Chapter 8: False Alarm

Margo drove.

I sat in the passenger seat with my phone in my fist and watched the ambulance lights turn the street red.

"She's seven months," I said. "Seven months is too early."

"Thirty-one weeks is early, not impossible." Margo took a corner. "I've held babies at twenty-eight. Breathe."

"Lorna is in that ambulance. And Dexter."

"Then you'll walk in the front door and make them look at you."

The Mercy General waiting room smelled like floor cleaner and burnt coffee.

Lorna stood at the desk, speaking to the clerk in the voice that made waiters apologize.

Dexter paced, with Jasper asleep on his shoulder.

When Lorna saw me, she crossed the room in two steps.

"Get that woman out of this building."

"She's a nurse in this hospital's children's wing," I said. "Her badge works better than your name."

Margo held up the lanyard around her neck without a word.

Lorna turned away and said nothing more.

A doctor in blue scrubs came through the double doors after twenty minutes.

"Mrs. Rutledge is stable. Contractions, but they've stopped. The baby's heartbeat is strong. It's what we call false labor."

Lorna pressed a hand to her chest and sat down.

"I'd like her kept overnight for observation," the doctor said. "Stress is the likely cause. Is the father here?"

I stepped forward.

"I'm her husband."

The doctor looked at me, and then at the chart in her hand.

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