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“I’m here, Beau. I’m coming. What’s the matter, baby? I’m coming.” She kept talking between grunts as she pushed, and then she squeezed through the sliver of space she managed to make for herself and tripped into the room.
Beau wasn’t in her crib. The room was dim, and Juliet flipped the light on.
“Where are you, baby?”
She glanced behind the door and there was Will, slumped against it. His eyes were closed, and his face slack. He looked—wrong. Beau was clinging to him, half in his lap.
“Will! Will?” She fumbled in her back pocket for her phone, not even sure what to do first. She dialed 911 and picked up Beau, then wondered if she should have moved her. Beau was limp, but it was hard to tell if she was injured or just exhausted from crying.
Still cradling the baby and making shushing sounds, she pressed her fingers to Will’s neck but didn’t really know what she was doing. She’d taken CPR a few times, but all she could remember was there was a song
to follow, and a beat, but she couldn’t remember what the song was or how to decide if someone needed CPR. She checked him again, holding her hand over his mouth and nose, hovering there waiting. Thank God, he was breathing. She checked him for any signs of a wound but didn’t see anything. There was no blood.
She babbled something to the 911 operator, feeling like it had taken three hours for someone to answer even though it had probably only been a second. She felt faint.
She patted Beau, trying to get her to respond less groggily—patted Will, trying to get him to respond, wondering if she should open a window—maybe there was a gas leak? She didn’t smell anything.
The operator said something about how they were sending someone and it wouldn’t be long and she followed the directions the woman gave her. At some point, Beau’s fingers twisted into her shirt. The baby was sweaty, pale, and almost catatonic. Her eyes were glazed and she smelled like pee.
Juliet she checked Beau for injuries but didn’t see anything through the flood of tears that she couldn’t seem to stop.
Had they been poisoned? Drugged?
She heard the ambulance’s siren and realized they wouldn’t be able to get up the driveway without her opening the gate. Gingerly, she took Beau downstairs with her and buzzed the men in even though she was terrified to leave Will alone.
If anything happened to them—either of them—she didn’t know what she was going to do. She was so afraid she could hardly think.
The paramedics came, four of them. In her panic, they were uniforms with no faces. They made her hand the baby over and two checked Beau while the other two checked Will. They took the phone out of her useless hands and told her to sit down.
All she could think about was how she had never convinced Will that she loved him and Beau, even though she’d known for a while that it was true. She’d been too afraid, and now maybe she’d never get the chance. Beau’s dark eyes looked scared as the paramedic checked her over, and Juliet didn’t know how to divide her attention. She sat with Beau, petting her hair and telling her she was going to be okay, but sometimes her voice would stop working and all the crying she was doing probably wasn’t helping anyone, but she couldn’t seem to stop.
The paramedic announced they were taking them both in—that they thought Beau was fine but they wanted to have her checked over by a doctor just in case. They didn’t know what was wrong with Will, but he was breathing on his own. His color wasn’t good, though, and his vitals were all over the place.
She called Grant, and he and Dex met her at the hospital.
They waited, Juliet half numb and half filled with terror.
Will and Beau were her life. Why had she even hesitated? And now what if she never got the chance to have that life? Nights with Will, lazy weekend afternoons lying around on the floor in Beau’s room reading books. Going to the park. They had just been discussing the fact that Will wanted Beau to have a dog. How had she thought for a minute that a ring or ceremony would change anything for the worse? She had no intention of ever walking away.
Now they were sick and she didn’t even know why. Will had said he wasn’t feeling well. She should have gone over right away, and to hell with his excuses for her not to drop by. She shouldn’t have waited. Why hadn’t he told her how bad it was? He probably didn’t want to be a burden, and that thought made her ashamed. It had never been her intention to make him think she’d resent helping him.
Or maybe things happened suddenly?
Juliet paced, wishing they’d let her in the back, but they just kept telling her to wait.
When they handed Beau over to Juliet, she was so relieved she burst into tears again. Beau was fine, other than needing reassurance, a bath, some fresh clothes, and some food. The baby had exhausted herself crying, apparently, but they’d checked her over to be sure. Beau clung to Juliet as though she were a life raft—as though she were her mother. Juliet never wanted to let her go again.
“You’re Mr. Ellis’s wife?” a man in scrubs asked her ages later. She stood, clutching Beau, almost too afraid to answer.
“Yes, she’s his wife, and I’m his brother,” Grant answered for her. “What happened?”
The doctor, or whoever he was, led them and Dex into a small side room and had them sit. Sitting was for serious things—for bad news. Juliet stared at the chair for a long moment, too chicken to sit down. She made herself do it anyway.
“I’m Dr. Weston.” He sighed, his mouth settling into a grim line. “I’m sorry, but Mr. Ellis’s appendix has ruptured.”
Juliet and Grant exchanged fearful glances, and Dex squeezed Juliet’s arm.
“He’s insured?” the doctor asked.
