From the Top

by Dani Collins

  “And you care what strangers think?”

  He folded his arms. “They’re not strangers, are they? They’re co-workers and neighbors. Friends.” Small fucking town. “I’m a perfectionist. I’m supposed to be the guy everyone can rely on. I hate when I fuck up. And…” He hesitated, then went for it because his conscience had been churning like knives in his gut. “The truth is, it’s killing me that you should have been able to count on me not to get you pregnant.”

  “Oh.” She was nothing but round eyes and round mouth and pale, round face. Then she blinked a few times, eyes shiny, if still shadowed. She swallowed and her lashes swept down to hide her eyes. “I’m beating myself up pretty bad, too.” Her mouth pouted with self-disgust. “Which is why I’d rather stay in here. I’m like you and prefer to be alone, not have people look at me sideways because I messed up. I’ll go down later, when the dining room has cleared out.”

  He frowned. He wasn’t a loner. He was a pack animal, built to be part of a tribe or a squad. That’s what he meant about wanting people to know they could rely on him.

  “Well, for what it’s worth, you’re not alone. Obviously, we did this together. I should have said this before now, but ask me for anything. ’Kay?”

  “Sure. Thanks.” She shrugged it off in the way that said she thought he was being polite and wouldn’t ask him for a damned thing.

  That free pass should have been a relief, but as he walked downstairs and into the din of voices, he rubbed the middle of his chest where a hole had opened up.

  *

  For most of her life, Ilke’s world had been training and competing. Winners didn’t sit around complaining about how hard it was. They got off their butts and did the work. As for trading war stories about the female experience, complaining about sexism and being hit on when male attention wasn’t welcomed, she’d learned early she needed to suck that up, because no one was interested in a pretty girl’s problems with being pretty.

  So she wasn’t one to vent or ask for help and she rarely went the other way and offered a shoulder or a hand. Being on her own for so long, she had to look after herself first anyway. As for fellow competitors, why would she bolster them when it was all she could do to keep her own spirits up?

  Since seeking and offering support was the basis of friendship, she had never really pursued that animal. Working at the lodge was no exception. She fell into a routine of treadmill, eat, throw up, work, yoga, eat some more, read, and sleep until she did it all again. Boring and not lonely because she could have substituted ‘train’ for ‘work’ and her days would have looked much as they had for years. She was trying to get to where she needed to be so she could get to the next step after that, same as always.

  Which was why she was so surprised when Glory included her in a lunch date.

  Somehow, a vote had been cast behind her back and she wasn’t allowed to work weekends. At all. So, as her third one here approached, she decided to run into Haven, just to get out of her room without bumping into anyone.

  When she asked Glory if she could use her car, however, Glory said, “I need it. It’s Nordic Fest and the library asked me to sign some books. We can drive in together, though. I’m meeting Eden for lunch. Join us.”

  Biting back a dumbfounded, Why?, Ilke asked instead, “What’s Nordic Fest?”

  “A celebration of the town’s Nordic roots. A bunch of the town’s founding families were from Norway and Sweden. I missed it last year, but I guess there are crafts and folk singing, axe throwing and wife carrying. You know, all the classic Nordic stuff.”

  “Right. We marry young so we can start training early. You and Rolf aren’t competing?”

  “Maybe next year when we’re actually married. He’s a stickler for rules.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Glory laughed, seeming to appreciate the idea of Rolf following rules when he clearly made his own. Then she sobered and wrinkled her nose.

  “Actually, he’s staying back to rebook all the heli-tour charters. He’s still pretty grumpy so I wouldn’t trust him with an axe right now.”

  Ilke was surprised Rolf wasn’t planning to stand over Glory anyway, while she autographed books. For all his disinterest in anything that wasn’t directly related to himself, he seemed to turn to pudding when it came to supporting his fiancée, especially where her writing was concerned.

  What was that even like? Ilke had tried, briefly, and failed, spectacularly, at romantic relationships. It had turned into yet another reason she preferred to focus on skiing. Snow could be hard and unforgiving, but it didn’t play mind games. Human interaction baffled her.

  Like Nate. What had he wanted the other night, coming in to chat like that, then inviting her to dinner, even as he made it clear why he preferred to keep things on the down-low? He had said she should lean on him if she needed something, but she didn’t understand what that meant. Money? She was getting by so what else would she need?

  Then he had basically said he was sorry that he hadn’t prevented the pregnancy, which had been kind of really nice, even as it confused her. Did that mean he had stopped blaming her? Was it another way of saying he regretted that she was having his child? Or was he forgiving her? Was she supposed to stop resenting him, now?

  Despite all that, for a few seconds, she had felt like they found some kind of alignment. Yet chickened out on dinner and kicked herself the rest of the night for not going, since they might have found…she didn’t know what. They didn’t have common ground. That was the problem.

  Oh, who needed their head clogged with this much man-angst? Not her.

  So she went to town with Glory purely as a distraction.

  “Eden is running one of the food tents,” Glory told her as they left the lodge. “She and her sister have been making their grandmother’s recipes all week. Prune tarts and pickled fish. Sorry.” Glory swung her a look. “Does that turn your stomach?”

  It didn’t, which wasn’t to say the smell wouldn’t knock her flat when it hit her, but the lack of desire to retch had Ilke searching for the roil that had been such a constant since before Korea, when she had put it down to nerves for the upcoming games.

  The nausea wasn’t there.

  Huh. She was still in her first trimester, but two weeks from the end of it. Was this a sign the morning sickness was finally letting up?

  She puzzled over it while they drove, only half listening to Glory bring her up to speed on the hotel staffing.

  “Dad and Vivien have some people starting Monday. One is a consultant who is working jointly with Rolf. All his accounting has been done out of Germany so far, but the lodge and the ski resort are both starting to need their own bookkeepers on site. They’re going to try to put together a team to cover both, so if someone vacations or quits, they’re not in the lurch. Rolf has an HR manager who will be here, soon, too. His first push is hiring for the summer erection—I like to call it that, mostly because Rolf looks at me like I’m too juvenile for words. They’re going to ask him to help with staffing up the lodge, too. What I’m saying is, Vivien will probably ask you to start training some people, but it doesn’t mean you’re out of a job if you still want one.”

  Glory parked behind the library and Ilke moved to help her unload the back.

  “Oh, gosh, no. You don’t need to lift these. I’ve been doing this so long, I have a whole system.” She pulled out a collapsible dolly to stack and move the boxes.

  Glory had organized her mother’s book tours, Ilke recalled, so let her do her thing, but mostly she was distracted by a feeling that lifting those boxes would be okay.

  She was really becoming aware of feeling distinctly different today. It was disturbing in a way she didn’t want to think about, but couldn’t help acknowledge. She felt normal. Like her old self.

  Or put another way, she felt ‘not pregnant.’

  She absorbed that like a sonic boom, insides shuddering.

  Glory said she would be tied up for an hour and told Ilke to chec
k out the tents, but it was all dissonant words that she only obeyed so she could be alone with her thoughts. As she wandered, she tried to take a reading on her body, tried to connect with the baby.

  The festival was set up in the park adjacent to the library with a couple of dozen tents, all containing colorful displays of crafts and woodworking, treats and clothes from around the world. Because cotton sarongs screamed arctic culture, she thought with a mental eye-roll. She watched a guy use a chainsaw to turn a stump into a beaver. The pungent scent of chipped wood got into her nostrils, but was almost pleasant. He started on a block of ice and it soon became a howling wolf.

  She didn’t bother visiting the food tents yet, strolling instead to the far end of the park. The playground was set furthest from the road. Children played on teeter-totters and swings dug out from the snow. She recognized Aiden in his blue jacket. He was with a woman she presumed was his mom, Nate’s ex-wife. She was pretty with a round face that perma-smiled at all the children, causing a weird pang in Ilke’s breastbone.

  So comfortable as a mom, watching over not just her own child, but a handful of extras as well.

  That capability made Ilke feel really down on herself. She hugged herself and realized her breasts weren’t sore. Her whole body felt as though a bubble had burst and she was left with a deflated feeling. The sense of pressure inside her had dissipated. It was a lot like when her period arrived. In fact, she had a dull ache in the small of her back.

  Oh no.

  With a thorny feeling in her chest, she went back to the library. She waved faintly at Glory, who was smiling and chatting with someone, pen poised.

  Inside a stall, Ilke yanked down her pants and saw the bloodstain on her underwear. Quite a bit of it. She sat down.

  For several minutes, she sat there with her corduroy pants around her knees, her bare ass in the oval of the toilet, her throat aching with a howl she kept trapped in her chest. She was that wolf carved from ice, frozen in silence, but transparent. Empty inside.

  When she heard someone come in to the second stall, she folded a few squares of toilet paper into a pad and stuffed it into the crotch of her underpants, even though they were already ruined. Then she very calmly went out to where Glory was speaking to the last few people in line. Her head didn’t feel attached to the rest of her. She almost felt as though she looked down on this entire tableau.

  “Did you see Eden?” Glory asked after the last person wandered away. She was smiling. Happy.

  It was surreal. Everything was carrying on as normal. The librarian was opening covers of books, scanning them. A father was reading to his toddler over on a beanbag chair in the children’s section. A pair of teenagers were whispering in front of a computer screen and a senior was browsing in the stacks.

  “She was busy,” Ilke said dumbly. The world is ending. Didn’t anyone realize that?

  “We’ll walk over and see if she can take a break. Let me put this in the car first.” Glory packed the few remaining books into a box.

  Ilke waited until they were at the car to say, “Could you drop me at the hospital?”

  Glory straightened in surprise, hand on the open hatch over her head. “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m bleeding.” She managed to say it without much inflection. This was a good thing. If she kept telling herself that, she might even believe it.

  Glory looked from one of her eyes to the other, sounding really earnest when she said, “Sometimes there’s spotting and it doesn’t mean anything, just that the placenta moved.”

  A tiny sliver of hope tingled. “How do you know that?”

  Glory smiled an apology. “You wouldn’t believe the number of plot twists that involve a miscarriage that doesn’t happen. It might be okay.”

  The flicker in Ilke died as quickly as it had sparked. This wasn’t okay. She knew it in her soul. She was losing the baby.

  Chapter Eight

  “It’s just a clinic, not a proper hospital,” Glory warned as she drove to the other side of town. “One doctor and three nurses. I think one is a certified midwife, though.”

  “Frankie.” Ilke’s voice sounded hollow even to her own ears.

  “Right. I forgot you’d been here for prenatal. We might have to call the number on the door to get someone to come in since it’s Sat—Oh. Looks like it’s open.”

  “It could be a while before anyone can see me. You don’t have to stay.”

  “Of course, I’ll stay. I’ll just text Eden that we can’t meet her.” Glory trailed behind her, head bent over her phone as they entered the waiting room.

  The door had a chime that drew the clerk from the back. Her name was Karen Something, Ilke recalled. She smiled and greeted Ilke by name. “We’re only taking emergencies today.” She thumbed toward the back. “Came in for one.” She didn’t make it sound life-threatening.

  Ilke set a light hand on the counter, not ready to make this real, but she had to say the word. “I think I’m having a miscarriage.”

  “Oh dear,” Karen breathed. “Take a seat. It will be a few minutes.”

  In the back, a child cried then stopped, then cried again. Ilke felt Glory’s gaze on her profile.

  “I want to say something pat, like try not to worry until you know you have something to worry about.”

  Ilke shrugged. There wasn’t anything to say or do. She thought about texting Nate, but only sat there with her phone clutched between two hands in her lap.

  It was a new experience to have someone sit vigil with her. She had broken an ankle and a collarbone on two separate occasions and was in the hospital alone both times. Her coach had come by once, after she’d been treated, to check on her prognosis, but that was it.

  Glory didn’t look to her phone for distraction. She sat in patient silence as the sound of doors slamming and voices grew. A family came out. The dad carried a child who had his arm in a sling and a fat bottom lip and a scrape over his eye. The man took the boy out to the car while the mom waited at the counter to sign some papers.

  “I’ll be with you in a moment,” Karen told the woman. “Ilke, do you want to come through?”

  No.

  Glory rose, but Ilke waved her back. “It’s okay. You can go.”

  “I’ll wait.”

  “You don’t have to,” she insisted, but Glory sat down again.

  A few minutes later, the doctor used a stethoscope and then held a little machine against her abdomen. The machine was supposed to amplify the heartbeat, but there was nothing to hear. The nurse-midwife, Frankie, held her hand the whole time.

  Ilke couldn’t remember a time when she’d held a woman’s hand for any reason beyond maybe grasping a gloved hand that helped pull her up from the snow. It felt so peculiar, she didn’t know what to do so let her hand lie there in Frankie’s warm hold.

  “At this point, we usually recommend an ultrasound in Kalispell,” the doctor said, stepping back in a way that seemed terribly final. “If they confirm the lack of heartbeat, they’ll either give you a prescription or suggest a procedure. Some women come home the same day. You may have to stay overnight at the hospital or in a hotel, then have a check-up the next morning.”

  “This happens so often you have a protocol?”

  The doctor’s pained smile was kind enough, but his words were still brutal. “It does.”

  “Do you have someone who can drive you?” Frankie asked. “Can I ask Glory to come in?”

  “Thanks.” Ilke sat up on the edge of the bed and looked at her clothes. If Glory let her borrow her car, how would Glory get back to the lodge? Maybe Eden could drive her?

  “You’re not driving yourself,” Glory said when Ilke suggested it. She sounded appalled. “Anything could happen. No, I’ll call Rolf and tell him I’m taking you…” She bit her lip as she looked at her phone. “What do you want me to tell him? That you need a test or something? They might be wrong, Ilke.”

  Ilke shook her head, already knowing they weren’t. She didn’t feel pregnant. A
nd she appreciated Glory’s attempt to protect her privacy, but…

  “Tell him the truth. And…” She clenched her fists in the paper beneath her hemorrhaging pelvis. “Tell him to tell Nate.”

  *

  Nate was brain deep in scheduling software. The other two buildings were a go, thanks to new investors. Bids had been accepted and now the milestones for both buildings had to be integrated into the schedule he’d already hammered out for the operations and ski patrol—

  “Nate.” Rolf put down his landline hard enough to cut short whatever Trigg was saying to the consultants he’d brought in to start designing the snow park.

  The men turned from the laminated wall poster of the resort they were marking up. Even the dog lifted his head with a surprised jangle of his collar.

  Nate leaned past his monitor the way he did a hundred times a day and looked through the open door of Rolf’s office to where Rolf stood behind his deck. “Yeah?”

  Rolf jerked his head, silently ordering him front and center.

  That didn’t bode well. It sounded so serious, Trigg pointed his dry erase pen at his own chest, silently asking if his presence was required.

  “Nein,” Rolf said, earning a narrow-eyed look of dark suspicion from Trigg.

  The two were barely talking, thanks to Trigg’s loose tongue going along with his loose fly, but Nate was so used to the tension, he easily ignored it.

  When Rolf’s hard-ass tone came his way, though, it riled him. He hit save and locked his screen out of habit, then walked past the stares of the three men into Rolf’s office, hackles rising.

  “Close the door.”

  He did, with a firm snap. He was as much a perfectionist as Rolf was. Worse. Whatever fuck-up had occurred, it would be dealt with. Rolf must know that.

  “What happened?”

  Rolf was looking at him in a way that made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.

  “That was Glory.” Rolf nodded at his phone and stayed on his feet. “Ilke’s at the clinic and needs a ride into Kalispell to have an ultrasound. Sounds like she’s having a miscarriage. She said you don’t have to take her, but she wanted you to know.”