He Left Me at a Rest Stop on Halloween, So He Came Home to No Wife novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Thirty-Four Weeks

In the ward Cassidy has no purse and no insurance card until the paramedic vouches for her, and Travis's first text asks only whether she is done making a point. Gail's voicemail asks about a casserole dish.

The emergency room was loud with Halloween.

A nurse in cat ears took my blood pressure.

A man in a skeleton onesie sat in the next bay holding a bag of ice against his wrist.

Eli walked beside my stretcher the whole way in, and he gave the triage nurse my numbers from memory.

"Contractions every four minutes. Thirty-four weeks. No bleeding. Last meal around seven."

"Name?" the nurse asked me.

"Cassidy Brewer."

"Insurance card?"

"It's in my purse. My husband has my purse."

"Is your husband here?"

"No."

She looked at Eli.

He looked at me, then back at her.

"I'll stay until she's admitted," he said. "Put down my crew number if you need someone to vouch that she came in on our truck."

"You don't have to do that," I said.

"I know," he said.

A doctor came in with a monitor and a belt that went around my stomach.

The baby's heartbeat filled the room, quick and steady.

I put my hand over my mouth.

"There she is," the doctor said. "Strong. Now let's see what you're doing."

What I was doing was labor, five weeks too early.

They started a drip in my arm and gave me two shots in the hip for the baby's lungs.

An hour later the lines on the screen began to flatten.

"They're easing off," the doctor said. "You're staying with us at least two days. If this starts again, the baby comes tonight and we have a team ready. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Is there someone I should call?"

"No."

"Your husband is listed as your emergency contact."

"Please don't call him."

The doctor waited a moment, then typed something.

"I'm marking it as no visitors without your approval," she said.

I nodded.

That was when I started shaking.

It wasn't crying. I had stopped crying out on that bench.

It was my hands, my knees, my jaw, all of it going at once.

Eli took a blanket off the warmer and put it over me without a word.

"My phone's at nine percent," I said.

"Hang on."

He went out and came back with a long white charger from the ambulance.

"It's the crew's spare. Keep it."

He plugged it into the wall and set my phone on the bed rail where I could reach it.

"I'm off at seven," he said. "I'll leave my number with the desk. If you need a ride, a coat, whatever it is, call it."

"Why would you do that?"

He thought about it.

"I was twenty minutes away when the call went out," he said. "I heard the dispatcher say a woman was alone at the plaza. I'd like to know you're okay."

That was all he said.

He left with his bag on his shoulder.

The phone woke up and lit the dark room.

Thirty-one missed calls, all but one of them mine.

Then the texts, which had come in order.

12:42 a.m.: Where did you go? I'm back at the plaza.

12:44 a.m.: Cass this isn't funny.

12:51 a.m.: Mom says your cousin lives off that exit. You probably got a ride. Okay, fine.

1:15 a.m.: Kendra's car still won't start. I'm going to stay with her till the tow truck comes. Text me in the morning.

I read it once.

Then I read it again to see if I had missed the line where he asked whether the baby was all right.

I hadn't.

I put the phone face down on the blanket.

The monitor kept going next to me, fast and steady and not his.

At two in the morning, a second message came in from a number saved as Mom D.

It was a voicemail.

I almost didn't press it, but my thumb did it for me.

"Cassidy, honey, it's Gail." Her voice was warm and low, the one she used when she called Ron to come and carve.

"Travis says you went off on your own tonight, and I'm sure you had your reasons. We don't need to make this bigger than it is."

There was a pause.

"I just wanted to ask, did you take my casserole dish home? It's the good Pyrex, with the blue lid. I can't find it anywhere."

The message ended.

I lay there with the heartbeat of my daughter in the room.

Nobody in that family had asked about her once.

I picked the phone back up and opened a new message.

I typed one line to my friend from school, the only person I could think of who would answer at that hour.

Are you awake? I need a lawyer.

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