I Lost My Baby Because My Husband Waited for His Best Friend's Permission novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Lobby
Hallie bleeds on the floor of the gala lobby while Dalton phones Whitney for permission to leave, a surgeon carries her out, and she loses her daughter and sends her husband away. The hotel's statement says she chose to wait.
At eight-forty on the night of the Whitbread Hotels gala, I started to bleed in front of two hundred donors.
I was thirty weeks pregnant, standing beside a marble pillar in the lobby of the Whitbread Grand, holding a glass of sparkling water.
Whitney Whitbread had put the glass in my hand herself an hour earlier.
"Sit whenever you want, Hallie," she'd said. "I had them bring the good chair."
She had also moved my name card to the head table, between her and my husband.
I remember thinking how kind that was.
Then something hot ran down the inside of my leg, and the glass slid out of my fingers and broke.
"Dalton," I said.
He was ten feet away, shaking hands with a man in a donor pin.
He turned, smiling, and saw the front of my dress.
"Dalton, something's wrong."
He crossed the lobby fast and took my elbow, but my knees were already going.
I ended up on the marble floor with my bag spilled open beside me.
A lipstick. My keys. The plastic pill box I filled for him every Sunday, for his blood pressure.
The little lids had popped, and pills rolled away across the stone.
My dress had ridden up, and I felt the cold floor against the long old scar on my left side.
"Take me to the hospital," I said. "Please. Now."
"Okay. Okay, Hal." His voice had gone high. "Let me call Whit."
"Dalton."
"She's running the whole night. She has to say it's all right for me to go."
He already had the phone at his ear.
Whitney's voice came out of it, soft and clear, loud enough that the people nearest us heard every word.
"Dalton? I'm with the Governor's people. What is it?"
"It's Hallie. She's bleeding. I need to drive her to the hospital."
There was a short pause.
"Has anyone called an ambulance?"
"No. I wanted to ask you first."
"Then let's not make a scene. Get her some water. Ten minutes, the toast is at nine." Her voice stayed gentle. "I haven't approved you to leave."
Dalton nodded.
He nodded at the phone, though she could not see him.
Then he walked away from me toward the revolving doors, still holding it to his ear.
"Okay, Whit," he said. "I'll wait."
I reached after him.
My hand hit the floor.
Nobody moved. A woman by the pillar lifted her phone and pointed it at me.
A man in a tuxedo dropped to his knees on the glass beside me, dark hair gray at the temples, a face I had never seen.
"I'm a trauma surgeon. Look at me. What's your name?"
"Hallie."
"How far along, Hallie?"
"Thirty weeks."
"Okay." He already had his own phone out. "I'm calling it in. You're not waiting for anyone's permission."
He gave the dispatcher the address in four flat sentences.
Then he put one big hand on my stomach and held it there, very still, longer than seemed necessary.
"Her name is Wren," I told him. "Tell them Wren is thirty weeks."
"I'll tell them," he said. "I'm Kip."
That was all he said about her.
The paramedics came through the doors with a stretcher and the whole room moved aside for them.
Dalton was standing at the entrance, phone still in his hand.
"Whit says you can go now," he told me as they lifted me. "She says it's fine."
I don't remember the ride.
I remember the ceiling lights, and Kip's voice somewhere above me saying numbers, and a pain that was only in me.
When I woke up it was almost morning, and a nurse was adjusting the line in my arm.
Kip sat in the chair beside the bed with his tie gone and his sleeves rolled to the elbow.
He did not make me ask.
"We couldn't save her, Hallie. I'm so sorry. You were bleeding too hard, and she was already gone before you got here."
I turned my face to the wall.
I stayed that way until the door opened and Dalton came in, still in his tuxedo, with a paper cup of coffee for me.
He sat on the edge of the bed and reached for my hand.
"Hal, I'm so sorry. Whit says take all the time you need. She's already taken care of the statement, and she says you shouldn't worry about anything."
I looked at his hand on mine.
It was the same hand that had held the phone.
"I started asking you to take me to the hospital at eight-forty," I said.
"I know. I know, but you have to understand the position she was in."
"Get out."
"Hallie."
"Go and ask her if you're allowed to stay."
He didn't move for a moment.
Then his eyes went to his pocket, where the phone was.
So I took my hand back, and he stood up and left me alone.
Kip was still in the doorway. He held out his phone without a word.
The video from the lobby had three million views.
Under it was the Whitbread Hotels statement, posted at six that morning.
"Mrs. Hazard was offered an ambulance and chose to wait."
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