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“But it’s too early.” She grit her teeth through another contraction. The bars on the bed lifted beside her as she was wheeled out of the room and down a hallway.
“We have the pediatrician ready and are equipped to handle a preemie. We promise we’re gonna do everything we can, but we need to get the baby out now.” The doctor’s tone was kind but firm.
The surety that her baby was coming whether she was ready or not encompassed her. There was nothing else she could do at this point but hope and pray to a god she wasn’t sure existed that her child would make it. “Okay.”
“I’m going to gown up and be right back, Charli,” Belle said before dropping her hand.
The double doors to the operating room opened for her. Several masked people already stood by machines and trays of operating instruments.
A woman appeared to her side, placing a mask over her face. “We don’t have time to give you a spinal. We need to get the baby out because he’s in distress. Do you understand?”
A wave of grogginess blurred the room as Charli echoed her husband’s last words. “Do it.”
Don’t take my baby too.
Then her world went black.
52
Charli
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Charli moaned. Pushing her eyes open took so much effort, like her lids were made of lead. The dim light still seemed too bright. She opened her mouth to speak and promptly closed it. Had someone stuffed it with cotton balls?
“Charli?” a deep voice next to her said, before her hand was swallowed up by another’s.
Finn? No. Pain lashed across her chest, memories flooding back to her. No. Finn was dead.
She turned her head. Zeke’s brows were drawn together in concern.
“Water?” she croaked.
He nodded, grabbing a cup with a straw she hadn’t noticed beside him. Charli took a sip and nodded. Zeke set it back down as she asked, “The baby? Is he—”
She couldn’t finish the sentence. Had everything been taken from her today?
“Oh, he’s doing just fine. Claire’s with him in the NICU.” Zeke patted her hand.
Charli’s heart stuttered as relief flooded her body like warm sunshine. Her son was alive. He was going to survive. “I want to see him.”
Zeke pressed the call button beside her seeming to know better than to argue with her.
After a heated discussion with the doctor, Charli’s bed was wheeled into the NICU by Belle and a couple of orderlies. Her friend had helped convince the doctor that these were extenuating circumstances. Charli slipped a mask over her face, ignoring the throb from her incision site. She wanted to lay eyes on her son—see that he was okay for herself. He was all she had left of Finn.
Claire slipped out, giving Charli a gentle hug. “He’s perfect.”
Charli nodded as Belle pushed her inside the isolated room to what looked like a glassed-in case with two holes on the side. The light brown infant was impossibly small. He looked like a sleeping doll. So fragile.
“I know he doesn’t look it, but he’s a strong little guy,” Belle said.
“Can I touch him?”
“You can hold him. Skin to skin would be really good for him.” Belle lifted the tiny infant, careful of all the tubes and cords attached to his body before she set him against Charli’s bare chest.
Charli pressed her hand gently to his back, holding him close. It was as if a piece of her heart now lived outside her body in this small human. His hand kneaded the flesh of her breast. It was so tiny, just big enough to wrap around the pad of her finger.
“Have you picked out a name?” Belle asked.
