Chapter 25 When the Roof Gave Way
By thirty-two weeks, Maren had learned three things.
First, pregnancy made strangers believe her body had become a public weather report.
Second, babies enjoyed pressing on organs their mothers needed for professional credibility.
Third, Callum Strathe could go a surprisingly long time without turning restraint into resentment.
The third unsettled her most.
Summer became early fall. The Rialto's roof was patched, then properly sealed over the lobby.
The hidden ceiling had been documented, stabilized, and cleaned in small test squares that revealed deeper blue than anyone expected.
Maren moved from the room above Marta's bakery into a small cottage two streets from the harbor because stairs and late pregnancy had developed a hostile relationship.
Callum did not offer to buy it.
He asked, through text, whether she needed help reviewing the lease.
She said Lenora had it.
He replied, Good.
Sometimes he made it very difficult to keep hating him with the clean lines she preferred.
They spoke about the baby twice a week now.
Not long conversations. Updates. Dr. Ross said growth looked good.
The baby disliked Maren sleeping on her left side despite all medical advice.
Callum had read three books and asked whether the phrase mucus plug was as alarming as it sounded.
Maren told him yes and refused to discuss it further.
He never asked to attend appointments.
One day, she asked if he wanted to join by video for the next ultrasound.
His yes arrived after nine minutes.
Nine minutes during which she imagined him writing and deleting every wrong answer.
The video appointment had been awkward, tender, and mostly occupied by Dr. Ross telling the baby to stop hiding behind an elbow. Afterward, Callum sent:
Thank you for letting me be there.
Maren answered:
You were on a phone.
He replied:
Still there.
She had cried for seven minutes and blamed hormones with the ferocity of a woman lying to herself for medical convenience.
came the storm.
It arrived in October, hard and early, a coastal system that shoved rain sideways and turned the harbor white. Greyhaven prepared with the fatalism of towns that had argued with weather for centuries. Boats were secured. Sandbags appeared. Marta baked as if carbohydrates could reinforce windows.
Maren stayed at the cottage because everyone told her to.
For six hours, she obeyed.
Reeve called.
"Before you panic," he said, which ensured panic arrived fully dressed, "no one is hurt."
Maren sat up on the couch. "What happened?"
"Temporary drainage failed near the east wall. We have water getting into the lobby."
"How much?"
"Enough that I am calling you and beginning with no one is hurt."
She was already reaching for her boots.
"Maren."
"I'm coming."
"No, you are not."
"Reeve."
"You are thirty-two weeks pregnant in a storm."
"And the grant compliance photos are in that lobby, along with the plaster samples, the donor wall mockup, and three months of work."
"All replaceable."
"The ceiling isn't if water gets behind the stabilization mesh."
Silence.
"I hate that you know exactly which argument works," he said.
"Pick me up."
"Marta will kill me."
"Then drive fast enough she can't catch you."
He swore and hung up.
At the Rialto, the wind tried to take the truck door off its hinges. Reeve helped Maren down with one arm hovering but not touching until she accepted it. Inside, the lobby smelled wet in the wrong way.
Water ran along the east wall in thin, shining tracks.
"Damn it," Maren breathed.
For forty minutes, she directed without lifting anything heavier than a flashlight.
Reeve and two crew members moved tarps. Gideon arrived in rain gear and called everyone idiots, including himself, while rerouting water away from the exposed plaster.
Maren photographed, documented, adjusted the emergency preservation plan, and ignored the tightening across her lower back.
At first.
the tightening became a band.
a wave.
She stopped speaking mid-sentence.
Reeve shifted on the ladder. "Maren?"
"I'm fine."
Everyone in the lobby shouted, "Banned word."
Under different circumstances, she might have laughed.
Another contraction rolled through her, low and unmistakable.
Her hand went to her belly.
Oh, she thought.
No.
Reeve was off the ladder in seconds.
"Time it," she said, because denial apparently enjoyed practical tasks.
"We are going to the hospital."
"Time it first."
"I am calling Dr. Ross."
"Reeve."
"Maren."
Their standoff lasted until her water broke.
After that, things moved too quickly to pretend.
At the theater entrance, Marta came skidding through the rain as Reeve helped Maren into the truck, hair wild, coat buttoned wrong, fury and fear making her look ten feet tall.
"I knew it," she shouted over the rain. "I knew theater people were trouble."
"Call Lenora," Maren said through clenched teeth.
"I called everyone."
"Not everyone."
Marta's face changed.
Another contraction hit. Maren gripped Reeve's sleeve and breathed through it, the world narrowing to rain, pressure, and the terrifying wrongness of too soon.
"Call him," she said.
Marta did not ask who.
In New York, Callum was in an elevator when Marta called from Maren's phone.
He answered with his name already half-formed into concern.
"She said to call you," Marta said.
The elevator stopped on the forty-second floor.
Callum did not get out.
"What happened?"
"Water broke. Contractions. Thirty-two weeks. We are going to North Shore Medical in Salem because Dr. Ross called ahead."
For one second, the old Callum tried to rise.
Helicopter. Specialist. Orders. Control.
Marta said, "Listen to me, rich man. You come if you can behave."
The elevator doors began to close.
Callum put a hand out and held them.
"I can behave," he said.
"You wait where she says. You don't bully nurses. You don't make this harder."
"I understand."
"Good. Because if you don't, I have bakery knives and a working knowledge of anatomy."
Under different circumstances, he might have laughed.
"Tell her I'm coming," he said.
Marta's voice softened by one grain. "She knows."
The call ended.
Callum stepped out of the elevator and said to three waiting executives, "Cancel everything."
he ran.