Miracle (70 page)

The house was dark inside, now. She found her way to the lantern, lit it then carried it gingerly down the hall to the kitchen. She’d lost her appetite, but she forced herself to take bread from a grocery bag and eat a slice. She
checked her watch. It would still be a few hours before Sebastien could possibly get here.

She dragged herself back to the bedroom, set the lamp on the nightstand, and burrowed under the covers again. Dozing, she had a dream about elves dancing on her stomach. It hurt. She made herself wake up to dispell it. Then, going breathless with disbelief, she knew why she’d been dreaming about a pain in her stomach. She felt the blood drain from her face as the slow, deep contraction built inside her until it had the severity of a bad menstrual cramp.

The silent shout of protest ricocheted inside her head.
Not now. Not yet. Not here
.

The contraction faded. Sweating, she checked her watch and waited. It could mean nothing, just a reaction to all the stress. Of course. She was going to have a perfect labor and delivery. Not a month early. Not up here in the middle of nowhere, without a hospital. Without a doctor. without Sebastien. Sebastien. Was every circumstance conspiring to make his fears come true?

Cursed. The babies are cursed. He was right
.

Stop thinking that way
!

The next contraction, another relatively mild one, came twenty minutes later. Staring at her watch in the flickering lantern light, she told herself that twenty minutes was great. If she was going into labor, it would probably take a long time, She listened to cool winter wind rattle the oaks outside the cottage. The bedroom was a dark cavern with a small, desperately bright center where she huddled, counting the minutes, refusing to let her imagination find ghosts in the shadows.

She yelled as she woke up from the brief, pain-soaked nap. Dawn light made a sieve of the loose-weave curtains on the room’s windows. Another contraction hit her. Then she felt a rush of fluid between her legs. She threw the covers back. During the night she’d rummaged through Sebastien’s dresser and found a flannel workshirt of his,
which was now all that she wore. She pulled the front of it up and felt between her legs. When she couldn’t deny that her water had broken she cried out.
Where was Sebastien
?

All right, stay calm. Put on some clothes and go get in the car
.

Yesterday she’d bought a blue-wool maternity jumper and a blouse. She pulled the jumper over Sebastien’s work shirt and shoved her feet into tennis shoes. With her overcoat around her shoulders, her purse clutched under one arm, and a washcloth stuffed inside her panties, she went out into the crisp morning.

When the next contraction came she said, “Yow, oh yow,” because that made it sound a lot funnier than it was. Then she staggered to the wooden fence that flanked both sides of the drive and hung onto it until her knees buckled. She sat down on the damp, cold grass beside the driveway and tried to breathe the way she’d been taught in birthing classes.

After the pain passed she pulled herself to her feet and walked back to the cottage. The contractions were now only five minutes apart.

She gathered towels and put them beside the bed, then found a bottle of rubbing alcohol and poured it into a glass. She lit the heater and opened the curtains to increase the light.

She put a kitchen knife into the glass and set it on the nightstand, so that she’d have something with which to cut the umbilical cords. She took the laces out of her tennis shoes and washed them, then laid them on a towel to dry. They were the only things she could think of that could be used to tie off the cords.

Finally she set a glass of orange juice and a hunk of cheese on the nightstand so that she’d have food to keep up her strength. Then she stripped off everything but Sebastien’s shirt and got into bed.

It was time to face the truth. She was going to have the babies before Sebastien got here. They might be too small and too weak. They could easily die from complications, and she might die as well. She was terrified that she was going to fulfill the de Savin curse.

“Sebastien, I need you,” she whispered. “I’ll fight as hard as I can. I won’t give up.” She bit into a folded towel as the next contraction came.

The rental car hurtled under the oaks of the cottage’s front yard and slid to a stop. The yard was bright with morning sun. Sebastien cut the motor and leapt out. Climbing the stone steps to the small veranda, he reached for the cottage door while pulling a key from the pocket of wrinkled, blue-gray trousers. When Rodriguez called he’d just stepped from the shower at two
A.M
. after spending half the night in L.A.’s comedy clubs, tracking down various friends of Amy’s, none of whom had known where she’d gone.

You didn’t get my message. I had a hunch, the detective had muttered
.

Sebastien had dressed and left in five minutes. Now as he glanced down he noted that he’d misaligned the buttons of the short ivory cardigan he’d thrown on over his bare chest. He wore his dress loafers with no socks.

She’ll get a grand laugh from the way I look
. He needed to hear her laugh, even though he was angry and frightened. Why had she run away without him? He knew, deep within his conscience, that it was because he’d lost her trust. Now he was intent on regaining it. Frowning, he stepped into the cottage and shoved the door shut. The slamming of it echoed through the cool stone rooms.

His hands shook. “
Dear
Miracle,” he called sternly, looking down the central hallway. “You had better come here right now and see what a state you’ve put me in.” From the open doorway to the master bedroom came a muffled cry. The pain in it galvanized him. He ran to the room and halted, staring in disbelief at the scene on his bed.

She stared back with glazed eyes, her hands twisting the pillow casing beneath her head, her face haggard, her hair drenched in sweat. Her updrawn legs made a tent of the sheet, but her swollen belly heaved against the fabric. A low, keening sound came from her throat.

Sebastien was beside her in two long strides, jerking the
sheet back, looking in despair at the straining body covered only in an old shirt he recognized as his. It was bunched under her breasts. He heard himself groan with frustration and fear. Quickly he knelt beside her and, cupping her face in his hand, kissed her. She cried out and raised her mouth to his with desperate welcome.

He frantically smoothed damp hair from her forehead. Her head moved from side to side. Her eyes scanned him with misery. “I wanted to wait until the babies were born, so that you’d see that they were fine, just fine, and then you could love them. But … everything’s gone wrong! I went into labor last night, and I’m only eight months, and I thought I could hold out until you got here, and …” Her voice trailed off as she searched his eyes. “And I don’t want you to hate me if I die.”

“Listen to me! Listen! All I could think about was finding you! You’re going to get through this and then we’ll forget it ever happened!”

Sinews strained in her neck. Fighting pain, she said between clenched teeth, “You don’t want … the babies.”

He stroked her flushed skin and struggled to keep his voice calm. “I’m going to carry you out to the car—”

“It’s too late.” She gasped for breath.

“Sssh. Here. I’m going to lift you. We’ll find a hospital—”

“It’s too late!” Even as she spoke her head tilted back. She bit her lip and moaned in a deep, primal expression of pain. “I’m having contractions … every minute … have to push. Ah. Push.”

Sebastien pulled her upright and sat down behind her, bracing her against his chest. She grasped his hands hard. He wrapped his arms around her. “Breathe, love. Breathe through the pain.”

She panted and nodded. “Through it … under it … inside it … it’s
everywhere.
”

Sebastien cursed helplessly. His life had been devoted to winning battles such as this. Now twenty years of medical training mocked him. Once again he could only watch in agony as someone he loved suffered. The old fury grew inside him, laughing at him for thinking that he could
correct the mistakes that had begun before his own birth. And had now led to this.

When the contraction passed she sobbed and pushed weakly at his arms. “You don’t want the babies. There’s nothing you can do to help if you still don’t love ’em.”

“I love
you
. Do you think I want you to suffer?” He leapt to his feet. “Now we get to work,” he told Amy. “Together.”

He ran to the kitchen and scrubbed his hands. Slinging water from then, he returned to the bedroom and knelt between her feet on the bed. “I’m going to examine you.”

She clung to the sheet beneath her, twisting it into wads. “Something’s wrong. The first baby should have been born by now. I’m too tired to go on much longer.”

“Easy, love, easy. I’m putting my hand inside you. All right? Does that hurt?”

“Everything hurts.”

He slipped his hand upwards and probbed with careful fingertips. “Nothing wrong here, or here.
Very
good dilation, love. You’re doing very well.”

“Save the babies. Please, save them. Even if you don’t love ’em. Please. For me.”

He bent his head to one of her knees and made a hoarse sound of grief. “Do you think I won’t try to save all three of you?”

Her answer was unintelligible as new pain cut through it. She screamed. Sebastien explored inside her frantically, praying that his fingers would touch the smooth, curving surface of a baby’s head. Shivers went through him when they found tiny feet instead.

“What’s wrong?” she begged, panting. “I can tell by the look … on your face … something terrible—”

“The first baby is turned the wrong way.”

She cried out. “I’m so sorry, Doc! Please … don’t hate … our babies for this.”

“Hate them? Hate them? Goddammit, they’re innocent victims. The same as you. I only wish that I had prevented this.”

“Don’t say that! You make it sound like you did something wrong! You didn’t! And the only way you can hurt me,
or the babies, is by not loving us now! What … what are you doing?”

He rotated his hand palm up and latched his fingers around the baby’s ankles. “Concentrate on breathing. I’m going to pull very slowly.”

“Can the baby … come out this way?”

“Yes.”

She made guttural sounds of pain. “Y-yes, I g-guess it can. I feel it!”

“You’re doing beautifully. Just another few seconds.” He was dizzy with fear.

“Will it be alive?”

“I don’t … of course. Of
course
. I wouldn’t let it be any other way.”

“Arrogance. I like that. Good.”

Shaking his head, he watched delicate feet and legs emerge, covered with the waxy coating typical of newborns. He pulled steadily and felt the baby begin to slip free. He thought his heart would burst with agony when Amy screamed again.

She sank back on the pillows, groaning. “It’s here. It’s here.”

“Almost.” Suddenly the hips and torso appeared. Sebastien cupped the body in his hand. “A boy,” he said numbly.

“A son,” she whispered.

Sebastien worked the baby’s arms free, thinking frantically,
The color is good. The cord isn’t choking him. Please, please, let him be alive
. “Push, love,” he urged. “Push his head free.”

She pushed and he pulled, and a second later their son lay in his hands.

“Is he all right?” Amy asked, trying to sit up. “He’s so little!”

Sebastien felt dazed. He laid the tiny form on Amy’s thigh and desperately began checking him. “His pulse is strong. His reflexes are good.”

“He moved! He tried to lift his head!”

Crying, she stretched a hand around her bulging abdomen, trying to reach the baby. “Is he all right? Please tell me that he’s all right!”

Sebastien cut the cord and quickly tied the stump with a shoe lace. Then he placed the baby on her stomach so that she could stroke his head. Sebastien probbed and cleaned and tested. “I can’t tell, I can’t tell,” he said raggedly. “So much could be wrong! I’m sure there must be something!”

“Don’t say that! There isn’t any curse here! Just love us, Doc, love us! I want these babies to feel wanted. Not like when you and I were born.
Wanted
. Don’t repeat the only mistake that matters.”