Chapter 13: Four Pounds

The transplant doctor had a phone at her ear before I finished saying it.

"I need a wheelchair and an obstetric team on four," she said. "Now."

Randall caught my elbow.

"Don't let go of me," I said.

"I won't."

Two nurses came through the door at a run, and one of them put me in a chair while the other pressed a hand to my belly and counted.

Dennis went ahead to hold the elevator.

Regina was still standing at the table with the pen in her fist.

Nobody looked at her.

They took me across the skybridge to the women's hospital, with Randall walking fast beside the chair and his hand on my shoulder.

The obstetrician had grey braids and a calm, flat voice.

She read my chart, and my pressure, and the number of days since the magnesium.

"The water has gone and your pressure is climbing," she said. "She comes today, Stephanie. I'd like to do it in the operating room."

"Is she big enough?"

"She's thirty-three weeks. She'll be small and she'll need help, but she's big enough."

I nodded.

I looked at Randall.

He was white to the mouth.

"Get dressed in what they give you," I said. "Stand by my head."

"Steph, I'll do anything you..."

"That's all I want."

The operating room was bright and cold.

They numbed me from the waist down and put a screen across my chest.

A stool had been set by my head, a low round one for the husband.

I looked at it, and I thought of a green sweater in another delivery room, five years ago, and a chair beside another woman's bed.

Keep reading free with an account. Start He Missed Our Daughter's Birthday from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.