I did want to drive myself, which I don’t.
I’m still shaking when he pulls up in front of the entrance.
“Go on in and find her,” he says. “I’ll park.”
I find my cousin in a bed in Emergency.
“Hey,” I say softly as I slide around the curtain.
Jake looks up from where he had his head bowed over her hand.
Dani gives me a weak smile. “Hi. Sorry to drag you away from Christmas morning.”
“Oh.” I let out a watery laugh. “Yeah, that was already ruined. Don’t worry. What’s going on?”
“She woke up bleeding this morning,” Jake says.
“I know it can be normal,” Dani adds. “But this wasn’t normal.”
I squeeze her hand. “You did the right thing coming in. They’re going to run some tests and do some imaging, and I’ll stay with you the whole time.”
“Thank you.” She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “How was your Christmas morning ruined?”
“I don’t want to make you laugh right now. And it’s also embarrassing and I don’t want to look at Jake when I’m telling you.”
Her eyebrows curve up. “Oh?”
Her husband pats her shoulder. “That’s my sign to go call the kids.”
I circle around to sit in the chair he vacates. “Okay, I’m going to tell you something but I’m swearing you to secrecy for now.”
Dani nods. “My lips are sealed. Please distract me.”
“Garrett and I broke up in April.”
She stares at me. “What?”
“Yeah.”
“But you’re….”
I shrug. “I know. It’s a long story that starts and ends with I’m a hot mess who can’t do much right, besides being a doctor, and um…I don’t actually love being a doctor. Apparently.”
Her brows knit together hard. “What???”
“That’s what Garrett says. He says I hate my job, and it ruined our relationship, and then we hooked up a few times—” I cut myself off. “I’m telling this very badly.”
“Oh, no, now you’re getting to the good stuff. So you’re back together?”
“Definitely not.”
“So you’re exes with benefits?”
I squirm. “Yeah. We were. Now… Now I don’t think we’re anything. Not after this morning.”
“What happened this morning?”
“Tabitha’s boys accidentally opened a present Garrett got for me. A private present.” I grimace. “A replica dildo of, and I quote, the only part of his body that I seem to like.”
“He said that?”
“Something like that. It might be a paraphrase.”
“Wow.” Dani shakes her head. “I mean, I love Jake with my whole heart, but sometimes that part of him can really save the day, you know? It’s sort of a compliment.”
“We’re not at the taking it like a compliment stage right now.” I roll my shoulders, trying to shake the tension there. “And the worst part is that he’s right. The first time he came over after we broke up, I basically demanded that we….” I lower my voice. “You know.”
She laughs gently. “Yes, I know. Do you know, Dr. Minelli?”
“I barely recognized myself.”
“So it was good sex?”
“It was great sex. The best ever, and we’d always had good sex.”
“But then it got complicated.”
“Yeah. So he made a replica, and then….” I tell her the whole story.
About buying a car that turned out to be crap, about Garrett coming to the rescue, and his ninety-minute limit, and how we blew that out of the water with a road trip, and we survived.
But just barely. “And the worst part is that we’ve been so close the last two days.
Like it’s been…” I shiver. “Really nice. Except the whole time, he had this gift, and then… Now my entire family has an eggplant emoji vision of what his—”
The curtain pulls back, and the rest of that sentence gets strangled in my throat.
“I’m Dr. Schmidt.” Under the embroidered name on his white coat it reads Chief of Obstetrics, so either this guy is single and doesn’t care about Christmas, or his department is understaffed if he’s pulling holiday shifts himself.
“I understand you’re thirteen weeks pregnant?
And you woke up to significant, spontaneous bleeding? ”
“That’s right.” Dani runs through her own vitals. “I’m a paramedic.”
“You’re being a better patient than most health workers,” Dr. Schmidt says. “I want to do an ultrasound to start.”
“This is my cousin.” Dani gestures to me.
“Rory Minelli,” I say, introducing myself. “I’m an OB/GYN PGY5 in Ottawa.”
“All right, then. Welcome to an impromptu ultrasound clinic, Dr. Minelli. Your cousin doesn’t mind including you in this?”
“No, I want her to be here,” Dani says.
“Of course. Let’s take a look and see if we can figure out what’s going on.” He adjusts the sheet covering her down to her hips, then folds up her hospital gown, revealing a slight swell.
Jake returns as Dr. Schmidt is spreading gel on Dani’s belly.
“He’s just taking a look,” she whispers.
They lock hands together, and I turn my attention to the ultrasound screen to give them some privacy in what has to be an agonizing moment.
The flicker of a fetus moving is immediately obvious. “There’s a strong heartbeat,” Dr. Schmidt says.
Jake and Dani exhale as one.
I grip the plastic footboard, because I know they aren’t out of the woods yet, but that’s phenomenal news.
He shifts his angle, getting us a different view of her uterus. “Do you have any pain, Dani?”
“No.”
“And no history of premature delivery in your other pregnancies?”
“None.”
He glances back at me, and I know that look. It’s a test, a consultant giving a resident a split second to read their mind.
“And you had vaginal deliveries with the other three kids?” I ask.
“Yes, I’ve been blessed with easy pregnancies and deliveries.” Dani glances back and forth between us. “What do you see?”
He shifts the angle again, bringing the placenta into view—right above her cervix.
“Your placenta has attached lower in your uterus this time. It’s a condition called placenta previa.
It’s a common cause of second trimester bleeding.
We’re going to want to keep you here until the bleeding resolves, and you’ll need to be on bed rest when you go home. ”
“I have three kids. And a job.” Dani looks at me. “This will resolve, right?”
“Dr. Schmidt will follow you closely, but the best thing you can do to protect this pregnancy is let Jake worry about the kids.”
“On it,” he says. “She won’t move a muscle.”
Dr. Schmidt cleans up her belly, then stands up. “I’ll go find out if we can get you moved to the antenatal ward for the night. Hopefully you’ll get to go home tomorrow.”
I follow him out to the nurse station. “Can I be an obnoxious resident and ask a follow up question?”
He laughs. “Sure.”
“Would you consider doing a cerclage?”
“Are they teaching you to do unnecessary procedures on family members in Ottawa, Dr. Minelli?”
“I know the literature doesn’t support it as an intervention for previa, but there are a couple of things that stand out to me as unusual.
She’s having this bleeding earlier than many do.
It’s her fourth pregnancy, which means her cervix is already primed to dilate.
And even if it doesn’t help, the procedure itself is minimally invasive.
Unnecessary, maybe. Safe, yes. Why not try?
And if it does help, then it’s worth writing up in a paper. ”
“You had me until the last part. Don’t make more work for me.
If I wanted to write papers, I’d work at a big city hospital like you do.
” He says it kindly. He picks up the phone and calls upstairs.
“I need to admit a patient for observation. And we might need to book the procedure room for—” He moves the phone away from his mouth.
“Does tomorrow work for you to observe?”
I blink in surprise. “You’d let me scrub in?”
“You’ve probably placed more cerclages than I have in the last year. You might as well talk me through it.”
“Tomorrow’s fine. Great. Thank you.” I grin at him. “I won’t be obnoxious.”
“We’ll get her moved upstairs, and then I’ll do an internal exam before the end of my shift tonight. And in the meantime, I want you to send me whatever literature you think might back up your case.” He pauses. “You didn’t have any other plans for Christmas Day, did you?”
My answer is immediate and sincere. “Not at all.”