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“How do you ask?” I say.
“Please.”
“All right.” Tuck gives my stomach a slight squeeze before removing his hand. “But you have to be gentle, Katie, remember? The baby is very, very small.”
Katie puts her hand back on my belly. “Very, very small,” she whispers.
Tuck smiles. I wipe away a tear.
I cannot wait for this baby to get here.
Later that night, I am yanked from sleep by a vicious, burning tug low in my abdomen.
At first I think I dreamt it, because it goes away. I lie in bed with my heart pounding, the darkness around me inky black. Tuck’s even breathing beside me makes me feel slightly more settled. Less discombobulated.
But then the tug returns, this time worse. It feels like really bad period cramps, the kind you need a couple Advil and a heating pad for.
Panic grips my lungs and squeezes. I try my best to breathe through the sensation, but the pain is such that I end up whimpering instead.
Tuck stirs beside me. “Maren? That you?”
“Yeah.”
“You all right?”
“I’m cramping.”
“What?” I hear him bolt upright. He turns on the lamp beside the bed, and I blink against the sudden onslaught of light. Combined with the tearing sensation in my pelvis, it’s overwhelming.
“Turn it off,” I beg. “Too much.”
The room immediately goes dark again. “Tiny. Talk to me.”
The tug slowly subsides until it’s gone altogether. That’s when it hits me.
These are cramps. Very, very bad cramps.
I try to remember everything Dr. Yelich told us about the partial placenta previa. That cramping is common and so is bleeding with the condition, but if blood shows up, I should head to the hospital just to be safe.
I am only twenty-five weeks pregnant. The chances of a baby surviving outside the womb at this point aren’t great.
An icy trickle of fear works its way down my spine. “Something’s wrong, Tuck. I need—let me go to the bathroom.”
He darts to my side of the bed and helps me up. I feel fine, so I don’t have any trouble making it to the toilet. But when I wipe, I look down and see that the toilet paper is red.
Bright red.
Oh god oh god oh god.
Tuck is standing at the door. He’s naked, one elbow resting against the doorframe.
I hold up the toilet paper. He startles, green eyes going wide. “Maren?—”
“Hospital,” I sob. “Now.”
Riley and Lu live closest to us—we can literally see their boat,Dolly, from the deck off the kitchen—so they rush over to stay with Katie, who’s sleeping downstairs, while Tuck and I head to the hospital.
Bald Head is an incredible place to live, except when you have an emergency. Tuck immediately wanted to call a helicopter, but Riley made a good point: by the time it arrived and landed safely in the dark, we could already be at the hospital in South Port if we took a boat instead.
