You're Gone (Finding Solid Ground) (34 page)

“From here on out, somebody will be with you at all times, if you want us to,” Gavin offered. “We can stay with you here at the house
…”

“Or you can come stay at the ranch with us, right, Sister?” Lenore offered. “Cordell will be right there on the property, in case we need him.”

“That’s right, darling,” Madie nodded. She sent Charleigh a supportive look across the room. Her horrible daughter-in-law wasn’t going to do anything to this girl, she would make sure of it.

“And you’re welcome to stay with me, Char,” John added.
“And I’m sure Uncle Josh and Aunt Carrie will love to have you stay with them, if you don’t want to be alone.”

Charleigh appreciated all of the offers, but she didn’t think Claudia would physically
harm her. She knew the woman wouldn’t bother coming to Hicksville. It would upset her sensitive system by being surrounded by such lowlife, for goodness’ sake. She just wanted to harass Charleigh, which was just fine. Claudia could call every hour on the hour and spout off all the insults that she wanted to, and Charleigh would do the same. But for her to threaten to take the babies away.
That
was crossing the line.
That
was what Charleigh wanted to prevent.

But she wasn’t worried about Claudia coming to Magnolia. She wouldn’t bother to leave the comfort of her Manhattan townhouse. No, Claudia would be sending someone else to do her dirty work. Charleigh didn’t know if the other people in the room realized that fact.

“I appreciate all of the offers for company,” Charleigh nodded, looking around the room at everyone there. “Tonight, though, I think I’ll stay at home. Cord, would you mind staying with me?”

“I like the name Adam,” Lauren said as she sat in the nursery floor. Her older sister Liz sat a few feet away, flipping through a book of baby names.

In the middle of the room, Charleigh was lying on her back, hands on her belly as she stared up at the outlines of puffy, cumulus clouds on the ceiling that she’d yet to paint. She was thinking about a deep Cerulean blue for the sky.

Charleigh smiled to herself. “That’s Jamie’s middle name.”

“Have you thought of any names?” Liz stopped looking at the pages and turned to her cousin. The bright blue eyes of the gorgeous seventeen-year-old stared at Charleigh from beneath heavy, sooty lashes.
Oh, to be that kind of seventeen.

“Thought about names? I have a list with about a thousand downstairs in the office,” Charleigh laughed. “I really like Jacob and Caleb, though. Those two really stick out a lot for me.”

“Rhyming names? Are you going to dress them alike, too?” Liz asked.

She wasn’t being sarcastic, but simply wondering what had changed. Because Denise had done exactly that with Kyle and Connor
, Charleigh always swore she’d never name her children anything that sounded remotely like, and they would be able to have their own distinct sense of style.

“No, I want to be able to tell them apart.” She laughed again. Rolling over onto her side with some difficulty, Charleigh looked from Liz to Lauren. “Well, what do you suggest, then?”

“Alexander,” Liz offered.

“Justin,” Lauren injected.

“Riley,” the older sister continued.

“Lance,” the younger one insisted, emphatically.

“Ryan.”

“Christopher.”

“What about Joey or J.C.?” Charleigh asked, catching on to where Lauren was headed. Her cousin wanted the babies to be named after the members of her favorite boy band. Although she agreed with her and favored ‘NSYNC over the other groups, it wasn’t enough to actually name her children after any of them.

Instead of shooting down the suggestion, Charleigh just smiled.

“We’re being serious here, Laur,” Liz told her sister, and gave the littler one a nudge on the shoulder.

“I
am
being serious,” Lauren defended. “What’s wrong with those names?”

“For one, Char,
can’t
name either one of her babies Christopher because that’s our brother’s name. There can’t be
two
Christopher Randalls,” Liz explained.

The little girl nodded.
“Oh, ok. But what’s wrong with Justin or Lance? Joseph is a good name.”

Charleigh laughed as the older sister went on to explain her reasons against naming her baby cousins after the other four members of the band. She had to admit, Liz’s reasons were pretty legitimate, including the fact that J.C.’s real name is Joshua, which also happens to be their father’s name, Charleigh’s uncle.

“Oh, you two,” she said, pushing up from the floor to go pee for the tenth time within the hour. It was like the babies were camped out on her bladder here lately. “We’ve got two months to narrow the field. I’m going to go pee and then take you home, so get your stuff together.”

“Can’t we stay the night?” Lauren asked hopefully.

“Ha! Are you kidding? It’s a school night. You know your parents will never go for that,” Charleigh called over her shoulder, leaving the room.

“Well
, then, will you stay the night with us?” Lauren asked, poking her head out the nursery doorway.

“We’ll see what your mama and daddy say when we get there.”

As she walked down the hallway to her bedroom, Charleigh felt a strange sensation in her lower abdomen
.
It was painless, but she thought it could only be the babies shifting position.

Until she sat down on the toilet and saw the small red dot on the crotch of her white cotton granny panties. Charleigh felt that first surge of panic as she stared at it.
Oh, no!

Immediately, Charleigh reached for the toilet paper, yanking some from the wall dispenser. She wiped quickly and brought it up to reveal even more blood soaked into the white.

Oh, no! Oh, God! Please, no!

Charleigh stood up to find a red cloud in the toilet. She put a hand to her head, feeling a warm sensation trail down her thigh. For a moment longer, Charleigh stayed there frozen.

Pulling her thoughts together, she sat back down on the toilet. She knew that she needed to get to the hospital as soon as possible. And as for Liz and Lauren. Well, of course, they would have to go, too.

“Liz,” Charleigh called out to her cousin as loudly as she could, trying not to let them hear the fear in her voice.

She couldn’t get all bent out of shape because then they would, too.
Oh, Lord. Just don’t let me lose my babies, please? We’ve come this far.

“Yeah?” Liz appeared in the doorway a few minutes later, holding the straps of her backpack in her arms. Lauren was a foot or so behind her sister.

“I need both of you to do a couple of things for me. It’s important,” Charleigh insisted. “Now, Lauren, I need you to get me a maxi pad out of the pack beneath the sink and bring it to me. Liz, I need you to get my bag and keys. You have to drive us to the hospital.”

Lauren instantly began to do as she was asked. Liz was still frozen in the doorway. Being older, she knew that something was wrong.

“Are you in labor?”

“No, I don’t think so. I’m bleeding, though.” Charleigh took the pad from her cousin and put it in place while she spoke. “We need to go as quickly as we can.”

Once she was dressed, Charleigh got up. She went over and took two plush blue towels from the linen closet, just in case the bleeding got too heavy. Touching Liz’s shoulder, Charleigh let her cousin see the fear in her eyes. Her voice was steady, “It’s going to be okay. Let’s go.”

***

Liz called her dad from the road to inform him of their emergency. While she was on the phone, Charleigh could hear Lauren sniffling from the backseat. She reached a hand backwards to touch the little girl’s knee. It was replaced by a small, bony hand as Lauren gripped onto Charleigh’s tightly.

             
“It’s going to be fine, you hear me?”  Charleigh spoke the words, though, she was not so sure she believed them for herself.

             
“Ok,” Lauren whispered and squeezed tighter.

Josh had a deputy meet them outside the gate of Rock Creek’s elementary school in Blue and escort them the rest of the way to the hospital in Durant. The red and blue lights were already on as they approached him in Charleigh’s Tahoe. Liz flashed the headlights, to let the officer know to go.

Doctor Emerson stood with two nurses and the ER attending when Liz pulled the SUV into the ambulance entrance. Josh was there as well, and he hugged both of his terrified daughters as the medical team worked to load his niece onto a gurney. He sent Charleigh a worried smile as she was wheeled by and inside.

The entire Randall family was waiting in the ER when Doctor Emerson came out. Madie and Lenore were among the group. Liz and Lauren had repeated their story a total of ten times by that time.

“How is she, Doc?” Wobbly, John stood up. He’d rather be standing than sitting when they received the bad news.

Ronald Emerson looked around the group of worried faces. They had reason to be. He knew how much Charleigh meant to them. He’d known the young woman since she was a tiny thing, and felt much the same way. Taking a deep breath, he gave the logistics, “Charleigh is stabilized. The bleeding has stopped, though, she lost a significant amount. I’ve set her up with a blood transfusion.”

“That’s a relief to hear,” Madie said, “What about the babies?”

“Mother and babies are all fine,” Doctor Emerson assured.

“What happened? It’s not normal for her to have bled like that, is it?” Liz stood up next to her grandfather.

“It’s called placenta previa,” the doctor replied. “The bleeding happens when the placenta either detaches from the wall of the uterus or slips down to cover the birth canal. In Charleigh’s case, her placenta is currently the cervix.”

“How? Why?” Caroline asked from where she sat, with Chris in her lap.

“There’s not a definitive reason. Although, I’ve seen it mostly in women who are carrying multiple fetuses, like Charleigh.” Doctor Emerson took a deep breath and then continued, “I want to keep her tonight for observation. If she’s on the up and up in the morning, then I‘ll release her. From here on out, I want her on bed-rest to avoid any further complications.”

“We’ll do what we can, but you know Charleigh. She’s a hardheaded one. Never been able to sit still for long,” John said, finally able to sit back down, since he now knew his granddaughter was going to be fine.

Ronald Emerson shook his head. “I just finished talking with Charleigh, and I got the impression that she’ll do anything and everything she can to make sure those babies are delivered
healthy.”

“Can we see her?” Lauren asked feebly.

“Not tonight. She should be home tomorrow,” Caroline told her daughters, shaking her own head.

“Actually, Carrie,” Doctor Emerson spoke up, “Charleigh asked me to bring Liz and Lauren back, if they were still here, before we put her in a room. Is that okay with you? For just a few minutes.”

When the two young girls stepped into the room, they saw that she had her eyes closed. Charleigh’s head was turned slightly towards them. She lay unmoving. At first, Liz and Lauren thought she was asleep.

“Stop staring at me like that,” She said, not bothering to open her eyes. “You
’re acting like I’m dead, and we’re far from it.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Lauren whispered as she came closer to the bed.

“I told you it would turn out, and it did, right?”

“Well, yeah, but
…” Liz said, with tears in her voice. She hurried over to the chair next to her cousin’s bed and plopped down.

“I was scared, too,” Charleigh replied, with a sigh. She finally opened her eyes, and reached out to the girls. They both touched her hand. “But Doctor Emerson said that the bleeding’s stopped. As long as I take it easy over the next couple of months, we won’t have anything else to worry about.”

“Yeah, but…” Liz said through the tears that had begun to fall.

“Listen to me, ok?” Charleigh looked from one cousin to the other, feeling the tears welling up in her own eyes. “I need both of you to do me a favor and stay positive. I also need you to keep reminding me to, because I am
terrified
of losing my little boys.”
And because I could die.

It wasn’t something that she wanted to think about. Still, Charleigh knew the possibilities. She had all of the pregnancy books. She’d read a lot of stuff on the internet. Unfortunately, Placenta Previa had shown up on her computer screen a time or two, and Charleigh knew all about it.

And she was determined not to be one of the statistics provided in those articles.

Ok,” Lauren replied, nodding her head.

Charleigh looked over to Liz. She was wiping at the moisture on her face. She nodded, but didn’t say a word.

“So, here’s what we’re going to do once I get out of here,” Charleigh told her two cousins, taking a deep breath. “Be prepared for lots of sleepovers on the weekends. From here on out, I’m confined to my bedroom.”