Chapter 18: Four Pounds Eleven

The ambulance doors opened on the covered bay at Silverport General.

Cold air. Bright lights. The stretcher wheels hitting the curb.

They ran me through a set of double doors and into an elevator that smelled like hand sanitizer.

On the fourth floor the doors opened on the maternity desk.

Mitchell was standing at it.

He had his coat on. His hair was wet from the rain. The man in the gray suit stood beside him with a folder open on the counter.

Nathan was there too, at the end of the desk, with his arms folded and his feet planted.

A charge nurse in navy scrubs was between all of them, holding up both hands.

"...not how this works, sir," she was saying. "I don't care what your paper says."

Mitchell turned and saw the stretcher.

He took a step toward me.

"Val."

Another pain came.

I curled around it and gripped the rail so hard my rings dug in.

When it let go, I lifted my head and looked at the charge nurse.

"I'm the mother," I said. "Valerie McCallum. I'm not a surrogate. I never signed anything. He's not my husband. His wife is at home on her sofa."

The charge nurse looked at Mitchell.

Then at the folder.

"Is her signature on that?"

The lawyer closed the folder.

"It's an agreement in principle," he said.

"So no." She turned to the paramedics. "Room six. Go."

They wheeled me past him.

Mitchell walked beside the stretcher. His hand came down on the rail next to mine.

"Val, please. I just want to be there. She's my daughter too."

"Then where was your daughter's mother at eleven o'clock?" my mother said. "Sitting in a diner getting threatened by yours."

The doors of room six opened.

My mother went in with me.

Nathan stopped in the doorway and turned around to face the hall.

He put one hand flat on each side of the doorframe.

"Not today," he said to Mitchell.

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