Snowstorm of Our Past novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Five Pounds Eleven

Gabe and the rescue team reach her in the storm and deliver her daughter in the back of their truck, but at 3 a.m. Clint walks into the hospital and announces he'll be asking for custody.

I counted my contractions on the dashboard clock.

Seven minutes apart. Then six.

The snow piled up on the windshield until the world outside was gray and then white.

I kept the engine running for the heat and cracked the window so I wouldn't choke on exhaust.

I knew all the rules. I'd taught them to tourists for ten years.

None of them said what to do if the person stuck in the ditch was you.

Forty minutes later, red lights swung across the snow.

A big rescue truck pulled onto the shoulder with its chains clanking.

Somebody banged on my window.

Gabe Haynes's face was right there, his beanie white with snow, his crooked nose red from the cold.

"Hey, Brooks," he said through the glass. "Heard you're having a party."

I laughed, and then a contraction took the laugh away.

He got my door open and crouched in the snow beside me.

"Okay. How far apart?"

"Five minutes. Maybe four."

"Where's the ambulance?" I asked.

"Behind a jackknifed semi at the county line. The road's closed both ways. The helicopter's grounded." He said it like a weather report. "So you've got me."

"You're a flight medic."

"I'm a flight medic with a very big truck."

He and the dog handler lifted me out between them.

The old yellow avalanche dog whined at my boots and tried to lick my hand.

"Not now," Gabe told him. "She's busy."

The back of the rescue truck had a bench, a stretcher, blankets and a heater going full blast.

The retired schoolteacher on the team was already laying out towels.

The kid on the team, who was nineteen and had joined in October, stood in the doorway looking green.

"You're on lights and radio," Gabe told him. "And don't look back here unless I yell."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm not a sir. I work for a living."

They got me onto the stretcher.

Gabe pulled off his gloves and washed his hands with a jug of water and a bottle of soap, fast and thorough.

"Mal, I'm going to check you. Is that okay?"

"Do it."

He checked, and his eyebrows went up.

"Well. She's not waiting for the semi."

The next contraction hit.

I grabbed the rail and made a noise I'd never heard myself make.

"That's good," Gabe said. "Loud is good. Loud means you're breathing."

"Don't tell me how to breathe."

"I would never."

The schoolteacher held my hand on one side.

On the other side, the dog had wedged himself into the gap by the bench and set his chin on my knee.

Between contractions, Gabe talked.

He told me about the time the kid tried to rappel with his jacket tucked into his harness.

He told me the dog once ate an entire bag of trail mix, raisins included, and was fine out of spite.

He told me the plows would come through by midnight, and the road would be clear by morning.

He never once asked me why I was alone on Highway 24 in a snowstorm, thirty-five weeks pregnant.

"Where's the major?" the schoolteacher asked once.

Gabe gave her one look and she didn't ask again.

At eight forty-one, he said, "Okay, Mal. On the next one, you push."

I pushed.

The truck rocked in the wind.

Snow ticked against the little back windows.

"Again. You're doing great. Again."

"I hate you."

"Everybody does at this part. Again."

I pushed until the world went white at the edges.

And then there was a thin, furious cry filling up the back of the truck.

Gabe lifted her up, slippery and red and folded.

"Hey there," he said to her softly. "Welcome to Lake County."

He laid her on my chest and tucked a blanket around both of us.

She was so small.

Her face was screwed up tight, and she had a fuzz of pale hair stuck flat to her head.

She stopped crying the second she heard my heartbeat.

"Five pounds, eleven ounces, maybe," Gabe said, wiping his hands. "I'll get you an official number at the hospital. She's breathing fine. She's pink. She's perfect."

In the doorway, the kid had turned around anyway and was crying openly.

"I said don't look back here," Gabe said.

"Sorry, Gabe."

"Don't be sorry. Call the hospital and tell them we've got two."

The schoolteacher was crying too.

So was I.

"Does she have a name?" Gabe asked.

I looked down at her.

I'd had a list on the fridge on Fort Carson. Clint had crossed most of them out.

"Matilda," I said. "Tilly."

"Tilly what?"

I didn't even have to think about it.

"Tilly Brooks."

Gabe nodded once.

"Good name."

The plows came through at ten.

They got us to the little hospital in Leadville by eleven, with the dog riding shotgun because nobody could make him get out.

The nurses weighed her. Five pounds, eleven ounces exactly.

Gabe pretended he wasn't pleased with himself.

"Go home," I told him at midnight. "You're dead on your feet."

"I'm fine."

"Gabe."

He pulled his beanie off and turned it in his hands.

"Your gran's on her way. Roads opened from her side an hour ago." He hesitated. "You want me to call anybody else?"

"No."

"Okay."

He left. I fell asleep with Tilly in the plastic bassinet pulled up against my bed.

I woke up to the overhead light snapping on.

The clock said 3:12.

Clint stood in the doorway in his wet wool coat, snow melting on his shoulders.

He'd made it over the pass.

He looked at the bassinet. Then he looked at me.

A nurse came in behind him, saying visiting hours were over.

He didn't lower his voice for her.

"My wife ran off in a blizzard eight months pregnant," he said. "She nearly killed my daughter tonight."

The nurse stopped where she was.

"I want that in her chart," Clint said. "Because I'm going to be asking for custody."

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