35. Rowan
ROWAN
Serena refuses to let Erik into the imaging room until she finishes the first assessment.
He accepts that badly. I know because I can hear him outside the door asking the nurse whether the delay is necessary, then catching himself before the question becomes an instruction.
The nurse gives him one answer, and after that, the hallway stays quiet.
Serena adjusts the monitor beside my bed and looks at me. "You're smiling."
"I'm appreciating personal growth."
"You can appreciate it after I make sure you're not bleeding internally.
" She wheels the ultrasound machine closer and checks the IV line running into my arm.
"You're dehydrated. Your blood work supports that, and your blood pressure is lower than I want.
You also have enough bruising that I'm documenting all of it before anyone decides you're leaving this room. "
The private hospital looks nothing like Orell's clinic, though enough of the equipment overlaps that my body reacts before I can stop it.
The door opens from the inside. Nobody waits outside it with a weapon.
The IV is here because I agreed to it, and the blood-pressure cuff comes off when Serena finishes with it instead of becoming another restraint.
I lie back and let her work while she spreads gel across my abdomen and presses the transducer against my skin.
I don't ask whether there are still three heartbeats.
Serena heard all three on the island, but I need to hear them again anyway.
She knows me well enough not to make me ask.
She turns on the sound and adjusts the angle until the first heartbeat fills the room.
The second follows, then she moves the transducer farther across my abdomen before isolating the third.
I close my eyes briefly. Three. Still three.
Serena lowers the volume but keeps imaging. "Baby A has an appropriate heart rate. Baby B does too. Baby C is still measuring a little smaller than the other two, consistent with the prior scan, but the heart rate is appropriate."
"I need you to say stable."
"I'll say stable when I'm finished." Serena adjusts the image and takes another measurement. "I'm checking the placentas and the areas around them."
I watch her instead of the monitor. "What are you seeing?"
She changes the angle once more before answering. "A small subchorionic hemorrhage."
Every joke I might have made disappears. "How small?"
"Small enough that I'm monitoring it instead of calling in a surgical team." Serena turns the monitor slightly toward me and points to a darker area. "It's a collection of blood between the chorion and the uterine wall. Yours is limited. All three babies are stable."
I look at the gray shapes on the screen. "Does it hurt them?"
"Not at this size." She measures the area again. "It increases your risk of bleeding, and triplet pregnancy already puts you in a higher-risk category. I want reduced activity and repeat imaging. We watch this for the next two weeks."
The last four days run through my head in pieces. Fighting at the conference center, the blow to my head, the estate, the van, miles on foot, Rahil at the ranger station, the second house, another chokehold, the island, and Orell. "What caused it?"
Serena sets the transducer down long enough to adjust the machine. "I can't prove one cause. Trauma, physical strain, and dehydration didn't help. I'm not going to pretend the last four days were harmless."
I look back at the monitor. "How close?"
Serena doesn't answer immediately, which gives me the answer anyway. When I say her name, she sits on the rolling stool beside the bed.
"Your blood pressure responded to fluids. Your labs are improving. There's no sign of placental separation, no current bleeding, and all three heart rates are appropriate. Those are the facts I want you focused on."
"That isn't what I asked."
"No." She pulls off one glove and drops it into the waste bin.
"You asked me for a version of the last four days where I can tell you exactly how much farther you could have pushed before something changed.
Medicine doesn't work that way." She studies me for another second before giving me what she's willing to give.
"You were dehydrated, injured, sleep-deprived, and carrying triplets while repeatedly exerting yourself under stress. I'm very glad you're here now."
That is as close as she'll come, and it's close enough. I watch the three images on the screen until she prints them. Serena wipes the gel from my abdomen, helps me lower my shirt, then takes the pictures off the machine and puts them into my hand.
"Now I'll say stable."
My fingers close around the printouts. "All three?"
"All three." Serena points toward the IV bag. "You, however, are staying here until that empties, you eat something, and I'm satisfied your pressure remains where it belongs."
I settle against the pillow. "Does Erik get parole?"
Serena gives me an unimpressed look. "You may invite him in."
"I appreciate your commitment to my autonomy."
"I'm going to regret every conversation you two have for the rest of my professional life."
She leaves before I can answer, and Erik is in the room less than ten seconds later.
He enters without his coat, with dried blood still on one sleeve of the black shirt he wore to the island and a shallow cut near his temple that somebody has cleaned since I last saw him.
He stops beside the door instead of walking straight to the bed.
"What did she say?"
I hold out the ultrasound pictures.
Erik crosses the room and takes them carefully. He doesn't sit until I move my feet enough to make space on the edge of the mattress. "All three are stable. There's a small subchorionic hemorrhage. Serena wants reduced activity and repeat imaging for two weeks."
His head comes up immediately. "Hemorrhage."
"Small."
He scowls. "That word does not improve because you put small in front of it."
"I know." I reach for his wrist before he can stand and find Serena. "She said no current bleeding, no placental separation, and all three heart rates are appropriate."
He sits back down, though every line of him looks ready to argue with a physician who has already left. I squeeze his wrist. "She also said I'm improving with fluids."
Erik looks toward the IV bag, then at me. "You're staying."
"For now."
His mouth opens.
I point at him. "You were doing very well outside the door."
He closes it again, and I smile. He studies me for a second, then bends and presses his mouth against my forehead. The contact lasts longer than I expect.
Before either of us can say anything else, somebody knocks softly and opens the door.
Mom comes in alone.
For a second, neither of us moves. She looks as if she dressed without knowing what she was putting on. Her sweater is inside out at one cuff, and there's no makeup on her face. Erik stands immediately, gives her the chair beside the bed, then moves toward the window without being asked.
Mom sits and touches my arm very carefully. "Can I hug you?"
I lean toward her, and she puts both arms around me before starting to cry. I wrap one arm around her while avoiding the IV line.
"I'm okay."
"I know." Her grip tightens for a few seconds before she makes herself loosen it. "Callie told me I wasn't allowed to say that you scared ten years off my life."
"That seems fair."
"She said it would make this about me."
"That also seems fair."
Mom laughs once through tears and sits back. She wipes her cheeks with both hands, then looks at the ultrasound pictures on the blanket beside me. "Three?"
"Still three."
Her shoulders drop.
I wait for the questions about what Serena said, but Mom doesn't ask them. She looks at the blanket for several seconds instead. "Your father was frightened before he died."
The change in subject is so abrupt that I stop adjusting the IV tubing.
Mom looks at me. "I knew."
Erik stays by the window and doesn't interrupt.
"What do you mean?"
"The last few months." Mom rubs one palm against her jeans. "He started checking the locks twice. He took calls outside. He stopped leaving his laptop on the kitchen table. Once, I woke up at three in the morning and found him sitting in the living room with every light off."
I remember that period, but I remember it differently. Dad working late. Dad distracted. Dad forgetting dinner and apologizing after.
Mom looks toward the window, then back at me. "I asked whether something was wrong once. He said work was complicated, and I let him stop there."
"Mom."
"I knew he was afraid." Her voice breaks, but she continues. "Maybe I didn't know what he was afraid of, but I knew something was wrong. I chose not to ask again because I was afraid of the answer."
I don't know what to do with that confession yet. She reaches for my hand.
"I've spent almost two years telling myself he hid everything from us. He did hide things, but I helped him do it by accepting the first answer because it was easier."
"You didn't know about Orell."
"No." Mom shakes her head. "I knew my husband was frightened, and I decided not knowing was safer."
I think about the pregnancy I hid from Erik because I was afraid of the answer to a question I hadn't actually asked. The parallel is irritating enough that I almost resent my mother for delivering it today.
I close my fingers around hers. "Dad made his choices too."
"I know." She wipes her cheek. "I'm not taking responsibility for his decisions. I'm taking responsibility for mine."
That sounds more like her.
We sit together until the door opens again and Callie appears with two paper bags and enough irritation to power the hospital. She stops when she sees Mom crying.
"I leave you alone for twelve minutes."
Mom sniffs. "I'm allowed."
"You're allowed to cry. You're not allowed to make Rowan manage it."
"I wasn't."
Callie looks at me for confirmation.
"She wasn't."