Chapter 10: Delete That

Callum drove the truck through the snow at a speed I did not mention.

The Motor Lodge sign came up out of the white with half its letters dark.

Lorraine's silver sedan sat in the lot with the engine running.

She was standing by the glass doors of the lobby in her good coat, and she had one hand out, palm up.

"Courtney," she said through the glass. "Come out, honey. We'll get you home and warm."

Courtney was inside on the carpet with her back against the wall and her knees up.

She held her belly with both arms.

There was a dark stain on her leggings.

Callum put himself between his mother and the door.

"Move," Lorraine said.

"She's going to a hospital."

"She is going home, where she can be looked after properly. I won't have her taken to some emergency room full of strangers and gossip."

"Then you can follow us."

"Callum Rowan, I am your mother."

"I know," he said. "That's the trouble."

I went around them and knelt on the lobby carpet.

"Courtney. Can you stand?"

"It hurts," she said. "It's tight. I'm so scared. Maggie, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry."

"You can tell me in the truck."

I got an arm under hers, and Callum took the other, and we walked her out through the door past his mother.

Lorraine did not touch her.

She looked at me with an expression I could not read, and then she turned and went to her car.

The emergency room at Dunmore General was nearly empty because of the storm.

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