Page 163 of Mile High Ex's Dad
Then she says, very quietly, “The baby’s not moving.”
Everything in the car changes.
Maksim looks up at once. “When did you last feel movement?”
“On the lawn.” Her voice cracks. “Before. I don’t know. I don’t know.”
I hear myself say, “No.”
Not to her. To the car. To the morning. To the possibility gathering shape around us.
Maksim is calm. Horribly calm. “That doesn’t mean the worst thing you’re thinking.”
She looks at him like she wants to believe him and doesn’t know how.
“It doesn’t,” he repeats. “It means we get there faster.”
Another minute. Maybe two. Then the hospital entrance appears through the windshield, bright and ugly and too far away until suddenly it’s right in front of us.
The car stops hard.
Orderlies are already moving toward us. Maksim must have called ahead from the back seat because they have a wheelchair, a stretcher, too many hands, and not enough time.
I get out first and turn back for her, but Maksim is already on her side saying, “Careful. Don’t let her stand if you can help it.”
Too late.
Sienna tries anyway. The second her feet touch the ground, she nearly buckles, and I catch her under the arms and lift her again before anyone else can get there.
She clings to me, one arm around my neck, the towel still pressed low with the other hand, and I carry her through the hospital doors while people move around us speaking too fast.
“How far along?”
“Bleeding how much?”
“When did labor begin?”
“Any complications?”
“Whose patient is she?”
Maksim answers what he can. I answer nothing. My world has narrowed to the woman in my arms and the fact that the floor is too bright and the air smells like antiseptic and fear.
They stop us in triage and tell me to put her down.
I don’t want to.
Maksim says my name once. That’s enough.
I lower her onto the bed. The nurse reaches for the towel, and when she pulls it away, everyone in the room goes very still.
No one says anything for a second.
The nurse’s face changes first. Then the younger doctor beside her. Then Maksim, though he gets hold of his expression faster than the others do.
Too much blood. I know it before anyone explains it.
Sienna knows it too. I can see it in the way her hand gropes for mine again, blind and urgent, her eyes already glossy with fear. “What?” she asks. “What is it?”
