Cole sat next to her on the sofa in the den. “One-thirty over eighty,” he said as he took the cuff off her arm. “Do you know what those numbers mean?”
“No more walks on the beach?” she asked. That would be the final blow. Week by week he’d been reining her in, following her around the house with the blood pressure cuff.
“You’re not even going to walk from the living room to the kitchen. You’re staying upstairs. Your bed or this sofa. I’m talking bed rest.”
Bed rest. She stood up. “I just don’t feel sick.”
“Trust me, you’re sick. You’re not even thirty-one weeks. You’re spilling protein. And look at your ankles.”
She didn’t need to. She knew they were ballooning above her shoes.
She sat down again, defeated. “I’ll go crazy, Cole. I can’t spend the rest of this pregnancy lying flat on my back.”
“I don’t want you to lie flat on your back. Your left side is preferable.”
“God, you’re vicious.”
“And you’re stubborn.”
“You’re treating this so lightly, as though it’s a simple thing for me to suddenly stop living.”
“Don’t be so dramatic. Look.” He leaned forward. “This is serious. I wouldn’t be at all adverse to you going into the hospital right now. We’re looking at an early delivery unless we get this under control.”
Rennie took up a collection to buy her a few magazines and Kit spent the day reading in the den. It was an underused room. That seemed like a terrible waste to her now as she looked around her. It was a good room with an enormous blue and rust serape rug on the floor and a white Victorian mantel over the fireplace. It was next to Cole’s room and shared his view of the bay. The only TV in the house was in here. That said something about all of them, she mused, that they were strangers to the only room with a TV.
By early evening the small of her back was beginning to ache from lying in one spot for so long. Her housemates brought dinner upstairs and spread out in the den to eat. “We don’t want you to have to eat alone,” Janni said.
“We can eat with you every night,” said Rennie. “And I can buy you more magazines every week.”
Kit groaned. Every week. She could see her future mapped out in front of her. They’d come upstairs to have dinner with her each night and then they’d get up and leave. They’d go out to the beach and run, swim, play volleyball. And she would stay here, glued to the couch. Nine more weeks.
There was a dull pain creeping across her temple. She knew it. Bed rest was going to make her sick.
Two weeks later, Janni sat cross-legged on the end of Kit’s bed. She had on her traveling clothes—faded jeans and a T-shirt that read I wanted a NEW JERSEY but all I could afford was this T-shirt across her chest. She looked all of thirteen. “You’re sure you don’t mind if I go?” she asked.
Kit picked up the pillow cover she was stitching and poked the fat needle into the backing for the thousandth time that morning. “Of course I don’t mind. I’d feel terrible if you missed San Francisco to stay here and play nurse to me.” She’d give up her nine pairs of running shoes if Janni would skip the conference and stay home.
“I don’t know how you stand it, sweets. I think about you constantly. It must be awful to be stuck in one spot all day.”
“I know every square inch of this ceiling intimately,” Kit said, pointing to the ceiling with her needle. Two weeks in bed and she was ready to scream. One wrong move from anyone and it would come out. Shock the hell out of them. They thought she was doing all right. She pulled a piece of blue yarn out of her needle and replaced it with a long strand of brown. “Janni,” she said slowly, “what if I need a c-section?” She was getting scared. Things weren’t going the way she’d hoped.
“You need a section, you have a section.” Janni shrugged.
She poked the needle back into the flower design. She couldn’t tell Janni what a section would do to her. More time in bed, more time until she was running again. To Janni, it would be worth going through a dozen surgeries if the end result were a baby.
“I want to be there even if it’s a section,” Janni said.
“I’m counting on it. When I picture it, I’ve got you next to me, holding my hand.”
Janni grinned and jumped a little on the bed. “I can’t wait!” she said. “It’s so exciting!” They were jovial around her, as though she were lying here for their entertainment. Only Cole ever mentioned that she wasn’t improving.
She woke in the middle of the night, her right foot curved in on itself with a pain so intense she gasped. She reached around her belly to grab her foot, trying to pull back on the toes. They were locked in place. She pushed her foot against the footboard of her bed, frightened now. She had to walk on it. She jumped out of bed and switched on the light. The room seemed hazy, as if she were looking at it through plastic wrap. She wiped at her eyes but nothing changed.
“Cole!” She pressed her foot into the floor. Her breathing was choppy, her chest tight. “Cole.” There were parts of the room she couldn’t see. Blind spots that moved with her wherever she turned her head. She looked down at her foot and didn’t recognize it. Was it her blurred vision that made it look so enormous?
He came into the room zipping his jeans. “Lie down,” he said taking her arm.
“I have a cramp in my foot.” She was crying.
“I’ll rub it. Lie down.” He eased her onto her side and took her foot in his lap. He began working the cramp out, inch by inch, and she felt the muscles unwind.
“There’s something wrong with my eyes,” she said. “And my head’s going to explode.”
He got up without a word and returned with the blood pressure cuff. He put the stethoscope in place and listened without looking at her.
“I’m taking you to Blair,” he said, gently pulling the cuff from her arm. “Do you have some things packed?”
She shook her head guiltily. She’d forgotten his request to be ready for something like this.
“Someone can bring things over for you. Come as you are.” He tugged the hem of the baggy extra-large T-shirt she was wearing. “Don’t bother getting dressed. You’d just have to get undressed once we got there.”
They put her in a labor room by herself and turned the lights down low. They strapped thick folds of towels to the rails of her bed. It was as if they were creating the softest atmosphere they could for her. But it was only an illusion.
They drew her blood, stabbing her arm a few times before they found the vein. It had disappeared. Like Cole. He was around somewhere, obviously responsible for all that was happening to her, but she hadn’t seen him in hours.
They inserted a catheter in her bladder, linking her to the plastic bag on the side of the bed. They checked her reflexes, frowning at the way her body twitched and jerked, out of her control. An IV line ran into her arm, into the one willing vein they could find. A monitor was strapped around her belly, hooked up to a machine that let her hear her baby’s heartbeat. It was a wonderful sound, but she couldn’t relax, afraid that at any moment it might stop.
Cole walked in around six. He sat in the chair at the side of her bed, annoyingly calm. “Well.” He smiled. “Let’s see what we can do for you here.”
“Where have you been?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as upset as she felt.
“I checked on a couple of other patients, ordered some tests for you. Had a cup of coffee to wake myself up.”
“It’s been hours, though, I thought you’d gone home. Just left me here.” Don’t cry, she told herself. You’re a grown woman.
He frowned and leaned toward her. “Kit, we got here at five. It’s now a few minutes after six.”
One hour? “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I lost track of the time. If you have to leave, will you please tell me?”
“Of course.” He stood up. “You’ll be on much stricter bed rest here. I don’t want you up for anything. The goal is to keep your baby inside you for as long as we can without endangering your health, and the good news is that he or she seems to be doing well. So for now we have to wait and see.”
There was nothing to look at in this room. No window. Empty white walls cloaked in shadow. She had a right to be confused about the time. There was no way to measure it. She thought of her watch on her dresser at the house and longed for her room, probably sun-soaked by now, and for the never-ending hum of the ocean. What if she never saw the house again?
“Come on, now,” the older nurse with the glasses told her when she noticed her tears. “You’re making a big fuss over nothing.”
“I think the monitor sounds different than it did before.” The heartbeat was very faint. “Is my baby all right?”
The nurse didn’t even glance at the monitor. “Your mind can play tricks on you,” she said. “Everything’s just fine.”
She was positive it sounded different. There’d been nothing to concentrate on but that sound ever since she’d been in the room. She wanted to ask the nurse to look at the screen and its little green lines, but she said nothing. She couldn’t afford to have them annoyed with her.
She was certain they already were. She asked too many questions, she was too fearful, she pushed the call button too much. Their smiles were practiced and patronizing. When they walked out of her room, she thought she could hear them in the hall whispering about her. Complaining. A couple of spots in front of her eyes and she thinks we should drop everything and hold her hand.
There was no phone in the labor room. She wanted to call Cole’s office to find out when he’d be in to see her. It had been so long.
The nurse with the glasses came in again to check the blood pressure cuff that was now permanently attached to her arm.
“Do you think Dr. Perelle will be in soon?” Kit asked timidly.
“You’re not his only patient, you know.”
She felt a flash of anger, but it was overshadowed by her fear. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not too good at this.”
“At what?”
“At being a patient. I’m not used to it.”
The nurse laughed. “You’re doing fine, dear. But it doesn’t help to worry about things. Only makes it worse.”
Cole made it very clear that she was not his only patient. He came in just before noon, still dressed in his scrubs from the morning’s c-section. There was a sickening blotch of blood on the blue pants. It was a complicated surgery, he said, trying to account for his long absence. Now his office was backed up, the waiting room overflowing.
And was everything okay with her? Good, fine. He’d see her later.
At noon she had a new nurse. Alison Peters. Young enough to make her feel too old to be having a baby. Bright and quick. She touched everything. The buttons on the monitor. The band around her belly. Inspected everything with intelligent eyes. Kit watched her silently through hazy vision. She would not speak, would not alienate this one.
Alison finished her work and sat on the edge of Kit’s bed. She smiled and squeezed her arm. “Must be scary,” she said, “locked in here with a bunch of machines.”
Kit started to cry and Alison took her hand.
“Do you understand everything that’s going on?” she asked.
“Is the baby all right? I thought the monitor sounded different.”
“The sound changes as your baby moves around,” Alison said. “It’s harder for the ultrasound to pick up the heartbeat if your baby moves out of its range. That doesn’t mean the heart’s not still strong and healthy.”
“Oh,” Kit said. That made perfect sense. “Do you think the baby could survive if I had it now?”
“The Intensive Care Nursery has a lot of experience with premature babies. There’s a very good chance that your baby could do quite well.” Alison handed her a tissue. “Would you like a back rub while we talk?”
“I’d love that,” she said. She could keep this woman with her, right next to her. “But don’t you have other patients you need to get to?”
“No.” Alison began to untie the back of Kit’s gown. “You’re my only patient. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
Cole came in at three. He looked tired. “Rennie’s in the hall,” he said. “She’s on her way home from summer school and asked if she could stop in to see you. Is that okay?”
“Absolutely!” It would be wonderful to see anyone from home.
“I’ll tell her to keep it short,” Cole said, opening her door.
Rennie stood at the end of the bed, biting her lip.
“It’s sweet of you to stop in, Rennie,” Kit said.
“What’s the matter with your face?” Rennie asked.
She touched her cheek. “I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it.” She looked at Cole.
“Her face is just a little swollen,” he said to Rennie.
She had to find a mirror. She’d had no idea.
“Are you going to have the baby now?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at Cole again. He shrugged.
“If you don’t have the baby today, can you come home?” Rennie turned to Cole. “Could she?”
“I think we’d better keep her here for a while, Rennie,” he said.
She waited until the door had completely closed behind Rennie before she spoke. “I’d like the mirror out of my purse, please.”
He looked at her for a moment as if deciding how to answer. “There’s a mirror inside the top of your tray table,” he said, rolling it closer to her.
She hesitated, her hand on the top.
“You don’t look that bad,” he said.
She opened the top and caught her breath. Her cheeks looked as if she’d had all her teeth pulled at once. And her eyes. The lids were puffy white sausages that hid her lashes. “I had no idea I looked like this,” she said, closing the top.
He sat down on the chair next to her bed. “Let’s talk,” he said.
“I don’t want any more visitors.” No one should see her like this. Her coworkers from the PR office were planning on coming down that afternoon. “I don’t want to see anyone,” she said.
“Don’t worry. The nurses know not to let anyone in. I thought a minute or two with Rennie wouldn’t hurt, but I guess I was wrong.”
“No, that was okay.” She gently touched her fingertips to her eyelids. They were ready to burst. She gritted her teeth together to keep from crying.
“Your pressure’s gone up a little higher,” Cole said. “I’m putting you on magnesium sulfate to ward off . . . any problems. If things don’t improve, you’ll have to deliver.”
“Now? You said yourself it’s too early.”
“There comes a point when you . . . when I have to decide if your baby would be better off in the Intensive Care Nursery than inside of you.”
For the first time it hit her. Her baby was in real trouble. “Cole?”
“Yes?”
“If I’d been more obedient about taking it easy, would I be lying here right now?”
“I don’t think it would have made any difference. And there’s no point to thinking that way, anyhow, so no guilt trips. Okay?”
“I can tell you your baby’s sex, if you’d like to know.” He was watching the ultrasound image on the screen.
“Oh, yes.”
“You have a daughter.”
“What?” She needed to hear him say it again.
“A daughter. A girl-child. My goddaughter, remember her?”
She looked at the image on the screen. “Alison,” she said.
He looked surprised. “Alison?”
“I just like it.”
“Alison as in Alison Peters?” He hadn’t lost that stunned look.
“She’s been wonderful.” The one human touch in a room full of plastic and machines.
“A little impulsive, don’t you think? You know someone for a couple of hours and name your baby after her?”
“It’s a good name, Cole.” It was perfect. Alison was as real to her as if she were already lying in her arms.