Page 116 of Songs for Libby

“Your baby is fine. Your friend has her and will meet us at the hospital.”

Tears of relief ran down my temples.

When we got to the hospital, there was a whispered conversation about my connection with Sean before I was wheeled into a room with a door that closed. I’d always had a definite love/hate relationship with the special treatment that Sean’s fame afforded him—and now me—but at the moment I was simply grateful. I couldn’t handle any more gawking. I kept asking where Joanie was, but the answer was always the same. My friend was bringing her. “What friend?” I kept demanding.

The nurse I was interrogating shook her head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t told a name.”

“Is it Sean? Where is he?”

“I don’t know, but you were the only one brought in by ambulance, so that’s a good thing.”

So then, was Joanie with Sean? Or did Nick have her? Tucker? Who?

I tried to trust that what they said was true, that she was safe and with someone I knew, but each minute that passed without my baby coming into the room made me that much more agitated. I didn’t have my phone, so I couldn’t call Sean or Nick. I couldn’t find out where my baby was. Sure, they said she was fine. Sure, they said she was coming, but I didn’t KNOW that. And she wasn’t here with me, and I didn’t know for sure that she was okay. And she was so tiny and so fragile that how could she possibly be okay after what had just happened? The pain in my head threatening to split it in two certainly didn’t help matters, and I was on the verge of screaming for someone to find me my baby now when there was a scuffle and an argument at the door, before a frustrated, “This is her baby!” rang out.

“Nick?!” I asked, hating that I couldn’t sit up and see for myself. That was Nick, right? “Do you have Joanie?” I asked, my hand reaching in the direction of his voice.

“I’ve got her.” Suddenly he was hovering above me, carefully holding Joanie toward me so that I could see her sleeping face scrunching up as if she was being woken and did not like it one bit.

I burst into tears and reached for her.

“She’s okay,” he said. “She’s okay.” He maneuvered Joanie so that her little forehead touched mine, and just that tiny bit of contact with my baby’s skin did more to calm me down than any words could have.

“It’s okay,” I whispered to her. “We’re okay.”

“We’re going to take you up to CT now,” a nurse said, and I had to say goodbye to my baby again.

They wheeled me up and I did my best to grin and bear it while they scanned my head, neck and spine. The back of my head hurt from being pressed against the backboard and I had to consciously fight down my panic.

Where was Sean? Where was Sean? Where was Sean?

They wheeled me back to the room I had left. “Nick?” I called as soon as we got into the room.

“Me and Joanie are right here, ma’am,” he said, and Joanie added her opinion by starting to cry.

A bit of my panic slipped away at the reassurance, but Joanie’s cries made me even more anxious to get out of this collar. She was probably getting hungry, and I was her only food source.

“Is she really okay?” I asked.

“The doctor looked her over while you were gone. They said she looks perfectly fine.”

I let out a shuddering breath of relief. I tried to work past the lump in my throat to ask about Sean, but despite much swallowing, the words wouldn’t come.

Only a couple minutes later, a doctor walked in and gave me the good news that my CT was clear. The nurses got me out of the collar and I was able to get off of the backboard. They sat the bed up so that I could finally hold my baby.

After handing her off, Nick sat unobtrusively in the corner and I was able to nurse her while the nurse and doctor worked to clean, numb, and stitch the laceration on my forehead.

They piled blankets on my lap and wrapped one around my shoulders when I started shaking from all the pent-up adrenaline. They propped my arms up with pillows so I wouldn’t have to hold Joanie up on my own, and as the shaking subsided, I was finally able to take a deep breath.

Still.

Where was Sean?

♪♫♪

Two hours later, the doctors had finished with me, so they signed my discharge papers and left me alone to get my things together. I sat on the hospital bed to change Joanie’s diaper and finally asked Nick the question that had been pounding against my heart for the past several hours. “Where’s Sean?”

He didn’t respond right away, which only made my panic ratchet up more. I looked up at him, my lips tight, my eyes wide. Terrified.