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"Boston," Shannon yelled. "Head for the city. I'll give you directions to the women's hospital fromthere."
She was sandwiched between Judy and me in the back seat, and I had both hands on her belly. I was counting the seconds—we were on a seconds basis here—between spasms but I wasn't convinced I had the timing right. It couldn't be right. She couldn't be progressing this fast. But seconds later, I felt her muscles tightenagain.
"We don't have time," Isaid.
"We're going to make time." Her eyes flashed with panic. "You don't get to tell me there's no time," she continued, waving her hands to the side, tears filling hereyes.
"There are thresholds to this, Shannon," I said. "This baby is coming very quickly, and I can't promise we have the time to get you to Brigham. It's on the far side of the Back Bay. That's another half hour that I don't believe we have, and we'd drive right past Mass General on the way. Let me call Hartshorn, and he'll page everyone in OB. We'll take great care ofyou."
"But I don't want that," Shannon wailed, tears spilling over. "I wantmyhospital andmydoctor andmyplan, and this isn'tthat."
"And I don't want you delivering your baby in the back seat of this car," Isaid.
Will shifted in his seat, the phone still at his ear, and stared at Shannon. "Peanut," he said, desperation heavy in his tone. "Please. I know it's not what you want, and hell, it's not what I want either, but listen to Nick rightnow."
"Look at me, sweetheart." Judy tucked Shannon's hair over her ears. "We're going to do this, and it's going to be all right. Just hold myhand."
We were flying down the highway, driving faster than seemed safe or possible with snow falling in heavy sheets. "You'll have to push soon," I said. "You don't want to do thathere."
"Okay," Shannon said, sniffling. "But I want to state, one more time, that this is not what Iwanted."
"And I want to state that it won't happen again," Willreplied.
"Again?" Shannon yelled. "You think we're doing this again? The first chance I get, I'm cutting off your balls and making lawn ornaments withthem."
"Oh really?" Will replied. "First chance I get, I'm going to remind you that I was right. I told you that you were doing too much, I told you to sit the fuck down, and I told you to stop pushing yourself. If you did what you were told, we wouldn't be in thisposition."
"If you want to talk to me aboutthis position, you can do it while you suck my dick," shesaid.
"No, Shannon, I can't fucking do that right now because I need to reroute the security team I had in place at the other hospital," he said. "Forgive me, but I'll have to catch your dicklater."
"Why the fuck do you have a security team in place?" she asked. "Goddamn it, Commando. There are too many issues to list rightnow."
"Whywouldn'tI have a team?" hereplied.
"I know this is your normal, but it would be great if y'all could scream at each other a little less," I said. I caught Shannon's eye as I pressed my fingers to the pulse point in her wrist. "We don't need your heart rate and blood pressure going through theroof."
"My blood pressure would be fine if it weren't for the mansplainer in the front seat," shesaid.
"Your blood pressure would be fine if you listened to reason from time to fucking time," Willreplied.
The Commodore whistled and pointed at Will. "This is one of the instances in life where your opinions are less useful than rubber dog shit, and I've never found a use for rubber dog shit," he said. "Shut it, or I'll leave you on the side of the road. Don't forget that I outrankyou."
"As if I could forget," Willmuttered.
"Let's talk about names," Judy suggested as she massaged Shannon's abdomen. "Which ones are on your list,sweetheart?"
"Stop trying to find out the sex, Judy," Will said, furiously stabbing at his phone as he spoke. He pressed the device to his ear, still fuming. "Shaw, I mean it when I say I'll fly to Virginia and beat the snot out of you tonight if you don't call me backimmediately."
"Leave Shaw out of this," Shannon said. "We do not need a military unit on standby. We didn't have one withAbby."
"If that's what you want to believe, let yourself believe it," hemurmured.
"Are you fucking kidding me? Would it kill you to run any of this shit by me before—" Shannon shrieked as another contraction hit. "I fucking hate you right now,Commando."
Will tossed his phone to the center console and shifted in his seat to take both of her hands in his. "Give it to me. Come on, Peanut, I haveyou."
I pulled my phone from my pocket and wedged it between my ear and shoulder while Judy and I rubbed Shannon's lower back through the worst of the spasms. The first and second calls went to voicemail, a sure sign that Hartshorn was in surgery. That was not the way I wanted this situation to pan out. I tried a few other numbers, but they all went to voicemail or the surgical answering service system. With a reluctant sigh, I called the only other doctor I knew to be workingtonight.
