I Had a Baby without You novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: The Blackout

Five years ago, I did not know his name.

I knew only that a man in a ruined tuxedo had fallen through the staff stairwell door.

This was the Draycott Hotel, forty minutes into a blackout.

The ballroom above us was full of screaming guests and dead chandeliers.

I was twenty-four, carrying six champagne flutes up the back stairs to a table that no longer had a reason to want them.

He was on the landing with his back to the wall and his hand pressed to his left side.

Blood had soaked through his shirt to the belt.

"Don't," he said, when I knelt down. "Call no one. Please."

"You're bleeding on my stairs."

"I know." He gave a short, wild laugh. "Someone wants me to keep doing it."

I should have gotten security.

Instead I got my arm under his shoulder and walked him into the linen room, because it had a door that locked.

Candles from the banquet cart gave us a little light.

Stacked white tablecloths made the walls soft.

I found my sewing kit in my apron, the one I carried for torn hems, and a bottle of club soda for the cut.

"Take your shirt off," I said.

"That's forward."

"You've got two cracked ribs and a hole in you. Be quiet."

He took it off.

He had a body, broad and hard, with a long red gash under the ribs.

I threaded the needle with the only thread I had.

It was green.

"Green," he said, when he saw it. "I'm going to look like a Christmas present."

"Hold still, Christmas."

I stitched him by candlelight with my tongue between my teeth.

He swore once, beautifully.

Then he talked.

He talked about the radiator in the corner that knocked, and I laughed so hard I nearly stuck him twice.

He asked what I was humming.

I told him about my mother and the diner and the song she sang to me at night.

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