CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Y
OU
HAVE
TO
STAY
here, J.R. Who’s going to shut down the bar and lock up?” Ginger started to cry.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” J.R. said. “I’m going with you.”
“We’ve got it covered, Mrs. Layman.”
Callie swiveled her head in the direction of the speaker. She recognized one of the college kids who tended bar on the weekend. She hadn’t noticed him standing just inside the dining room, she’d been so focused on Ginger—and Zach. “I’ll lock up tonight, and Mac’s already called in to tell you both she’s got everything under control.” Mac, like a number of other citizens of White Pine Lake, monitored the emergency police band on a scanner. “You’re not supposed to worry about anything but yourself and the baby. Those are her exact words.”
Good old Mac. Family wasn’t always connected by blood. Sometimes they just happened into your life one day and stayed there until they were as much a part of you as if you swam out of the same gene pool.
“I want Becca and Brandon,” Ginger whispered, tears threatening again as she realized the futility of any further argument. “I want to show them I’m all right.”
“I’ll go get them ready,” Callie said. “The ambulance won’t leave until you see them.”
Zach took advantage of the opening Callie had just given him. He stood up, motioning to the other EMTs to bring in the gurney.
Ginger shook her head. “I’m not leaving on a stretcher.”
“Consider it an adventure,” J.R. said, helping her to rise from her chair. Zach took her other arm.
“Mom!” Brandon erupted out of the service door to the kitchen. His hair was standing on end. He was wearing Avenger pajamas and his face was streaked with tears. “Don’t leave us here alone. What’s wrong with you?”
Ginger sat down heavily on the gurney. She held out her arms. “Come here, baby. It’s all right. I’m okay. I just had a dizzy spell, but Zach and Callie want me to go to the hospital to make sure the baby’s okay. Where’s your sister?”
“We’ve been listening behind the door. She ran upstairs. She’s real upset. She says it’s her fault you’re sick! Because she’s been mean to you about the baby.” He flung himself into Ginger’s arms. “Don’t leave me.”
“Callie?” Ginger’s eyes were full of tears. “Please—”
Callie stepped forward, unhooking Brandon’s arms from around his mother’s neck and pulling him close to her side. He smelled of soap and fabric softener and little boy. “I’ll get Becca and Brandon ready, Ginger. We won’t be twenty minutes behind you, I promise.”
“All right.” Ginger let the EMTs swing her feet up onto the gurney. “Callie will take care of you.”
“Shh, buddy, it’s okay,” Callie soothed him, drawing Brandon out of the room. “Come with me. Let’s go find your sister.”
“She woke me up. She said there were sirens and lights and they were headed this way. Then they stopped right out front! We couldn’t find Mom or J.R. and I got scared. Becca’s scared, too, but she won’t say so.” He was talking a mile a minute, trying to look over his shoulder at his mother, but Callie kept him moving steadily forward. She stopped to grab a handful of paper napkins from a table dispenser and handed them to him. He blew his nose.
“Where is Becca now?”
“She’s probably in her room. Or maybe she went up to the cupola?”
“It’s pitch-black up there.”
“We went to the hardware store one day on our bikes,” Brandon said, forgetting his tears for a moment. “We bought flashlights—big ones— with the money we made busing tables.”
Callie grinned down at him, trying to keep him from picking up on her own anxiety. “Dad forgot to move the key to a different spot, didn’t he?” She suspected J.R. had left it deliberately to facilitate a few childish adventures now that the stairway and the floor were safe.
“Yeah,” Brandon said sheepishly. “It’s really neat up there.”
“Did you sneak up to watch the storm last night?”
“No,” Brandon admitted. “Becca wanted to, since we were awake already, but then we figured, what if we get struck by lightning or something? Because of the copper roof and all. It would upset Mom.”
“Yes, I imagine it would upset your mother.” Callie nodded solemnly, swallowing a grin. “Smart reasoning.”
“I wasn’t afraid,” he hurried to assure her, padding barefoot through the big, quiet kitchen, which was clean and scrubbed and waiting for Mac’s arrival with the morning sun.
“Of course not. I believed you this morning, too.”
“It seems like a long time ago. Did you get the tree all cut up?”
“Yes, we did. And then guess what? My mom had an accident and broke her wrist. She’s at my place now resting because it was raining too hard to take her home.” The stairway light was on and Brandon led the way to the family’s quarters.
At her words, he stopped and swung around. “She did? That’s too bad. Boy, what a night, huh?”
“Yeah.” They walked through the darkened living room. “We’ll check her room first,” Callie decided. “If she’s not there, you go get your flashlight and we’ll go on up to the attic.”
But Becca was there, to Callie’s secret relief. She was just a small hunched figure in a frilly white nightgown silhouetted against the suddenly quiet darkness beyond the window. Ginger had styled her hair in a French braid that suited her aquiline features and gave her the look of one of the warrior maidens in her
Crystal World
novels. Callie went to sit beside her on the window seat. Becca scooted over a little so there was room for her brother on Callie’s other side, but still kept a small distance between them.
“They’re gone,” she whispered, her arms wrapped around her knees, physically holding her emotions inside, as she did so often. “Mom and J.R. and Zach. They brought Mom out on a stretcher to the ambulance, and Zach got in with her, and J.R. got in the front with Mr. Koslowski and they drove away.” Her voice broke on a sob. “Is Mom going to be all right?”
“Yes,” Callie said. This was no time to dwell on the dangers of late-stage pregnancies in mature women. This was the time for her to be a comfort for these two frightened children, to be the big sister. The one who would make everything right. “And the baby will be okay, too. Zach will make sure of that.” Even as she said the words aloud, she found herself believing them and, despite her heartache, believing in him.
“It’s my fault if he’s not,” Becca sobbed. “I’ve been so mean to Mom. I didn’t want her to get a new baby. I wanted it to be just the three of us, the same as it’s always been.”
Callie didn’t attempt to take Becca into her arms, although she longed to cuddle the forlorn little figure. Her stepsister was such a bundle of contradictions, so prickly and easily offended, it would be better to let her make the first move. “I kinda felt the same way about you two,” she confessed.
“Huh?” Becca looked up, her eyes wide, her cheeks tear streaked, searching Callie’s face to ascertain if she was being truthful or just being a grown-up saying what she figured a kid wanted to hear. Callie met her skeptical gaze head-on.
“I thought you liked us,” Brandon said, hurt.
Callie laughed, lightening the moment. She gave him a quick hug and he snuggled closer to her side. “I do like you. I like you both all to pieces.” She wasn’t sure how they would react if she said she loved them, so she held back.
“We like you, too,” Becca whispered.
“A whole lot,” Brandon said. “Maybe we even love you.”
Callie had to struggle to hold back the tears. “I love you, too.”
“Really?”
“Really. The thing is, at first I didn’t want to share my dad with your mom and you guys—and a new baby, too. It’s been just me and my dad for a long, long time. Just like it’s been you and your mom. I didn’t want to share him.”
“Your mom left you and went away for years and years. Mac told us,” Becca said solemnly, scooting a bit closer to Callie’s side.
“Yes, but now she’s back and we’re friends again.” It was a simple explanation of a complex relationship, but she hoped it was the truth.
“Our dad died. He isn’t going to come back,” Brandon said. “I want to call someone Dad, and JR said I could. Is that okay with you?”
Callie pulled him close. “He’s the best father in the world, if I do say so myself, and I’m absolutely certain he’s happy you want to call him Dad.”
“I want a grandma and grandpa.” Becca dropped her head onto her knees. “We never get to see ours. They live far away and they never even call us on the phone or anything. Will your grandma and grandpa care if I call them that?”
“They won’t mind a bit.” Callie swallowed hard to keep a sob from escaping. Abandonment came in all kinds of forms, she realized, not just a mother who needed to take off and find herself.
“They
will
care if something happens to the baby. They’ll hate me.” She started sobbing in earnest. Callie reached out and wrapped her arm around Becca’s thin, shaking shoulders.
“Stop blaming yourself,” she said firmly but gently. “You can tell your mom you’re sorry when you see her. Then you’ll feel better. Why don’t you both get dressed as quick as you can? I have a sneaking suspicion we’re all going to get a little brother or sister before morning, and we don’t want to miss our first chance to meet him...or her.”
Callie was growing more and more anxious to be with Ginger and J.R.—and Zach. She might as well admit it. She was no longer a doctor first. She was a daughter and a sister and a woman who wanted to be near the man she had fallen in love with. She couldn’t be objective anymore, at least not tonight. She could only worry and love, and pray for Ginger and the baby and for her own happy ever after.
“Everybody always says
he.
Only once in a while does Mom say
her.
” Becca’s solemn face transformed itself once more with the appearance of her lovely smile. “I’ve got a list of names. Mostly for girls. I want a sister.”
“You have a sister,” Brandon said, jumping up from the window seat ready to roll. “We have Callie.”
Callie’s heart melted, and she knew then and there these two children were no longer her stepsiblings; they were her brother and sister and always would be.
“Whichever it is, we don’t get to choose,” Callie reminded them both, struggling not to cry. “Now hurry! I want to check on my mom before we leave town.”
* * *
“W
ELL
,
LOOK
WHO
we have here. Did they finally let you out of White Pine Lake for a few hours?”
Zach was standing at the nurses’ station in the E.R., watching Ginger’s monitor with a PA he’d worked with in the past. He looked up from the red and green undulating lines and pulsating numbers and greeted the heavyset woman in the long white lab coat. “Dr. Carmichael, how are you?”
She returned his greeting with a smile and an outstretched hand. “I’m fine. It’s good to see you, too, Zach, though I wish it wasn’t at two forty-five in the morning.” She stifled a yawn behind one strong brown hand. Ophelia Carmichael was a Latina woman whose parents had come to northern Michigan many years earlier to work in the cherry orchards. They’d settled there and raised a family. She was married with grown children and must be somewhere in her late fifties. Zach had worked with her in the past and found her professional, intelligent and not a woman to suffer fools gladly. She examined Ginger’s chart.
“Did she go toxic on us?” She toggled a screen on the electronic notepad she pulled out of her pocket, glancing through the notes Zach had made on the trip to the hospital, as well as the notes from the admitting physician and the nurses from Ginger’s initial exam. While she was reading, the other PA excused himself to take a phone call, leaving Zach and the ob-gyn alone.
“She fainted or possibly had a mild seizure about two hours ago,” Zach said. “Her blood pressure’s still sky-high and the baby’s showing signs of acute fetal distress. Here’s the results of the ultrasound.”
“Just shy of six pounds. That’s a point in our favor. But these numbers worry me,” she said, shaking her head. “Inducing’s not an option. I don’t want to put any more stress on the baby.” Zach nodded his agreement. “Is there an O.R. open?”
“Got one on standby.”
“Is she prepared for an emergency C-section?”
“She’s been advised it’s a possibility.”
“And the husband? Is he with her?”
“Yes. And her stepdaughter will be here shortly also. She’s Dr. Callie Layman, my new boss.”
Dr. Carmichael’s head came up. “I haven’t met her yet, but her med-school records are impressive. How are you two getting along out there in the hinterlands?” She grinned to show she was kidding.
“We’re doing great.”
“What room do they have Mrs. Layman in?”
“Six,” Zach said.
“Lead the way. Are you going to scrub in with me?”
It was an invitation he couldn’t refuse, not only because Ginger was his patient but because he knew Callie would want him to be with her stepmother when she couldn’t be.
“Thank you.”
“Great. It will give you a taste of what you’ve been missing here.”
“I’m happy where I am,” he said.
“Sure you are.” Her expression was a mixture of disbelief and pity. “Bring me up to speed on our patient.” Zach was grateful for the change of subject.
“She’s scared and she’s worried for the baby’s safety. So is her husband, but he’s not going to lose his cool, no matter what happens.”
J.R.’s strength was one of the reasons he’d be the man Zach would pick to be his father, if Zach had been given such a choice. As it was, he’d be glad to settle with J.R. being his father-in-law...if he ever got the chance to make things right with Callie. “Mrs. Layman’s also insisting on seeing her children before she goes into surgery.”
The ob-gyn frowned. “We can’t wait much longer for them to arrive.”
“They’re on their way with Callie—Dr. Layman. They should be here shortly.” Dr. Carmichael lifted one eyebrow at the inadvertent use of Callie’s given name but didn’t remark on it further. “Has Mrs. Layman had her pre-op meds?”
“Yes. And the anesthesiologist has been in to check on her.”