The Secret That Broke Us novel · Chapter 3 of 32

Chapter 3: Thirty-Three Weeks

In labor and delivery June sets her terms and meets Ben, the medic from the call. A card arrives from Kristin.

The nurse in labor and delivery strapped two belts across my belly and told me to lie on my left side.

Lena sat in the chair by the window with her purse on her knees and her glasses on their chain.

On the monitor, the line that showed my contractions climbed every few minutes and fell back.

The other line was my son's heartbeat.

It was fast and strong.

I watched it more than I watched anything else.

"He's okay," Lena said. "Listen to that."

"I'm listening."

The nurse came back with a bag of fluids and a syringe.

"Your body is under a lot of stress," she said. "That can start labor early. We're going to give you something to slow it down, and I'd like you to stay put for a while."

"How early is too early?" I asked.

"Thirty-three weeks is a good fighting chance. Thirty-six is better."

She pushed the medicine into my IV.

The tightening came less often after that.

By nine o'clock the line on the monitor was flat for ten minutes at a time.

I let out a breath.

Then there was a knock, and a voice in the hall said, "Ma'am, he's asking again."

The nurse leaned in. "Your husband is in the waiting room. Do you want him?"

"No."

"He says he's the father."

"He is," I said. "That's the problem."

Lena got up and took the nurse's elbow gently.

"Tell him June will talk to him when she's ready," she said. "He doesn't come back here. If he tries, call security."

I looked at Lena.

She shrugged.

"Somebody has to be mean," she said. "It might as well be a woman who's already retired twice."

I almost laughed.

It was the first time anything in my body had wanted to.

There was a second knock, softer.

A man stood in the doorway in a navy uniform jacket with a county patch on the shoulder.

He was tall and tired, with dark hair going gray over his ears, and he held a paper cup in each hand.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I was told it was okay to come up. I'm Ben Radke."

I knew the voice before I knew the face.

It was the voice that had said, Medic 4, on scene, I've got her.

"You drove out to the highway," I said.

"I did." He held out one of the cups. "It's decaf. I asked at the nurses' station what you could have."

I took it.

It was warm.

Lena looked at him over her glasses. "You came a long way for a call you were already paid for."

"I got off at seven." He shrugged one shoulder. "I wanted to say something to her in person, if she'd let me."

"Go ahead," I said.

He stood at the foot of my bed, not coming any closer.

"When I got to that car, the father was doing compressions the way you'd said. Right place, right depth, right pace. He said every number out loud, because you were saying them in his ear." Ben looked at the floor, then up at me. "That baby had a pulse before I touched her. That was you."

My eyes stung.

"He was her father," I said. "Of course he was doing what I told him. I'm the one who told him."

"I know." He said it quietly. "I didn't know who you were to him until he said your name, in the ambulance. She asked me to tell you she was sorry. She asked twice."

"I don't want her sorry."

"No," Ben said. "I wouldn't, either."

That was all.

He didn't say anything else about it.

I think I liked him for that.

He put his hand in his jacket pocket and took out a folded slip of paper.

"The hospital desk has your emergency contact listed as him. If you want, my number's on this. If you need a ride, or a person on your side who doesn't mind getting up at night."

I took the paper.

"That's a lot to offer a stranger."

"You didn't act like a stranger," he said. "On the phone."

He left.

Lena watched the empty doorway for a while.

"Well," she said.

"Don't."

"I said nothing."

At ten, the nurse came in and said I could sit up.

Nate was still in the hall.

I could see his shoulder through the narrow window in the door.

I called Lena over and told her what I wanted.

She went out and spoke to him for a minute.

When she came back, she repeated it back to me, so I could hear how it sounded.

"You don't come into this room. You don't call her friends. You don't say Kristin's name to June, ever, and you never bring Kristin or her baby near your son."

"He can see his son through the glass," I said. "With a nurse there. That's all."

"He said yes to all of it."

"Of course he did."

She sat down.

"I'll be honest," she said. "A man who says yes that fast means he's already planning to break one."

She was right.

I didn't know yet which one.

At eleven, a candy striper brought a small cream envelope on a tray and set it on my bedside table.

"Somebody left this at the desk," she said. "She said it was personal."

My name was on the front in handwriting I would have known anywhere.

It was Kristin's.

Inside was a single card, with a heart drawn in the corner, the way she signed every birthday card for twenty years.

Five minutes. I'll tell you why I called your line.

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