Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
I opened my mouth to deny her accusations when she went fuckin’ crazy. Again.
She ripped the IV out of her arm and started to stand up, but again, a nurse was there to thwart her.
“Get off me!” Margot screeched.
“She needs to be sedated,” another nurse yelled.
“Can’t sedate her,” the doctor who’d been between Margot’s legs when I came in said. “She’s crowning, and whatever we give her, at this point, will affect the baby.”
My stomach knotted.
Then I left the room.
They had things in hand. There was no reason I needed to be there at all.
But when I came out of the room, it was to find a wall of Dixie Wardens standing there waiting for me.
“How’d you find out about her?” I asked Ghost.
He shrugged. “Contact at Crazy Central called me and told me she tried to kill herself. Took some drugs that weren’t hers, so they were monitoring her, and then she went into labor.”
I winced.
“That’s Margot,” I grunted. “Destructive. She doesn’t give a shit who she harms in the process.”
That was always Margot’s motto. Fuck everyone and everything but her.
She was stupid to get pregnant again. She should’ve had her tubes tied a long damn time ago.
Margot screamed again, something so vulgar and acidic that I couldn’t stand it.
“Let’s go to the waiting room,” I mumbled. “I don’t want to hear that anymore.”
They followed me out, Aaron, Ghost, Fender, Tommy Tom, Truth and Big Papa.
All of my family was there, and I wasn’t alone.
Then why did I feel so alone?
Even seeing Ellen where she was sitting in the waiting room speaking with the other old ladies wasn’t enough to bring me out of this funk.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the innocent life that was just entering this world.
Linc was almost done, but this baby, he or she didn’t even stand a chance.
***
Ellen
I sat in my little corner of the waiting room and watched down the length of hallway.
I didn’t know what I was looking for. Why I was still there.
I should go home. Everyone else had.
Jessie had.
I’d even started to leave with him.
I’d gone as far as to get in my car and start to head out behind him, only to come to a stop in the exit of the hospital parking lot, staring blankly at the road in front of me.
After a few long moments, I’d backed up and returned to my previous parking spot.
I’d then returned to the waiting room, and had been waiting here ever since.
I heard the chimes over the overhead speaker signaling a baby being born, and my eyes flicked up just in time to see the double doors at the end of the hall open.
That was when I saw my friend, Aerie, pushing a clear incubator down the hall toward the elevator that was directly to the left of where I was sitting.
Aerie had seen me when I’d arrived, and we’d exchanged greetings only long enough to know that she was there to watch over the premature baby—Margot’s premature baby.
I stood up and stared, eyes fixated on the baby I could see inside, and what I saw made my heart literally drop.
She was shaking. Shaking so hard that her body looked like one giant pulse of anger.
And oh God, was she tiny.
“Aerie?” I whispered licking my lips. “Is that…”
I left the last words hanging, but she knew what I was asking.
“Yes, this is your husband’s daughter.”
I closed my eyes, not correcting her misconception, and then reopened them with a new determination.
“My fiancé,” I lied. “He had to go for a breather. But if you don’t mind, I’d love to come. To make sure she’s not alone.”
Aerie’s smile was soft.
It always had been though.
Aerie had been my first ever customer, when I moved back to Mooresville, and we’d hit it off almost immediately.
I’d made a good friend in her, and I never once saw her when she wasn’t smiling.
Right now, though, I could tell she was just as heartbroken over the poor child’s condition and suffering as I was.
“Of course,” Aerie said. “But you’ll have to gown up. And we’ll have to get you a badge.”
I followed along and got on to the elevator that would take us to what I later learned was the NICU.
The entire floor was dedicated to those that were sickest in the hospital. Only a small portion of the floor was designated for the NICU, though.
“We had to supplement her oxygen in the delivery room. We were able to stabilize her on a nasal cannula for now,” Aerie said the moment the doors swished open. “And her Apgar was really low.”
I knew what that was, and it wasn’t a good thing.
“How are her oxygen sats now?” I asked.
My eyes went to the monitors that were sticking to the small girl’s frail body, and my heart stuttered.
“Better now that we’re controlling the oxygen flow,” she answered as she tapped buttons into a wall panel.