Friends Forever

by Danielle Steel

  “Jack …,” she said in a small voice and at first he didn’t hear her. “Jack … um … my water just broke …” She was looking dazed as he walked into the room to hear what she was saying.

  “What?… Oh my God—” Everything she had on was soaked from the waist down, and she looked like she’d been standing in the shower. “What happened?” And then he knew too, but wasn’t sure what to do next. Marilyn started laughing.

  “I look like I’ve been swimming.”

  “Lie down or something,” Jack said nervously, and handed her a stack of towels. She took her wet clothes off, put on a terrycloth robe, went back to the bedroom, and lay on the towels. She could still feel the fluid leaking, but it seemed like most of it was gone. Jack was cleaning up the bathroom and came to check on her. “Are you having contractions?”

  “Not one. But the girls have gotten very quiet. No one’s moving,” whereas half an hour before they had felt like they were dancing. Maybe they knew what was coming and were resting.

  “I think we should call Helen.”

  “She’s probably having dinner, and I’m not having contractions. Why don’t we wait awhile and call her later? She won’t want me to come in if I’m not having contractions.”

  “I think twins are different,” he said cautiously, looking nervous.

  “Yeah, they take longer,” Marilyn reminded him. “Let’s watch the movie.” Jack had lost interest in the movie, but he turned it on to relax her and lay down next to her, watching her closely.

  “Stop looking at me, I’m fine.” She leaned over and kissed him as she said it, and at that moment, she felt like she had been hit by a bomb. The worst contraction she could ever remember having ripped through her, as she grabbed Jack’s shoulder and couldn’t speak for a full five minutes. The minute it was over, Jack jumped out of bed and grabbed his BlackBerry.

  “That’s it, we’re going. I’m calling Helen.” As he said it, she had another one, and she reached for him again. She squeezed his hand tightly while he called, and the minute Helen saw his name come up on her own BlackBerry, she answered.

  “Hi there, what’s happening? Any action?” Helen sounded calm and cheerful.

  “Yeah, a lot of it, all of a sudden. Her water broke about ten minutes ago, and she just started having huge contractions, about two minutes apart, long ones. They lasted about five minutes.” Helen was frowning as she listened to him.

  “It sounds to me like your two little ladies are in a hurry.” She thought for about two seconds and made a decision. “Just let Marilyn lie there. Don’t do anything. I’m going to send you an ambulance. They can take her downstairs on a gurney. I’m sure nothing will happen, but I’ll feel better getting you to the hospital in an ambulance, just in case they’re in a bigger hurry than we think. I’ll meet you there.” She cut the connection, called an ambulance, and this time as the contraction hit, Marilyn screamed, and he wouldn’t have admitted it to her, but Jack was scared. Everything was happening much faster than they’d expected.

  The ambulance was there in five minutes. Jack let them know it was twins as he followed them upstairs, but Helen had already told them. They got Marilyn on a gurney and were out the front door, with Marilyn and Jack in the ambulance, less than three minutes after they arrived.

  Marilyn was clutching Jack’s arm and screaming now with every pain, and they never seemed to stop. The siren was on, and they were whizzing through the streets toward California Pacific Medical Center, where Helen had promised to meet them.

  “I can’t do this,” Marilyn said, panting between contractions.

  “Yes, you can,” Jack said quietly. “I’m right here. You’re going to have them really soon, baby.… It’ll all be over soon.”

  “No, I can’t—” she insisted. “Too much.” And as she said it, she screamed again, and when she laid her head back on the gurney, her eyes rolled back in her head. Jack was panicked, and the paramedic gave her oxygen and her eyes opened again. Her blood pressure was low, but she wasn’t in any danger.

  “You’re doing fine,” he said to reassure them both, and then they were at the hospital, and Helen was waiting for them. She took in the scene with a practiced eye, and smiled at both of them.

  “Well, I can see you didn’t waste any time,” she said to Marilyn. She could tell from looking at her that she was probably already dilated to ten, or close to it. She would have had the babies at home, if Helen hadn’t sent the ambulance for them. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get you to the delivery room, so no pushing,” she said to Marilyn in a firm voice, as Marilyn’s face contorted, and she screamed again. “Fast!” Marilyn said to the men who took the gurney out of the ambulance. Helen led the way at a dead run, they followed her, and Jack was running next to them, holding Marilyn’s hand. She never stopped screaming from the ambulance to the delivery room, and Helen had a team waiting for them. They barely got Marilyn’s terrycloth robe off, slipped a gown on her, and lifted her onto the delivery table, when she screamed such a fiercely piercing wail that Jack thought she was dying.

  And what he heard instead seconds later was a long cry replacing hers, and a little face with a mane of red hair had appeared between her legs. Their first daughter had been born. Marilyn was smiling at him through tears, and Jack cried as he held her hand, and Helen cut the cord and handed the baby to a nurse. They still had work to do, and within seconds it all began again, the hideous contractions, the agonizing pain, Marilyn screaming as Helen helped her this time with forceps, and then another wail. Both babies had been born in less than ten minutes, forty-five minutes after it had all started. Helen said it was the fastest delivery of twins she had ever seen, but she also knew how hard it was when it went that quickly.

  Marilyn was shaking violently, alternately crying and smiling and clinging to her husband, who kept looking from her to their beautiful babies. One of them had red hair like Marilyn’s, and the other one had dark hair like his. They were fraternal twins, not identical, and they decided immediately which was Dana and which was Daphne. Jack still looked stunned. He had never seen anyone in so much pain, but it was all over so quickly.

  “Thank God you sent the ambulance,” he said gratefully to Helen. “She would have had them at home.”

  “I think so,” Helen said, smiling at them. “You certainly made things easy for me. You did all the work here,” she said to her patient. Marilyn still looked shaken, but she looked instantly better when they handed her the babies, and Jack looked at them proudly.

  They kept Marilyn in the delivery room for another two hours, and put the babies in an incubator just to warm them. They each weighed just under eight pounds, and were strapping babies. Jack called all their children then and told them that their sisters had arrived. Billy thanked him somewhat tersely after asking if his mom was all right, and Brian wanted to know how soon he could see them. They were going to keep her in the hospital for two or three days.

  It was ten o’clock that night when they rolled Marilyn into a room with her babies in little plastic bassinets on wheels. A nurse pushed one of them, and Jack was pushing the other, and he looked at Marilyn with open adoration. It had been a moment in his life he knew he would never forget, and the look of love that passed between them touched Helen’s heart. It always did. She had stayed after Marilyn delivered to make sure she was all right, and there were no complications after the birth, but everything was fine.

  She left them a little while later, after giving Marilyn medication for the pain. She had been through a lot. Brian was going to stay at the neighbors’. Billy had said he’d stay at Gabby’s, and Jack was going to spend the night at the hospital with Marilyn.

  He watched her as she slept after that, and looked at their sleeping babies. They were exquisite and pink and so beautiful. It was one of the most perfect nights of his life.

  Chapter 8

  Everyone came to visit Marilyn and the babies while they were in the hospital. Brian was the first, early the next morning,
driven by their neighbor, who said she had never seen anything as beautiful as their daughters, and that they looked so different from each other.

  Brian took turns holding them, while Jack took pictures. And Billy arrived at lunchtime with Gabby, who couldn’t stop looking at them and touching their little toes and fingers. Marilyn asked Billy if he wanted to hold them, but he said he didn’t. He said they were too little. Connie and Mike dropped by and brought sweaters and booties that she had been knitting for them for months, and Sean was with them. They said Kevin was away for the weekend with friends, and as Connie said it, Marilyn saw a cloud pass across her eyes, and she looked at her with concern.

  “Is he okay?” she said softly. Kevin had seemed distant and distracted the night of the graduation barbecue, but he had left quickly and she hadn’t gotten a good look. She knew Connie had been worried for a while.

  “I think so,” Connie said quietly, and then went back to admiring the babies. Izzie walked in while they were there, and Andy came just as they left. And then Judy appeared at dinnertime with a stack of gifts, with Michelle and Gabby. Everyone said they’d never seen anything cuter than the twins. They had constant visitors for two days. Jack’s boys were away with their mother, so they hadn’t seen the babies, but Jack sent them dozens of pictures with his phone.

  At the end of two days, Marilyn said she wanted to go home so she could get some rest, and Helen said it sounded like a good idea to her. She was very pleased with how all three of them were doing. And she discharged them at nine o’clock the next morning. Marilyn was going to try to nurse both of them, with some supplements, but her milk hadn’t come in yet. Helen thought it might be better for her if she were at home when that happened. There were too many people visiting her in the hospital for her to just calm down and get used to her babies. But Jack was being terrific, as always, and when they got home, he helped Marilyn get settled, and Brian wanted to do whatever he could with his sisters too.

  Marilyn heaved a sigh of relief when she slipped into their familiar bed.

  “Wow! Everything happened so fast, it doesn’t seem real yet.”

  “It’s real,” Jack assured her, as both babies started crying at the same time, and they both laughed. It was going to be crazy for a while, and Marilyn’s mother had offered to come and help her. But she was in her seventies, not in good health, and she would just be one more person for Marilyn to take care of, so Marilyn had asked her to come later in the summer, and for now she and Jack were going to try to manage on their own, with a little assistance from Brian. She insisted that she didn’t want a baby nurse. Jack had offered and he could afford one, but Marilyn knew these would be her last babies, and she didn’t want to miss a minute of it, and she was determined to do it all herself, with Jack, and he had agreed. But she was surprised by how exhausted she felt. Just walking across the room, to where the babies were sleeping in their bassinets, seemed like a lot of effort, and she wasn’t even nursing yet. She and the twins were just getting used to each other.

  Brian had gone out with friends, and she had just lain down for a nap that afternoon, after settling the babies in their bassinets, when the phone rang. Marilyn could tell from her caller ID that it was Connie, but there was no sound when she answered the phone. Marilyn thought the phone had been disconnected and was about to hang up when she heard a long, low howl that sounded more like an animal than a human. At first, she didn’t know what it was as she listened, and then she suddenly heard her friend’s voice and her blood ran cold.

  “Kevin” was the only word Connie was able to say to her, and for the next many minutes all she could do was sob. Marilyn didn’t know if he’d been injured, had an accident, had a fight with them, or been arrested again. All she could do was wait until Connie caught her breath.

  “Take it easy, I’m right here.… Do you want me to come over?” For an instant, she forgot that she’d given birth three days before, but she’d have gone over anyway. “Connie—tell me what happened.” She waited as Jack walked into the room, and he could see from his wife’s face that something terrible had occurred.

  “Who is it?” he whispered, and she mouthed Connie’s name, as Connie continued to sob into the phone.

  “I’m coming over,” Marilyn said, unable to stand it anymore. She knew she could get to her house faster than it was taking Connie to tell her over the phone what was wrong.

  “He’s dead,” she said, and then howled the same agonizing sound Marilyn had heard when she answered the phone.

  “Oh my God … oh my God … I’m coming over. Are you alone?” Connie was incoherent, and Marilyn leaped out of bed so fast that her head swam for an instant, and then she ran toward the bathroom, still holding the phone, as Jack watched her. “Where’s Mike?”

  “He’s here. They just called us,” Connie managed to choke out between sobs.

  “Just hang in there. I’ll be there in five minutes.” Marilyn disconnected the call with a shaking hand and stared at Jack in disbelief. “Kevin O’Hara just died. I don’t know how it happened. I have to go over there. You stay with the babies. If they wake up, give them one of the bottles of water they gave us at the hospital—they’ll be fine.”

  “You can’t drive,” he said, looking frantic. “You just gave birth.” She was already calling Billy, and he answered right away.

  “Where are you?” she said quickly.

  “I’m at Gabby’s. What’s the big deal?” He could hear that his mother was wound up about something, but he didn’t know what it was.

  “I need you to come home right away.”

  “Why?” He sounded suspicious and annoyed.

  “I need you to drive me to the O’Haras’. Something happened to Kevin.”

  “I’ll be right there,” he said immediately, and hung up. He was at the house by the time she was dressed and downstairs. Jack kissed her goodbye and told her not to overdo it. She looked pale and upset, but she wanted to go to her friend. The unthinkable had happened.

  Billy drove her to the O’Haras’ in less than five minutes, and Marilyn hurried to the front door as fast as she could with Billy right behind her. Sean was standing in the entrance hall, staring at them, and he dissolved in sobs in Billy’s arms, as Marilyn rushed upstairs to find Connie. She found her and Mike in their bedroom, holding each other and sobbing, and the moment she saw them Marilyn burst into tears, and sat down on the bed with them and put her arms around them.

  “He was shot doing a drug deal in the Tenderloin,” Connie said in agony, as Mike just sat on the bed shaking and sobbing. “They said he was buying to sell, and he owed the dealer money. They got in an argument, and the dealer shot him.… My baby … my baby … they killed my baby.” She was inconsolable, and Mike was distraught, as Marilyn sat with them. She had no idea what to say or do for them, except be there, with her arms around her friends. She held Connie and rocked her in her arms, and then finally she got up and went downstairs to get water and tea. When she came back, she asked Connie if she wanted her to call their doctor, and she shook her head.

  “We have to go and identify the body,” she said, dissolving in sobs again. “I’m afraid to see him.… I can’t.…” She was incoherent with grief, as Marilyn made her take a sip of water, and tightly squeezed Mike’s hand. Billy and Sean walked into the room then, and Marilyn was shocked to realize that Sean was now their only son. No matter how hard they had tried to save Kevin from himself, and how much they had loved him, he had outfoxed them in the end. They couldn’t stop him. Sean looked as heartbroken as his parents, and Billy was standing close to him, devastated for his friend. Kevin had been Sean’s hero as a little boy, and now he had been murdered in a drug deal, while buying drugs to sell them. Connie had been right when she’d thought he was slipping again. But he was elusive and never able to resist temptation for long, no matter how well he had appeared to be doing. It was frightening to realize how fast things could go wrong, and this was what it led to: grieving parents, and a child they had l
oved who was dead. Both parents and kids were so much more vulnerable than they knew.

  Mike got up and shuffled aimlessly around the room as both women stared at him. They had to go to the morgue, and Marilyn couldn’t even imagine it.

  “Do you want Jack to go with you?” Marilyn offered, and Mike shook his head and stared at her with eyes that looked like his soul was bleeding through them.

  “No, I’ll do it,” he said softly, as Sean went and stood next to him.

  “I’ll go with you, Dad,” he said bravely. He was shaking, and looked small next to Billy, although he wasn’t. And there was a shocking look of maturity in his eyes now. He wasn’t a boy, he was a man. Connie lay down on the bed and moaned softly, at the mention of identifying her son.

  “I don’t want to see him that way,” Connie said, whimpering. “I can’t—it will kill me.” Mike picked up his car keys, and Sean followed his father out of the room, as Marilyn looked down at Connie.

  “Why don’t you come home with me, until they get back?” Marilyn couldn’t bear to think of where they were going and what they’d be doing. “You can help me with the babies.” Connie nodded and got up. She moved like a robot when she did, as Marilyn led her out of the room and down the stairs. She was glad that Connie was willing to go with her. She seemed docile and broken. Marilyn helped her into the front seat, got in behind Billy, and he drove them back to their house, and as soon as Marilyn walked in, she heard both babies crying, and Jack appeared at the top of the stairs, holding one in each arm and looking frantic.

  “They’ve been crying since you left,” he said, and then he saw Connie, and Marilyn hurried up the stairs, as she realized what had happened. Her milk had come in, and the whole front of her shirt was wet. Connie came up slowly behind her and followed them into the bedroom, while Billy went to call the others and tell them what had happened. It was the most shocking news any of them had ever heard. Marilyn was grateful that Brian was still out, and she asked Jack to call the parents of the boy he was with to keep him for a while, till dinnertime at least, until things settled down at the house, and Jack agreed. They wanted to do all they could to help Connie, Mike, and Sean.