AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He sat upright in bed. “Annie?”
“It’s too . . . early,” she wheezed, clutching his pajama sleeve. She thought of Adrian and panicked. “Oh, God, it’s too early. . . . ”
“Jesus. ” He lurched out of bed and raced for the clothes that lay heaped over a chair. In a matter of minutes, he had Annie in the car and they were speeding toward the hospital.
“Hang on, Annie. I’ll get you to the hospital. ” He shot her a nervous look. “Just hang on. ”
She squeezed her eyes shut. Imagine you’re on a white sand beach.
Another cramp.
“Shit,” she hissed. It was impossible. All she could think about was the pain, the red-hot pain that was chewing across her belly, and the life inside her. Her baby. She clutched her stomach. “Hold on, baby girl . . . hold on. ”
But all she saw was Adrian, tiny Adrian, hooked up to a dozen machines, being lowered into the ground in a casket the size of a bread box. . . .
Not again, she prayed silently over and over. Please God . . . not again.
The sterile white walls of the hospital’s waiting room pressed in on Blake. He paced back and forth, one minute watching the clock, then skimming through some idiotic magazine about celebrities and their infantile problems.
He kept reliving it in his mind. Annie being rushed into the delivery room, her eyes wide with fear, and her voice, broken and braying, saying over and over again, It’s too early.
Everything had flashed before his eyes in that single, horrifying moment when they’d put her on a gurney and wheeled her away from him. He’d seen his whole marriage in an instant, all the good times and the bad times and the in-between times; he’d seen Annie go from a fresh-faced college sophomore to a pregnant thirty-nine-year-old.
“Mr. Colwater?”
He spun away from the window and saw Annie’s obstetrician, Dr. North, standing in the doorway. She wore a crisp white coat and a tired smile. “The baby—”
“How’s Annie?”
Dr. North frowned for a second, then said, “Your wife is sleeping peacefully. You may see her now. ”
He sagged in relief. “Thank God. Let’s go. ” He followed Dr. North down the quiet white hallway to a private room.
Inside, the curtains were drawn and the room lay steeped in bluish shadows. The bed was a narrow, steel-railed thing tucked neatly inside an L-shaped privacy curtain. A bedside table held a telephone and a blue plastic water pitcher with the room number scrawled across the side—as if someone would steal it. Metal IV racks stood alongside the bed like tall, thin vultures, their plastic bags and see-through veins connected to Annie’s pale wrists.
She looked young and frail in the strange bed. It brought back a dozen painful memories of his son.
“When will she wake up?” he asked the doctor.
“It shouldn’t be long. ”
Blake couldn’t seem to move. He stood in the center of the room, staring at his wife. He’d almost lost her. It was the thought that kept spinning through his head. He’d almost lost her.
He went to the bed and pulled up a chair. He sat there, staring at the woman who’d been his wife for almost twenty years. Dr. North said something—he didn’t know what—and then left the room.
After forever—he’d lost track of time—she opened her eyes. “Blake?”
His head snapped up. He saw her sitting up, looking at him. She looked scared and broken. “Annie,” he whispered, reaching for her hand.
“My baby,” she said. “How’s our little girl?”
Shit. He hadn’t even asked. “I’ll go find out. ” He rushed away from her and hurried down the hall. He found Dr. North at the nurses’ station, and he dragged her back to Annie’s room.
At the doctor’s entrance, Annie straightened. She was trying desperately not to cry; Blake could see the effort she was making. “Hi, doctor,” she said, swallowing hard.
Dr. North went to Annie, touched her hand. “Your daughter is alive, Annie. She’s in neonatal intensive care. There were some complications; she was barely five pounds and developmentally that’s a problem. We’re worried about—”
“She’s alive?”
