The baby screamed and screamed in my arms. I tried to hold it, but it was slippery, still in its placental sack. I was alone in the woods, my hands filthy, covered in leaves, with dirt jammed under my fingernails. I scrubbed and scrubbed my hands, trying to clean them, trying to hold onto the baby, but it slid and slipped. My God, don’t let it fall. Someone, please help me.
With a gasp, I sat bolt upright in bed. Outside was a flat, gray light. Overcast. No sound except the purring of the electric heater beside the bed. Lauren was sleeping with me, Luke cradled between us. He was awake, staring up at me and smiling.
“Hey, buddy,” I said to him softly.
I was sweating, my heart still racing, with the vision of the baby slipping sideways in my consciousness. Leaning down, I kissed Luke on his chubby cheek, and he burbled and squeaked. He was hungry.
Lauren shifted, and her eyes opened. “Are you okay?” she asked, blinking and leaning up on one elbow.
She was wearing a gray cotton hoodie and bundled deep under layers of blankets. I leaned over, reaching under the covers, and she flinched ever so slightly as my cold fingers found her warm flesh. Gently, I slid my hand down to caress her belly. Maybe eleven weeks, but her tummy was still flat. She smiled and looked away.
“Last night …” I sighed. “It was horrible. I couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“Because I’m horrible?”
The electric heater whirred. I slipped my hand around to the small of her back and pulled her toward me, kissing her cheek. She trembled.
“No, because you’re amazing.”
“I am horrible, Mike. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s me that needs to apologize. I wasn’t listening to you, and I wrongly accused you.”
Tears filled her eyes. “It’s not your fault.”
“That kid, Damon, he lost his fiancée in the Amtrak crash. He told me about it when we were out digging.”
“My God.”
“And it made me think, if I ever lost you—”
Luke squealed between us. I smiled at him, fighting back my own tears. “One second, buddy, I just need to talk to your mommy, okay?” I looked back at Lauren. “You are everything to me. I’m sorry I didn’t listen. When this is done, if you want to go back to Boston, I’m there with you. I’ll be a stay-at-home dad, you get that job, whatever you want. I just want us to be together, to be a family.”
“I want that too. I’m so sorry.”
The gulf between us disappeared, and she stretched up to kiss me. Luke squealed again.
“Okay, let’s get you some breakfast,” Lauren laughed, then kissed me again.
The main hallway had become a communal space, with couches serving as beds at each end and chairs arranged around two coffee tables in the middle. Someone had pulled out a bookcase, which served as a stand for some lamps, the radio, and a coffeemaker. The kerosene heater stood on one of the coffee tables, filling the space with warmth.
The homeless man had gone, but the young woman and her kids were still there, asleep in a nest of blankets on the couch in front of the Borodins’. Rebecca, the woman from 315, had spent the night upstairs. The Chinese family was staying in Richard’s place, and Tony was spending his nights in the main room of Chuck’s place, on the couch in front of our bedroom.
By the time I got up, the kid, Damon, had already jury-rigged a rope and pulley system in the stairwell, and had banded together a work team. The elevator hallway was stacked with containers of snow they were hauling up to melt for drinking water.
Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I waved to Tony as he appeared through the stairwell door with two buckets of snow. I made for the steaming pot of coffee on the bookshelf.
Pam was filling up a cup, and she handed it to me. “Could I speak to you a second?” she whispered.
I mumbled, “Sure,” as I took the cup, and she pulled me to one side. I drank a mouthful of coffee.
“You’re going to need to be very careful with Lauren. Even moderate dehydration and malnutrition can induce miscarriage.”
“Of course I’ll be careful.” I took another sip of my coffee.
“That baby is counting on you.”
“I know that, Pam.” Now I felt annoyed. I was doing everything I could. “And I appreciate your concern.”
She looked me in the eyes. “You come to me if anything—”
“I will.”
She nodded and returned to hauling snow.
Rory and Chuck were sitting on the couch near our door, playing with their phones.
“Cell phones working?” I asked hopefully as I refilled my cup, glad to switch topics.
“Not exactly,” replied Chuck without looking up.
“More hospital shutdowns are scheduled for today,” said the radio announcer, “and the NYPD is asking for volunteers—”
“Not exactly? What does that mean?”
“The kid showed me how to use a point-to-point messaging app. I’m installing it on Rory’s phone.”
“A point-to-point messaging app?”
“It’s called a mesh network.”
“—heavy snowfall and high winds are predicted, hampering efforts of the military—”
Taking a sip from my coffee, I sat down next to them, leaning in to see what they were doing.
Chuck pulled a small memory chip from the back of Rory’s phone, clipped the battery back in, and turned it on. “We’ve collected a bunch of useful stuff on this,” he said, holding the memory card between his fingers. “The kid’s messaging app is amazing. We can text message each other, directly phone to phone, as well as across a network of phones, as long as they’re within a few hundred feet. Doesn’t need the cell network. There’s even a Wi-Fi version of it.”
“This radio station will be shutting down at 4 p.m. today in advance of the heavy weather and due to lack of refueling for our antennae transmission station. For continuing emergency broadcasting, tune in to—”
“Can you add it to my phone?”
Chuck motioned toward a Tupperware container filled with cell phones on the shelf under the coffeemaker. Each one was labeled with masking tape. “Already did yours and charged it up, and we’re going to put it on as many phones as we can. They need to be unlocked, and it doesn’t work on all models, but it works on enough of them.”
“Guess you heard about the new storm?”
He nodded. “Another foot or two of snow coming. We’re going to head out soon to help evacuate Beth Israel and Veterans over to Bellevue.” He looked me in the eye. “They need all the help they can get out there. Can you come?”
He was talking about several large hospitals over on the east side, next to Stuyvesant Town and Alphabet City.
I considered for a moment. “As long as Lauren’s okay with me leaving.”
The cell phone in Chuck’s hand beeped to life. He began typing something.
“You sure you’re up for going out?” I asked him.
“Yep. The kid is going to stay here and get all these phones done, talk to the neighbors.”
He was gamely trying to use his broken hand to hold the cell phone while typing with the other. The bad hand was purple and swollen.
I shook my head and then thought of something. “Have you checked on Irena and Aleksandr?”
“Not recently. Why don’t you check on them before you head out?” Chuck nodded toward their door. “Oh, and one more thing. Can you cross-country ski?”