Authors: Cordy| Michael
Chapter
82.
JFK Airport, New York, a month later
Sam Kelly checked the arrivals board and saw that the United Airlines flight from Lima had landed. Although he was looking forward to seeing his son he felt apprehensive. When Ross had called from Lima to say he was coming home, the emptiness in his voice had broken his heart. When he had asked Ross if he had found anything in the jungle, his son's noncommittal answer had told him everything. It had been a wild-goose chase. The garden was a myth. There were no miracles.
Ross hadn't probed him about Lauren's condition, saying only, 'I assume there's been no improvement.'
Sam had purposely kept his response vague, volunteering little information on the phone, deciding to tell his son about the latest development face to face. However, he felt nervous now, waiting at the barrier, watching the passengers arrive through Customs. When he saw his son in the distance, lean, tanned and tired, the prospect of telling him the news weighed heavily on his heart.
Ross didn't notice his father at first because as he passed a newsstand he found himself staring into the face of Superior General Leonardo Torino. According to the Vatican, he had been missing for some weeks after embarking on a fact-finding mission into the jungles of South America. The Peruvian authorities were still working closely with Rome to trace his whereabouts, but hopes were now fading that the Superior General and his escort would ever be found. The pope was already mourning the loss of a fine priest and the Society of Jesus was considering a successor.
As Ross closed the newspaper, a smaller article caught his eye and almost made him smile. According to Newsweek, Scarlett Oil had discovered large reserves of what they termed 'ancient oil' in Uzbekistan. Larger oil companies - including Alascon, which had recently terminated a partnership with Scarlett that would have given them shared rights - were now queuing up with large cheques to license Scarlett's patented technology for finding and economically extracting it.
Ross saw his father and waved. Sam was smiling, but as Ross got closer he saw strain on his father's face. Something had changed. They hugged and Ross felt tension in his father's shoulders. 'Good to see you, son. Good to have you back safe.'
'It's good to be back, Dad. How're Lauren and the baby?'
His father reached for his luggage. 'Come, let me drive you home. We'll talk in the car.'
'I want to go straight to the hospital, Dad.'
His father paused. 'You're exhausted. Why don't you go home first? Get some rest.'
'I want to see her now, Dad. I need to see her. Something's happened, hasn't it?'
His father appeared to brace himself, confirming Ross's worst fears. 'There's been a development, Ross. There's a difficult decision to make.'
Chapter
83.
Though still in the Sacred Heart Hospital, Lauren had been moved from the spinal-injuries unit to an isolated high-dependency room at the far end of the maternity wing. She had it to herself, except for the battery of monitors and equipment that kept her alive. She was lying in the same position as she had been when Ross had left her. The one discernible difference was the now prominent bump in her belly.
Since Lauren was no longer regarded primarily as a neurological case, Dr Greenbloom had handed over her care to an obstetrician, Dr Anna Gunderson. This confirmed to Ross that Lauren was now officially a lost cause. She wasn't even Gunderson's priority patient. The baby was. Lauren was little more than an incubator.
One small mercy, thought Ross, as he sat in her room with his father and Dr Gunderson, was that Lauren's mother was visiting her sister in New England for two days. He wasn't ready for her questions about where he had been.
'As your father's told you, Lauren's condition is deteriorating fast.' The doctor spoke softly as if she didn't want Lauren to hear. 'We're now in a critical phase. Lauren is lost to us but we're entering the period where the baby may be viable outside the womb. We could deliver it now, but the chances of its surviving undamaged are slim. Every extra day the baby stays in the womb the greater its chances.'
The doctor cleared her throat. 'We've administered steroids to develop its lungs, and medication to stop your wife going into premature labour, but I don't know how many more days we can hold on. We monitor Lauren's condition constantly and any further deterioration will mean we have to get the baby out. It's on a knife edge. We want to keep her in for as long as we can but only so long as Lauren can support her.'
'Her?'
'It's a girl.' She reached into a manila file on the sideboard beside her and handed Ross a black-and-white scan. 'This is your daughter.'
The image struck Ross with surprising force. He had always been more concerned about losing Lauren than the abstract concept of their baby. Even the earlier scan he had seen, at sixteen weeks, hadn't altered that view. This grainy picture was different, though. The baby was suddenly real.
A little girl.
His daughter.
He walked over to the bed and stroked Lauren's belly. He felt movement, which scared him. He had something to lose again. And something to gain. Raw hope was so much crueller than numb despair.
He turned back to the doctor. 'Every day my daughter stays in the womb, her chances increase?'
'Yes.'
'How much longer before she's safe?'
The doctor frowned. 'At least another three or four weeks.'
'How likely is it she'll get that?'
A pause. 'Extremely unlikely.'
'Given Lauren's current condition, how many more days do you think my daughter can stay in the womb?'
'Like I said, every day increases the odds on survival.'
'How many days?'
'It's hard to judge, Ross.'
'What's your best estimate?'
Another pause. 'Two, three. A week maximum.'
'So you want my permission to intervene and deliver the baby as soon as you think it's necessary?'
Gunderson nodded.
'Even though the chance of the baby's surviving undamaged is minimal?'
'Yes.'
Ross took a deep breath. 'Thank you for being so honest.'
Gunderson brushed a blonde hair from her face. 'Have you any more questions?'
'No, thanks. I've been away, and all I want now is some time alone with my wife. I'd like to stay with her tonight.'
Chapter
84.
Sitting in an uncomfortable chair, looking at Lauren and the scan, Ross obsessed about the opportunities he had had to save them. He remembered when he had held Lauren's cure. He recalled the Source bringing him back from the dead when he could have escaped with an abundance of healing crystals. But he had stayed to help the others and stop Torino controlling the Source because he had thought it was what Lauren would want him to do.
Gradually, as Ross listened to the lulling rhythm of the apparatus, his exhausted body overruled his racing mind. He slumped in the chair, exposing the heavy crucifix, and fell into a fitful sleep.
Hours later, he woke with a start, clutching the cross and sweating. In his dreams he'd relived his near-death epiphany and his vow to Lauren. Back then, in his heightened state, he had known Lauren was making him vow to protect the Source and sacrifice her. And in the surreal context of the garden it had seemed the painful but right thing to do. Even at the end, surveying the scorched Eden, ashamed of what man had done, he'd focused on a plan to protect the Source. In many ways he had done more to protect it and its creatures than he had to protect his own family.
At that time, and in that place, it had felt right. Now, in the sober gloom of a sterile hospital room, inches from his comatose wife, his vow to Lauren felt very different. Especially when he considered his daughter, growing in Lauren's belly. What difference would it have made if he'd taken some of the crystals for Lauren? How much damage would he have done to the Source or its ecosystem? He touched the crucifix and could almost hear Sister Chantal's voice: 'A vow is black and white. There's never a plausible excuse or justifiable reason to break it. You either keep a vow or break it. There's no middle ground. A vow is for ever.'
But what about your vow, Sister Chantal?
Sister Chantal had taken him to the garden for the express purpose of saving his wife. The Source was meant to save Lauren so she could become its protector, the Keeper, but instead Sister Chantal had placed that burden on his shoulders. He had become the Keeper. He studied the crude, ugly crucifix she had passed on to him, which Father Orlando had given her four and a half centuries ago, and rage built within him.
He considered all the pain it symbolized. Not just Christ's suffering but all the evil done in the name of religion. He thought of what Torino had done in the name of his church: harming Lauren, destroying the garden, abusing the Source. He thought of how Torino had used Bazin, offering redemption, but merely making him kill for a different master. Ross didn't see the cross bringing salvation to anyone - only suffering and damnation.
In his anger and despair he ripped it from his neck and threw it, with all his strength, across the room. The instant it hit the wall, narrowly missing the clock, he felt foolish and contrite.
The instruments by the bed began to beep.
Shit.
But the cross hadn't hit anything important. Had it?
Within seconds a nurse was rushing into the room.
Panicked but unable to help, Ross went to where the crucifix had fallen. The impact had dented it badly. He picked it up and, as he turned it in his hand, he noticed two things that dried his mouth: the welted seam at the back of the crucifix had buckled, revealing a hollow interior; and the second hand on the wall clock had stopped. Ross recalled Hackett dropping his watch into the pewter goblet, and how the shielding properties of its lead and tin had helped restart the mechanism. Then he remembered the reverence with which the nymphs had treated the cross. Had they sensed something?
With trembling fingers, Ross pulled back the malleable metal seam to reveal a crystalline sliver in the hollow. No larger than a toothpick, it glowed and pulsed with a life of its own. His heart raced. Father Orlando must have concealed it there when he had discovered the Source. He must have learnt somehow that certain metals could contain its magnetic and radioactive properties. The sliver of crystal would also explain how Father Orlando had healed his burnt feet after his first session of torture all those centuries ago, only forgoing its benefits when he realized that the Inquisition didn't regard his cure as proof of the existence of the garden, but as proof of possession by the Devil.
When Father Orlando had given the cross to Sister Chantal and told her to seek salvation within it in times of crisis, she hadn't understood he'd meant it literally. She had remained ignorant of the cross's secret for four and a half centuries. She can't have known about it, Ross thought, or she would have used it on Lauren when she first visited her in hospital.
Unless . . .
The thought sliced through his excitement like an icy draught. Sister Chantal had told him that the crystals in the tunnel only worked if they were of a certain size. This sliver was undoubtedly from the Source, but it was very small. Was it large enough to cure Lauren?
Ross re-formed the crucifix, sealing the seam. The instruments immediately stopped beeping, and the clock resumed ticking.
'That's strange,' said the nurse behind him. He turned and she smiled apologetically. 'Sorry about that. I'm not sure what happened but everything's fine and your wife's in no danger. I'll alert the technical team.' When she'd left the room, he clutched the crucifix to his breast and shifted his focus to Lauren's feeding tube.
Chapter
85.
The next morning Ross awoke in panic. It was six eighteen and something had happened.
Something that wasn't good.
The alarms on Lauren's life support were bleeping more insistently than they had last night, and her vital signs oscillated erratically.
Dr Gunderson tried to appear calm, but her voice was shrill. 'Ross, we must prepare Lauren for surgery now. We can't wait another minute. We must get the child out immediately. It may already be too late.'
He wiped sleep from his eyes. 'What's happening? What's wrong?'
Gunderson and other doctors were wheeling Lauren out of the room and heading for the lift. 'OR nine,' shouted Gunderson. 'Hurry. Hurry.'
Ross followed. 'I want to come.'
'That's not a good idea. Wait here. We'll update you as soon as we know more.'
He stepped into the lift. 'I want to be there. It's a birth. I'm the father. I should be there.'
Gunderson's eyes were cold. 'It's not a birth. It's an operation.
Chances are it'll be the opposite of a birth.'
Ross didn't flinch. 'If this is the last I'm going to see of my wife and child I want to be there.'
'I really don't think it's a good idea,' she sighed, 'but if you insist.'
'I do.' Ross couldn't understand what was happening. After finding the fragment in the crucifix he had taken it to the main washroom and steeped it in a beaker of water, then poured the solution into Lauren's feeding tube. He'd done it three times. The water should have catalysed the Source. It should have worked. But it hadn't. Not only had the Source not helped Lauren but it had exacerbated her condition.
What had Dr Gunderson said? Every day inside the womb would increase the baby's - his daughter's - chance of survival. So being delivered now, today, was the worst possible outcome.
In the operating room, Ross was given surgical greens and a face mask and told to stand away from the table. He watched them roll Lauren from her bed on to it. Suddenly, a nurse looked up. 'We might not need to do a Caesarean.'
Gunderson called from the scrubbing suite. 'Why?'
'Her waters have broken.'
A midwife, present more out of hope than necessity, stepped forward. She was an older woman and something about her eyes, visible above her mask, reminded Ross of Sister Chantal. Compassionate and wise, they seemed to have seen everything there was to see. She examined Lauren and smiled. Ross loved that smile. It spoke of confidence and possibility. 'Her waters have broken. She's going into labour.'
'You sure?' Gunderson said, approaching the table where her instruments had been laid out. She reached for a scalpel.
'It's happening,' said the midwife. 'She's almost nine centimetres dilated.' She didn't wait for a reaction from Gunderson. She attached sensors to the baby's head and checked the monitor. 'Heartbeat's stable.' She pointed at Gunderson's surgical instruments. 'You won't need those. The mother's having contractions.'
'She's in a coma,' said a nurse.
'Her body appears to be taking over,' said the midwife. 'I think she can do this.'
Gunderson hesitated, then put down the scalpel.
Ross watched in amazement as Lauren's body began to push and, for the next twelve minutes, the midwife coaxed the baby into the world. Eventually she gave a whoop of joy and the baby emerged. She picked her up and, as she handed her to the paediatrician, asked Gunderson, 'How many weeks is this baby?'
'Twenty-six.'
'That's incredible. I've delivered thousands of babies. She may be tiny but she looks full-term to me.'
As the paediatrician examined the baby at the far end of the room, Ross watched Lauren. Her face was so peaceful that he felt an overwhelming rush of love and sadness. When he heard the baby cry for the first time he felt like crying with it. He walked over and she cried again, louder. A nurse handed her to him, and as he held his daughter in his arms he wondered what he should call this miracle of life. Lauren and he had once agreed that if they had a son she would name him, and if they had a daughter he would.
'Ross!' Gunderson sounded pinched and breathless.
He looked back at the operating table. Everyone was white, staring at him, gauging his reaction. His heart sank. It had happened. He thought of the nymphs, how when one was born another died. Briefly, he couldn't bring himself to look at Lauren. Then he held his daughter, took strength from her and turned to his wife.
Lauren's eyes were open. And she was looking at him.
'She opened them when the baby cried,' said Gunderson, testing Lauren's legs. 'Her reflexes are fine, too.' Her voice cracked with emotion. 'This is impossible. It's a miracle.' She stroked Lauren's left sole and the foot moved away. 'She has feeling and she can move her legs.'
He moved closer and Lauren's eyes followed him. 'Where have I been?' she whispered weakly.
He knelt by the table, not trusting his legs to hold him. 'It doesn't matter now. You're back,' he said. He showed her the baby. 'And now here's someone I want you to meet. Our daughter, Chantal.'