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Lauren wiped her feet on the welcome mat and closed the door behind her. “Jared call you back yet?” she asked when she spotted her sister across the room.
“He’s meeting us at the hospital,” Kelly said, her face contorted with pain.
“Do you have everything you need?”
Kelly nodded as she gripped the back of a chair and groaned. “My bag has been packed for two weeks now.”
“Let’s go, then.” Lauren snatched her sister’s jacket off the coat tree and pulled open the door. “Is this your bag?” she asked, pointing to the small suitcase on the floor. When Kelly nodded, she grabbed it. “Be careful. The stairs are a little slippery,” Lauren called over her shoulder. The concrete stairs were coated with about an inch of snow. According to yesterday’s forecast, the rare late March snowstorm was only supposed to drop about three to four inches of snow, but judging by the way it was coming down, she expected the estimate to go up.
“I cannot believe it is snowing. It’s almost the end of March.”
“Yeah, well, it looks like everything is on its own time schedule this year.” Lauren opened the car door for her sister. “The baby isn’t supposed to be here yet, either.”
After Kelly made herself as comfortable as possible in the passenger seat, Lauren slammed the door closed and walked around to the other side. “I hope you and Jared decided on names finally.” Lauren pulled out onto the deserted street that hadn’t yet been touched by a plow. The last time she’d asked, her sister and brother-in-law still had not narrowed down their original list of fifteen names.
“We picked Patrick if it is a boy, and if it’s a girl it’ll either be Beth or Alexa.”
Lauren kept up a steady stream of chatter during the long ride from Kelly’s to the hospital. Most days the ride from Kelly’s house to the hospital only took about ten minutes. Today the ride took almost twenty because it seemed as if every nervous driver in Massachusetts was on the road. “You would think these people have never seen snow. I could walk to the hospital faster than this,” Lauren complained, once again stuck behind a slow-moving car. In the distance, she could see the hospital. “There’s sand on the road already, it’s not that slick.”
“You know how some people get,” Kelly said, sounding short of breath.
“You’re doing great. Hang in there.” Lauren pulled into the hospital driveway but drove past the parking garage and headed straight for the front entrance and valet parking. She opened the door while putting the car into park. “I need a wheelchair,” she called out. Immediately, the young parking attendant, who had approached the car, bolted into the hospital as another came around to help Kelly into the wheelchair.
“You ready to do this?” Lauren asked, pushing her sister through the glass doors and into the hospital’s lobby.
Kelly groaned in response, her arms crossed around her middle.
Without pausing, Lauren moved toward the elevators. “I’ll take that as a yes. What floor?”
“Third,” Kelly said, her voice somewhere between a groan and a whimper.
An hour later, Lauren sat in Kelly’s hospital room where she would eventually give birth and stay for a few days. So far though, not much had happened. After checking in, the doctor on duty had done a quick exam. A nurse had hooked up a monitor to track the baby’s heartbeat then left. So far, no one had returned. From the window, Lauren could see that the snow had picked up. And although she didn’t say anything, she feared Jared might not make it to the hospital in time. Her sister had always known that was a possibility. Jared worked near Springfield about an hour away, and even when the weather cooperated, traffic could make the trip twice as long. For that very reason, Lauren had gone to the birthing class with Jared and Kelly. But while Kelly may have prepared herself for Jared not being there, she would be heartbroken if he wasn’t.
“Do you want me to call Mom and Dad?” Lauren asked, turning her back on the window. Watching the snow would not make it stop. “Or do you want to wait until the baby is born?”
“After. I don’t want them trying to get here in this storm, and you know they would.” Kelly repositioned herself in the bed. “I don’t want you to leave, but maybe you should head out now before the roads get really bad.”
Lauren reached for her sister’s hand. “I’ll go as soon as Jared gets here.” As much as she hated the idea of waiting until the roads got worse, she wasn’t leaving her sister all alone either.
“He . . .” Kelly stopped as another contraction tore through her. “Who knows when he’ll get here? I’ll be okay. I’ll worry less if you start home now.”
“You’re not getting rid of me that easily, Sis.” Reaching for the remote, Lauren turned on the television and flipped through the limited stations. “As soon as Jared gets here, I’ll go. I promise, okay?”
She made it through the first half of the evening news before her normally calm brother-in-law raced into the room. Jared’s hair stood on end as if he’d spent the last few hours running his hands through it. His tie had been loosened and left to hang at an odd angle around his neck. Without pausing, Jared rushed to his wife’s side and kissed her. Then tearing off his jacket he tossed it onto the other empty chair in the room and turned toward Lauren. “The roads are shitty already and every idiot driver is out there.”
On the drive over they had been a little slick but nothing she couldn’t handle. Lauren had lived in New England all her life, so this was hardly her first snowstorm. But for Jared to complain, they must be really awful. He’d lived up in Bangor, Maine, for several years before moving to Massachusetts, and the winters up there were much worse than here.
Lauren leaned over to give her sister a hug. “Now that Jared’s here, I will go. One of you better call me right after the baby is born, though. I don’t care what time it is.” Coming around to the other side of the bed she gave Jared a hug, too. “I mean it, right after.”
Only after getting a promise that they’d call, Lauren left. As she waited for the valet attendant to bring around her car, she watched the fat snowflakes swirling through the sky. The few cars and trucks on the road were moving slowly, their windshield wipers fighting the trail of salt left behind as a large snowplow cleared a path down the road. Why did her sister’s water have to break tonight? Yesterday would have been a much better day. She may do it every year, but she hated driving in the snow. She didn’t mind a snowstorm once it ended and the roads were clear, but during the storm itself, well, that she hated
“Drive carefully, ma’am,” the valet said before closing Lauren’s door for her.
With both hands, Lauren gripped the steering wheel, her knuckles turning white as she eased onto the street toward the highway. Though well into rush hour, the traffic on the road remained light.
Cranking up the windshield wipers, she turned the car onto Route 3. So far she’d seen two accidents and had slipped on ice twice. Both times her car’s ABS brakes kicked in, bringing the car to a stop before she ran through the stop signs. That was the good news. The bad news was, she was only halfway home. Up ahead another stop sign appeared like a bright red beacon in the white snow. A gust of wind swept over the car, nearly blinding her. Taking in a slow steady breath, she pried her hands from the steering wheel when the car stopped. For a second, she thought she heard a grating sound sort of like metal rubbing against metal.
It’s your imagination. After wiping her hands on her pants, she gripped the steering wheel and crossed the intersection. Once again the grating sound rumbled through the car. That’s not my imagination. Lauren knew next to nothing about cars, yet even she recognized the sound as a bad sign. Just let me make it home.
The farther she drove, the louder the sound became. Then about a half mile down the road she finally pulled over. Driving the car the way it sounded couldn’t be safe. Of all the nights for her car to act up it had to be tonight in the middle of a snowstorm. At least she’d gotten Kelly to the hospital. Now she had herself to worry about. Ever since she’d started driving, she’d belonged to MAA, Massachusetts Automobile Association. In the event of a breakdown or flat tire, they’d come out and either tow the car or fix it so she could get it to a garage. She didn’t use it often, but whenever she did she was grateful for the service. Lauren pulled out her cell and dialed the number. After several rings a male voice answered.
“It may be a while before we can get to you,” the operator said, after Lauren explained the situation. “We have had numerous accidents requiring tows. Sit tight, and we will get to you as soon as we can.”
Sit tight? As if she had much of a choice. It wasn’t as if she could run out and get a coffee. “Any idea how long it might be?”
“Minimum of an hour.”
