I Was His Wife, She Was His Everything novel · Chapter 29 of 32

Chapter 29: False Alarm

He ran two red lights on East Bay and never let go of my hand.

At the hospital they put me in a wheelchair at the door.

I thought of Mariel in hers at the airport and almost laughed, and then the next one hit and I didn't.

They hooked me up to a monitor with two straps around my stomach.

A nurse put a needle in the back of my hand.

Lawton stood by the bed in his tuxedo with his tie hanging open, and he didn't sit down for three hours.

The baby's heartbeat filled the little room, fast and strong, the same hooves on the same wooden bridge.

Every time it went on, he closed his eyes.

Around two in the morning the tightening slowed.

By four it stopped.

The doctor came in with her hair in a clip and read the long paper strip off the monitor.

"False labor," she said. "Your body practicing. You were on your feet in heels, you were scared, and you were dehydrated."

"So the baby's fine," Lawton said.

"The baby is perfect. Thirty-one weeks and stubborn about it."

She looked at me over her glasses.

"Drink water. Put your feet up. Stay out of ballrooms."

"Anything else I can't do?" I said.

"Nothing else. Go home and live your life."

Lawton sat down then, finally, on the little rolling stool.

He put his forehead against the side of the bed, on top of my hand with the tape on it.

He stayed like that a long time.

His phone rang at eight.

It was the older woman from the board.

He put her on speaker without asking me.

"How is she?"

"Fine. Both of them."

"Thank God." She cleared her throat. "The board met at seven. There was a vote. Your suspension is lifted, Lawton. Your chair is yours. Effective now."

He looked at me.

I didn't say anything.

It was his to decide.

"Is everybody on the call?" he asked.

"All twelve."

"Then I'll take the chair for one vote."

He stood up, in his rumpled tuxedo, in a hospital room, and talked to his board.

"The creekside hotel on Shem Creek is dead. The plans, the land deal, the lien paper, all of it. Nobody at Kershaw House ever buys debt on a working business again. I'm calling the question."

There was a silence on the line.

Somebody asked about the money already spent.

"Write it off," Lawton said. "Put it under my name."

The older woman called the vote.

I heard the yeses come one at a time.

Twelve.

"It's done," she said.

"Good," Lawton said. "Then my second act is my last. I resign as chief executive, as of the end of this call."

"Lawton."

"You run it," he said. "You've wanted somebody to do it right for five years. Do it right."

"What on earth are you going to do?"

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