Perfect Timing

by Catherine Anderson

  “Yer words that ye say. ‘I love you.’ I ken that they mean much to ye. Tonight, right afore I bumped ye and ye cut yerself, ye looked sore disappointed because I dinna say them back.”

  Right then, the last thing Quincy cared about was hearing those words. Hell, if Ceara didn’t have that depth of feeling for him, he loved her enough to make up for it. And he’d spend the rest of his life making her happy. Please, God, let her live so I can do that, and please protect our baby. It’ll break Ceara’s heart if our little girl dies, and it’ll break mine, too.

  “’Tis na the way of it to home,” she pushed out, her voice barely reaching him over the roar of the truck engine. “We say it with different words, ye ken.”

  Quincy thought of all the times he’d squirmed when she’d tried to tell him of her feelings for him, using her different words. The sight of ye fills me heart with joy. Or, When ye enter a room, me heart warms. She’d been describing her feelings all those times, now that he thought about it, and he’d been foolish enough to make light of that and want the pat phrase everyone in his time spouted: I love you. God help him, when he considered it, he knew that Ceara’s way of expressing love was probably a lot more sincere. She never took the easy way out by saying three simple, overused words. Instead, she dug deep and tried to convey precisely how he made her feel. If there was a Ditz of the Year award, he deserved the crown, the unrivaled king of dumb. Suddenly the beam of his headlights blurred on the asphalt, and he could barely see the center line.

  He felt rather than heard her tense up again. Shit. His gaze shot to the clock. Only four minutes had passed since the last pain.

  “I . . . love . . . you!” she screamed at the peak of the agony. And then, on the downside wave, she repeated the words between pants. “I”—grunt, pant—“love”—pant, pant—“you.”

  Well, shit, now he couldn’t see the frigging road for sure. He even felt his mouth jerk and spasm as he battled emotion to regain control. “No!” he yelled back. God, hearing her parrot the words half killed him. She never said you. She nearly always said ye. To her, it was like one of his crazy sayings. Right as rain. Fine as a hair on a frog’s back. Nonsensical expressions to her that she’d picked up. She probably had no clue what they meant. She said them only in an attempt to fit into his world.

  And now she was saying I love you, which clearly meant little in her time. Hell, Quincy bet that more than half his country’s population said those words thoughtlessly, and seventy-five percent of those probably didn’t even mean them. He gulped, blinked to clear his vision, and said in a more normal voice, pitched just loud enough for her to hear, “Tell me your way, sweetheart. How I make your toes tingle. How I make your heart do a happy jig. How, when I walk into a room, you feel warm all the way through. My words—hell, they’re kind of like fake crystal balls. When I say them, I mean them from the very bottom of my heart. Please, please believe that, but to you, they are just words. Right? And I’m sorry I’ve never dug deep, like you do, to tell you how much I love you in other ways.”

  Just then he saw cop lights flashing up ahead and realized the patrol car he’d requested was waiting beside the road. Sentiment had to be put on hold. He started flashing his headlights and pounding on his horn to alert the officer. “Thank Christ! There’s our escort!” he called over his shoulder, flashing the lights again. To his immense relief, the state boy got the message. The police vehicle spun out on the graveled shoulder of the road, fishtailed when the tires caught hold on the asphalt, and then straightened in the lane. Quincy floored his accelerator to catch up and ride the trooper’s back bumper. He clenched his teeth in frustration when his speedometer needle hovered around ninety. Bastard. That damned cop’s wife wasn’t in the backseat, having contractions every—

  “Ach, God’s teeth!”

  Quincy glanced at the clock. Every three minutes. Holy hell. He’d never paid much attention to the hen chatter about Loni’s labor pains, but for some reason ten minutes stuck in his brain. He saw city lights and sent up a disjointed prayer of thanks to his Maker. Was the baby coming now? Quincy didn’t know. He’d delivered or helped deliver nearly a hundred foals, and he didn’t frigging know anything about human birth. How did that equate?

  The cop decreased speed to fifty in town, yet another frustration for Quincy. When, quicker than a blink, Ceara screamed again, Quincy said, “Son of a frigging bitch!” Then he shoved his foot down hard on the accelerator, swerved out into the oncoming lane to go past the police car, hit the flashers, pressed his hand to the horn, kept it there, and hit eighty, slowing to fifty only when he cut a sharp right onto the street that led to the hospital. At any other time, his mental calculator would have been going at warp speed, tallying the cost of the ticket he’d get, but moving violations be damned. He wouldn’t let Ceara deliver on the backseat with her body cocooned in a thick comforter. Their little girl would never have a prayer of survival.

  The cop turned on his siren and sped up to stay on Quincy’s ass. “Well, asshole, if you think I’m pulling over, you’ve got another think coming,” he said.

  “Quincy!” Ceara cried shrilly. “Ach, Holy Mother, help me. I canna hold her back. She’s coming!” With an elongated moan and then an equally dragged-out grunt, Ceara yelled, “’Tis done! Sweet Mother, help us. She’s here, Quincy. I feel her between me legs.”

  Quincy darted his Ford into the ambulance lane, slammed on the brakes under the portico, shoved the damned rig into park, and literally spilled out of the truck, stumbling, scrambling at a foot-and-knee sprint around the front of the vehicle like a clumsy runner pushing off from the starting line, regaining his balance as he opened the rear door, and jerking the thick, smothering comforter off his wife. Sure as shit, she’d delivered on the bench seat. Only their bloody, mucus-smeared baby wasn’t anywhere close to being as big as Quincy’s hand, and she looked deader than a doornail, not moving, not crying, not breathing, for Christ’s sake.

  Black spots swam in front of him. Bursts of light went off, like dud fireworks in the gravel on the Fourth of July, little flashes and then a fizzle. Somebody shoved him out of the way, and he staggered, grabbing hold of his truck bed to keep from dropping to his knees. In a daze, he watched ER personnel grab the baby, slash the umbilical cord, and race back into the building, while two male attendants tied off the cord, and then shoved a thick plastic board inside the vehicle, one hopping inside, Quincy guessed to get the flat under Ceara. A moment later they pulled her out. He saw blood and other fluid all over her thighs and gown. The next thing he knew, his wife was being expertly transferred onto a waiting gurney and rushed back into the building.

  Quincy staggered, forced some strength back into his noodlelike leg bones, and raced after his wife. Only problem was, he felt as if he were running against a headwind. Not going anywhere. Was there glue on the soles of his boots? The ER doors loomed in front of him, a barrier he had to get past. He turned a shoulder to push them open, but the damned things were automatic. He rammed into empty air and entered the ER in a baseball slide for home, his cheek rub-a-dubbing on the tile until he came to a stop.

  Shit. Now lighted sparklers were swirling madly in his brain, as if held by little kids who were wagging them wildly in the air and turning in dizzying circles to make trails of brightness in the dark. Quincy well remembered doing that, dancing around Sam, who still needed their dad to hold her hand and help twirl the stick.

  “Mr. Harrigan?”

  Quincy felt a feminine hand grasp his shoulder. He blinked, trying to see.

  “Mr. Harrigan, are you injured? Are you all right?”

  Hell, no, he wasn’t all right. His baby girl had just been stillborn, and his wife might be dying.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Quincy staggered woozily to his feet. One side of his head hurt like a son of a bitch, and bright spots still danced before his eyes. Placing his feet wide apart, he shook like a dog shedding water in an attempt to regain his senses. He didn’t know if he’d struck
his temple and, bottom line, he didn’t give a shit. He’d live through it. He couldn’t say the same for Ceara.

  He strode in a zigzagging line to a little admittance window to the right and leaned over the shoulder of an old, frail gentleman who was yelling, “I don’t want medicine this time, damn you. I just want my fucking shoulder fixed! And I wanna see a real doctor, not some goddamned nurse practitioner!”

  Dimly, Quincy registered the gist of what the oldster was saying and could have told him nurse practitioners were every bit as good as doctors in most instances, but he didn’t have time to dole out advice. He focused on the plump lady inside the cubicle, a blonde dressed in a smock the color of merlot.

  “Where’d they take my wife? My name’s Quincy Harrigan, and I need to find her!”

  The woman’s green eyes snapped with irritation. “Sir, you are standing in the privacy zone. Please walk over to that little window at the other side of the hall, give them your information, and wait your turn to be called.”

  “Yeah,” the old man shouted, crimping his wrinkled neck to glare up at Quincy. “I been here for hours, asshole. You can’t just barge in and expect instant service.”

  Brains still joggled, Quincy blinked again, trying his damnedest to collect his thoughts and speak sanely. “Sorry, sir, but my baby girl just came in stillborn, and they’ve taken my wife somewhere. I need to find her, you know? She might be dying, too.”

  The old man—whom Quincy judged, even in a dazed state, to be a few fries short of a full order—stared up at Quincy for a long moment. He wore only his uppers, and his bottom lip sucked in over his toothless lower gums. He had faded blue eyes, a face with crisscrossing lines deep enough to pass for tire ruts at a monster-truck mud-slinging contest, and a huge sore on the side of his nose that was probably a stage-four melanoma.

  “Your baby girl is dead?”

  The question ran a knife straight through Quincy’s heart. His throat convulsed. His already unclear vision blurred even more with tears. “Yep, pretty sure. My wife delivered premature on the backseat of my truck. I”—Quincy gulped—“couldn’t get them here quick enough.”

  The old guy rounded on the admittance secretary. “Jesus help us all. You people run us through this joint like we’re steers going to slaughter!”

  “Now, Randall, let’s not get excited,” the woman said. “You need to stay here this time so we can help you.”

  “Yeah, right. Send me home with pain pills that make me so dizzy I fall again!” Randall brought his liver-spotted fist down on the admittance counter. “Did you hear what the man just said? What’s wrong with you, telling him to step back out of the privacy zone? You can take that stupid tape line on the carpet and shove it where it’ll never again see daylight.”

  Frantic as he was, Quincy noted that the woman’s attitude suggested she’d heard all of this before, often. Her tone was patient, much like a kindergarten teacher’s. “Randy.”

  “Don’t you Randy me! I’m not a four-year-old. Find out where this poor sap’s wife is, and do it right now, or I’m calling the cops.”

  Quincy had a bad feeling that wouldn’t be necessary. He’d blown that state trooper’s doors off, and he guessed he’d soon be facing charges of some kind.

  “Please, ma’am,” he said to the woman, relieved that his head was starting to clear. “I’m not here to get admitted. My wife is here somewhere. My name is Quincy Harrigan. All I want is to find her.”

  The woman passed a hand over her frizzy blond hair. “It’s gotta be a full moon. Never gets this crazy otherwise.” She punched a phone button—Quincy guessed it connected her to the ER over the headset she wore—and hummed the tune of the Beatles’ famous hit “Yesterday,” tapping her fingers on the desk as she waited to connect. Quincy wished with all his heart that it were yesterday so he could relive every moment up to the present with the knowledge he had now. “Yeah, I got a guy out here named Quincy Harrigan whose wife was just brought in. Says his baby girl was DOA, stillbirth.” She listened a moment, then nodded. Glancing up at Quincy, she said, “Someone will be right out. Now will you please step behind the privacy line?”

  Quincy put his boots into reverse, mission accomplished. Randall nodded and grinned at him. Then he doubled a fist and jabbed at the air. “You’ve got my prayers, boy. I’m real sorry about your baby girl, but if your wife is okay, you’ll have others.” His faded eyes went bright with tears. “Me and Gladys lost one. Just about killed us at the time, but in the end, we had eight. All healthy as goats in a rich man’s garden and clamoring for more food. Three boys, five girls.”

  Quincy wondered where the hell all those kids were now. A burst of anger shot through him. “Randall, what’s your last name? I wanna look you up after this all settles and take you out for a whiskey.”

  “Whitmeyer! And damned proud of it.”

  The old man turned back to continue his argumentative and loud exchange with the plump blonde with frizzy hair. Quincy dipped his chin and stared at the white tape on the carpet right in front of the toes of his boots. Privacy line. He kind of got Randall Whitmeyer’s rage, because right then, nothing would have felt better to Quincy than shoving his fist through a wall.

  Just then a tall blond guy emerged from the bowels of the ER treatment facility and walked toward Quincy. “Mr. Harrigan? If you’ll follow me, you can be with your wife. Dr. Stevenson is here. She’s with your baby. Mrs. Harrigan is receiving treatment right now, and she’ll be moved to the maternity ward soon.”

  Quincy’s heart did a squeeze, as if a huge fist had closed over an orange to drain it of juice. “Stevenson is with our baby?” He was afraid to believe their little girl was still alive. “Why? I mean, she looked dead, so why?”

  “Your baby isn’t dead. She’s just . . .” The orderly took a deep breath and lifted his bony shoulders, making his blue scrub top shift over his torso. “It’s not really my place to give you details about her condition, sir. But I can say she is alive.”

  Quincy put a hand against the wall. “Sorry, I need a second.”

  “Hey, man, I get it. You drove them in. Must have been one hell of a ride.” The fellow clapped Quincy on the back. “But, hey, you did good. You got both of them here in the nick of time.”

  Quincy straightened and trailed behind the fellow to the ER doors, which opened only by a punch code. Then he was following the orderly—or was he a nurse?—down corridors with curtained cubicles, all of which branched off from the ER main desk, where doctors, nurses, and assistants bustled, checking charts, talking on phones, and rushing away. Randall had it all wrong, Quincy thought. These people here were doing the best job they could. He just prayed they had magic in their fingertips to save his wife and baby.

  Ceara was in cubicle forty-six, and when Quincy pushed through the curtain, he found his wife lying on a bed with nurses working over her, hooking her up to an IV, putting sticky disks at strategic points on her torso to monitor her heart, and fastening an automatic blood pressure cuff around her arm. Ceara lay flat, her face nearly as pale as the white sheets. He saw that her eyes were squeezed closed and tears trailed from their corners into her wildly curly red hair.

  One nurse, a thin brunette, glanced up. “Mr. Harrigan?”

  Quincy nodded.

  “We’re moving your wife upstairs to the maternity ward in just a moment. Dr. Stevenson wants to oversee her care up there. You can take a seat just outside and follow us if you like.”

  “I’d like.” A whole team of draft horses couldn’t have kept Quincy away from his sweet Irish rose.

  “Quincy?” Ceara’s eyes flew open at the sound of his voice. When she saw him at the foot of the bed, she tried to reach for him, but the nurse trying to anchor an IV stent to her arm grabbed her wrist and held it down. “Our baby. She is dead, and ’tis all me fault!”

  “She isn’t dead. She’s a fighter, just like her mother,” Quincy said quickly. “Dr. Stevenson is with her right now.”

  Ceara’s haunted gaz
e clung to his. “Truly? Ye wouldna lie?”

  “Of course I wouldn’t,” Quincy assured her, “and what happened isn’t your fault, sweetheart. Don’t be thinking that way.”

  A nurse on the left, also a brunette but chunky of build, said, “You see? I told you the baby isn’t dead. Dr. Stevenson is upstairs doing everything she can to save her. She’s a great doctor, so your little girl is in the best of hands.”

  “’Tis me fault,” Ceara said again. “I used me healing power. I should ne’er ha done that.”

  A petite blonde kicked off the bed brakes, and nurses on both sides of the bed jerked up the rails and locked them into position. Quincy backed out of the cubicle, frightened by the attendants’ urgency in getting Ceara moved. He stood helplessly out of the way as his wife was wheeled from the cubicle, one nurse pushing, two others keeping pace with the IV tripod and the monitor.

  The little blonde, who carried only a chart and a tray of blood samples, gestured to Quincy. “You can go up with us in the elevator. It might be a squeeze, but we can all fit.”

  “Thanks.” Quincy hurried to get abreast of her. “How is my wife?”

  Speaking softly so as not to be overheard, the nurse said, “Well, her vital signs are jumping all over the chart right now, but that’s probably due as much to her emotional state as it is to the physical trauma. Either way, Dr. Stevenson wants her moved upstairs for more specialized care.” She flashed Quincy a reassuring smile. “It’s very upsetting to a woman when she delivers prematurely, and your wife is understandably frantic with worry about the baby.” She winked conspiratorially. “She’s said some pretty weird things. The doctor will most likely give her a sedative to calm her down. That’s about all I’ve got for you. Sorry. Dr. Stevenson has ordered several blood workups.” She nodded toward the tray filled with vials. “And once we’re upstairs, the PA will do a full exam and perform any after-delivery procedures necessary, and Dr. Stevenson will update you as soon as she has a moment to talk.”