Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
One week later
Dennis
Running late, he dictated into the phone. Moose issue up north.
Ana was likely waiting for him already, at the restaurant in Portland where they were having lunch. He’d rented a hotel room at a boutique inn on the water in Old Town. This would be the last week she could be away from home. She had to stay close to Boston, in case of an emergency with the baby.
Meeting halfway in Portland, with a short ferry ride and a day spent in the sun on Peaks Island, was going to be the best date ever.
You’ve never been late before! she texted back. Must be a tear in the time-space continuum. Moose?
He laughed out loud at that as he reached the outer edge of Portland, taking the exit near a Whole Foods. Unaccustomed to cities after so many months in a rural town, he re-oriented himself, waiting out the light.
Two bull moose got into a fight on Route 119. Doesn’t normally happen in the summer. Stopped traffic. Big jam, all four cars had to wait for twenty minutes, he dictated.
Testosterone is a scourge, she wrote back with a wink emoji. I just arrived at the restaurant and I’m waiting to be seated. I’ll keep your place warm. Want me to order you a drink?
Coffee, he replied.
This was a lunch date, at a famous place on the water known for their fish dishes.
Then, they’d check into the hotel, followed by the ferry ride to Peaks Island.
He’d already reserved a golf cart for tootling around the small island.
A tour of the old munitions facility would be fascinating, then ice cream.
After they returned to the mainland, dinner at a foodie restaurant, and then a long night together, naked and intimate.
He knew the baby would arrive within the next two to three weeks. Ana wouldn’t be allowed to go past thirty-four weeks because of her uterus. Dennis had to make every hour together count, because after this, they’d never be alone again.
Not for eighteen or so years.
Driving along Congress Street, his phone said he was eight minutes away now. He hoped he could grab a parking spot in a long-term lot. Another stoplight, the kind that seemed to go on longer than it should.
His phone rang. The GPS disappeared and Ana’s name appeared on the screen. He answered.
“Dennis?” She was breathless and panicked. Background noise, complete with someone shouting, “I called 911! One minute!” sent his whole body into overdrive.
“Dennis! I was seated, and I needed to go to the bathroom.” She started sobbing. “It’s bad. Blood.”
“Blood?” He hit the accelerator, the GPS back on as he used Bluetooth to talk. “What happened? Did you fall?”
“My water broke! All over the floor. And then–now there’s blood.”
His ears began to ring, every other sound dissolving, and his eyesight sharpened. The GPS told him to go straight, so he did. He had to get to her.
Now.
Ignoring a red light, he shot through it, the ringing getting louder.
Until he realized that it wasn’t coming from his brain.
Red and white lights flashed behind him, an ambulance speeding. He pulled over, heart racing, Ana crying on the phone.
“It’s okay. I’m on my way. I’ll be there in three minutes.”
“BLOOD! And it hurts. I’m in labor–I can’t be in labor! What am I going to do? The baby–he can’t be born like this! Dennis, I–”
Instinct made him pull right behind the speeding ambulance, a sick, cold dread hitting him as he realized that was her emergency vehicle.
That speeding ambulance must be for her.
And the baby.
“I’m coming!” Drafting behind the ambulance, ignoring the traffic, he felt his truck tires holding the road, forced to rely on other people with less-developed survival instincts to do the right thing.
“ANA! Talk to me!”
Nothing.
Silence.
That was so much worse than hearing her cry.
“Hello?”
“Who is this?”
“I’m Kurt. The manager here. The EMTs are transporting her now. She said her name was Ana DaSilva. From Newburyport, Mass.”
“Yes. That’s her name. What’s happening?”
“She’s unconscious. Passed out just now.” The guy was huffing, like he was running. “Blood everywhere. She’s pregnant.”
“I know! I’m her boyfriend.” The word felt weird, cold in his mouth, but it was shorthand.
“Sorry, sir. They’re transporting her to the Medical Center here in Portland.”
A little red compact car cut him off, forcing him to slam on his brakes, narrowly missing a fender bender. The driver gave him the middle finger.
Up ahead, the ambulance turned right and sped off, disappearing. Evidently, it wasn’t hers.
“Sir?” The guy on the phone sounded alarmed. “What just happened to you?”
“What’s the hospital address?”
The guy rattled it off.
“Is she–is the baby–” The question he tried to ask choked Dennis, his throat filled with fear.
“I don’t know, sir. The doctors at the medical center can tell you more. The ambulance just pulled out. We’ll keep her phone here for you to get whenever she’s better.”
Beep
Call failed.
“GOD DAMN IT!” Pulling over into a spot by a fire hydrant, he frantically punched in the address for the medical center. Unconscious? Transport? Blood?
Of all the times to be fifteen minutes late.
He was never late. She was right about that.
“BUT NOW?” he screamed as he squealed out of the spot, racing to follow the mile and a half route to whatever he was about to encounter.
The image of sweet Ana standing up at a restaurant and gushing blood, her panic, her terror, the way she sounded on the call–he could lose her.
He could lose them both.
Training forced him to take in a long, intense breath through his nose, making a sound like a train going through a tunnel. His lungs felt like they would burst as he inhaled to maximum physical capacity, then added two more hitched breaths for good measure.
Hold for four seconds.
Then slow release.
“Go cold,” he told himself, shifting into work mode, a state of mind he’d sworn off the day he retired.
This situation demanded it. People who panicked were useless.
He didn’t have the luxury of being useless right now.
As he made a right turn, his phone rang. He answered it, praying to hear Ana’s voice.
Instead, it was his mom.
“Dennis! I was thinking, since you’re in Portland and all, if you could stop by The Holy Donut, we’d all love two dozen of their maple bacon–”
“NOT NOW, MOM.”
“Oh, my goodness. What’s wrong?”
“It’s Ana. She’s bleeding. On my way to Maine Medical Center.”
“Ana’s bleeding?”
“Water broke at the restaurant. Blood, too.”
“Oh, no! Is she with you? You’re rushing her there?”
“No. Happened before I arrived. I’m trying to–”
“LUKE!” she called out.
“No, Mom. Dennis. Wrong son.”
“I know who you are. Dennis, where are you, exactly? Maine Medical Center in Portland?” She went quiet again, muffled speaking in the background making it clear she was talking to Luke.
“Not yet, but almost. That’s where they’re taking her.”
“Did you say her water broke?”
“Yes. And there was blood. And she passed out.”
“They’ll do an emergency c-section, then.” The call went muffled again when he reached the medical center. Then his mom was back on as he pulled into the ER entrance, slammed on his brakes, and put the truck in Park by the curb.
“Dennis, we’re–”
“Going in,” he interrupted, ending the call.
As he climbed out, a valet shouted from a podium, “Sir, you can’t just–”
But he could. And did.
Marching into the ER, he went straight to the front desk.
“Ana DaSilva. They just brought her in by ambulance. Pregnant woman, about thirty weeks. Water broke. Bleeding. Unconscious.”
“Are you her next of kin?”
At the speed of light, he calculated the best answer.
The one closest to the truth.
“I’m the baby’s father.”
“Let me get your information,” the woman said. “As soon as we know anything, I’ll have someone update you.”
He gave his name and phone number like he was ordering a pizza, then followed her directions, ending up in a waiting room that felt like a cage.
Bzzz
His phone had a notification on it.
You missed your reservation. It’s been more than fifteen minutes. You can do this twice on our app, but after that, we have to–
If he didn’t need his phone so damn much, he’d throw it through a window.
No information. No action plan. No role.
All Dennis could do was sit and wait.
And wait.
And beat himself up for being late.
If only he’d been there, he could have helped her. Calmed her down. Held her hand. Ridden in the ambulance with her. Given critical information to the team rescuing her.
Instead, he was stuck in traffic, and all because of two moose with machismo complexes.
“She can’t die,” he finally said aloud, letting the air out of him, deflation triggered.
She can’t. And the baby can’t die, either. They both have to survive. They have to.
When he went cold, there were no emotions. There were only goals.
But Ana made it impossible to go cold.
So right now, there were no goals.
Only feelings.
Feelings he couldn’t process with her, because she was fighting for her life. Fighting for her baby’s life. All in the hands of an unknown team, a surgeon who hopefully knew what he was doing.
He stood, marching back to the desk, where a busy nurse caught his eye.
“Coffee?”
She pointed to a little alcove around the corner.
“It’s from a vending machine. Not great, but it has caffeine. Anything better, you need to go to the cafeteria or leave the hospital and find one of the coffee shops.”
He nodded and went for easy.
Five minutes later, he was drinking what tasted like caffeinated, pulverized volcanic rock, but it gave him something to do.
Powerless, all he could do was sit.
Ana’s mother and stepfather should be contacted, but he didn’t have their information. Brie, too. How could he possibly–
Wait.
Lucinda.
He didn’t have her information, but his mom did.
Dialing quickly, he listened as his mom’s phone rang once, then went straight to voicemail.
He texted.
No reply.
“Think. Think, think, think. Who else knows Lucinda?”
Rachel.