Caribou Crossing

by Susan Fox

  With relief, he listened to his mother-in-law say that they’d come to the hospital and her husband would take Jessica home to their place while Rose stayed with Miriam and Wade.

  He thanked her, then hurriedly threw off his pajamas and dragged on clothes. “I’ll get Jessie,” he told his wife. “Don’t go downstairs by yourself. Wait for me.” The baby might kick and Miriam might slip.

  He’d do everything in his power to look after his family. . . .

  Wade snapped out of his daydream as Rose returned to the room. He lifted his head from Miriam’s pillow and settled back in his chair as Rose reclaimed her own.

  He remembered his promise to himself that he’d do anything to look after his family. Well, he’d done a shitty job of it, hadn’t he?

  Anger—at circumstances, partly, but mostly at himself—burned through him, bringing him to his feet. Though he was exhausted, he had to move. To walk, to get out of this room, to . . . “Back in a few minutes,” he said gruffly, and strode out the door. He headed down the long corridor, toward the entrance to the hospital. Hell, he wanted to run, to open the door and head out into the snowy day. To escape.

  To return to the ranch and ride out into the snow, where the world was cold and pure and simple. Where nothing existed but the crunch of a horse’s hooves breaking the snow, the jingle of the bit, the creak of the saddle, his breath and the horse’s puffing out in clouds. It was damned hard to feel crappy when he was riding.

  But he deserved to feel crappy. And he couldn’t abandon Miriam. He loved her more than life itself. He had to be there when the going got tough, and right now it was about as tough as he could imagine.

  Just a few minutes to himself, though.

  When he reached the hospital door, he opened it and stepped outside. Clad in only a flannel shirt and jeans, he was immediately chilled by air that was many degrees below freezing. But that icy bite was fresh and invigorating.

  He glanced past the plowed, slushy parking lot in the direction of the ranch. The hills east of town were clad in snowy blankets. Gaze fixed on the hills, ignoring everything else around him, he stood and breathed in and out, slowly. His nostrils and throat tingled with a sensation like burning, his lungs expanded, and a sense of calm filled him.

  Miriam was alive, and so was Jessie. Their family would return to Bly Ranch and they’d heal.

  He took one last bracing breath, squared his shoulders, then opened the door and returned to the heat, the noise, the smell of the hospital.

  Chapter 8

  The cocoon was thinning and Miriam struggled to hang on to it, to still her fluttering eyelashes and keep her eyes closed. Instinct told her that she was safe inside, that something bad waited for her if the cocoon dissolved. Yet her body had its own ideas, and her eyelids lifted of their own volition. Vision blurry, eyes sore, she blinked. Where was she?

  Her mom’s face sharpened into focus. “Hello, baby,” she said, and squeezed Miriam’s hand.

  “Mom?” Miriam gazed around, taking in her surroundings, and realization sank in bit by bit, in fierce jabs of agony. The contractions, the rush to the hospital, her doctor examining her. The sadness and pity in Dr. Mathews’s eyes when she said there was a serious problem with the baby.

  Miriam’s eyes filled and her voice quivered. “I lost the baby?” She didn’t really have to ask; the sense of an aching void inside her told her it was true.

  Her mom’s eyes squeezed shut for a moment, and when she opened them again they were glazed with moisture. “I’m afraid so.”

  “Why?” she asked plaintively, not bothering to wipe at the tears that streaked down her cheeks. “What did I do wrong?” She wanted her husband. Where was Wade? He should be here, holding her. How could she get through this without him?

  “Nothing. But there was a problem with the baby. You couldn’t have prevented it.”

  A nurse came in and checked the monitors. “Your doctor’s in the hospital, Mrs. Bly. I’ll let her know you’re awake and she’ll come see you as soon as she can.”

  When she left, Miriam turned back to her mom. “Where’s Wade?”

  “He just stepped out for a minute. He’s been here by your side.”

  Reassured, she returned to the one thing that most mattered. Trying to understand, she said, “But I was past the first trimester. You’re supposed to be safe then.”

  Her mother bit her lip. “Sometimes miscarriages happen later.”

  “My baby,” she sobbed. Her abdomen hurt, but the real pain was in her heart. “Was it a boy or a girl?”

  “A boy.”

  Two girls, two boys. That was what she and Wade wanted. All their dreams had been coming true and now they’d lost their son. A quick stab of anxiety made her ask, “Jessica? Is she all right?”

  “She’s fine. Your dad took her to school and he’ll pick her up this afternoon and take her to our house. Andie will baby-sit.”

  Reassured, Miriam said, “Thanks.” For the first time, she realized how tired and worn her mom looked, though the love and concern in her eyes touched Miriam’s broken heart. “I want to go home, Mom. I just want to go home.” Actually, she wanted to go to her parents’ house and have her mother look after her. But she wanted Wade there, too. “When can I leave the hospital?”

  “Not quite yet.” She seemed about to say something else when Wade stepped into the room.

  His eyes widened and he rushed to the bed. “You’re awake.”

  Miriam had seen him after he’d been up all night with ranch emergencies, but never had he looked so drained. When he took her hand, she gripped his fiercely. “We l-lost our son,” she wailed, fresh tears sheeting down her cheeks.

  He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. Rather than lift his head again, he rested it on the pillow next to hers. “I know, honey.” His voice was choked. Slowly, as if it took superhuman effort, he raised his head and glanced at her mother. “Have you . . . ?”

  She shook her head. “The nurse says her doctor’s coming.”

  “Okay.” He sank down in the chair on the other side of the bed, still holding Miriam’s hand. “You’re going to be all right. That’s the most important thing.”

  He didn’t think losing their son was important? But no, that was unfair. Of course he did. He was just trying to make her feel better. As if anything could.

  “I love you, Miriam,” he said. “Our love’s strong enough to get us through anything. Right?” His deep brown eyes looked wounded and pleading.

  Could they—could she—get through this? Women did. Miscarriage wasn’t all that uncommon. But she’d made it past the first trimester. She’d felt the baby move. “Right.” She hoped that saying it would make her believe it, but grief, pain, drugs had muddled her brain. Except for the one thing she was sure of. “I do love you, Wade.” She squeezed his hand, gently this time. “And our Jessica.” Then she turned to her mom. “And you and Dad, and my sisters and brother.” Right now, that love was the only thing holding her together.

  Darn it, she was an optimistic person who tried to see the bright side of life. She really would get through this and, somehow, life would get back to normal. There’d be another child. Not one to replace the little boy they’d lost, but a new, unique individual.

  Her mind could recite those facts, and one day, surely, her heart would believe them and start healing.

  Dr. Mathews, dressed in blue scrubs, walked into the room. She was so beautiful, with gorgeous red hair and emerald green eyes, she could have been a model. When Miriam had told her that, she’d laughed and said that as a toddler she’d plastered Band-Aids over her dolls’ imaginary wounds, and her fate was determined. She was a warm, caring doctor who always took the time to explain things and to listen to patients’ concerns.

  Now her green eyes were shadowed, and her face was strained as she touched Miriam’s shoulder. “How are you feeling, Miriam?”

  “Sad. And sore. I want to go home.”

  “I’m sure you do, and we’ll get yo
u there as soon as we can.” Her gaze shifted to Miriam’s mom, the doctor’s raised brows conveying a question.

  Miriam’s mom shook her head, her throat moved as she swallowed hard, and tears seeped from her swollen eyes.

  The doctor nodded. She pulled up another chair, beside Wade’s.

  “What went wrong?” Miriam asked. “Was it something I did?”

  “No, not at all. These things happen. You couldn’t have prevented the miscarriage.”

  The words confirmed what Miriam’s mom had said, but how could she not feel guilty? She’d carried this child, and she’d lost it. “If I’d called you earlier?”

  “The baby had problems. He wouldn’t have made it, no matter what you did. I’m so sorry.”

  More tears slipped down. So sorry. They were all so sorry. And none of that “sorry” could save her little boy.

  Dr. Mathews began to describe what had happened, but Miriam couldn’t take it in, or maybe she just didn’t want to. Perhaps one day she’d want to understand, but for now, only one thing mattered: Her baby was dead.

  The doctor was talking about the surgery they’d done, and Miriam’s brain slowly grasped that something had gone wrong. “You had a rare condition called placenta percreta,” the doctor said. “The placenta had penetrated the uterine wall and attached to your bladder.”

  Miriam’s brain couldn’t make much sense of this. It didn’t sound good, though. Her insides were messed up. Not just her insides, but her reproductive organs.

  She was vaguely aware of both Wade and her mom gripping her hands tightly, but she focused on Dr. Mathews’s face.

  The doctor leaned forward, her expression sympathetic, and again rested a hand on Miriam’s shoulder. “It’s a serious condition, Miriam. And during surgery, the placenta ruptured. There was a hemorrhage and”—she stopped, took a breath, then went on—“we had to do a hysterectomy. I’m so very sorry.”

  Miriam’s breath caught in her throat. Hysterectomy? Women with uterine or cervical cancer had hysterectomies. A hysterectomy meant that they took out . . . No. No, it wasn’t possible.

  Wade made a choked sound and there was a rushing in Miriam’s ears like busy traffic on a wet highway, almost drowning out the doctor’s next words.

  “You won’t be able to get pregnant again.”

  And then, mercifully, Miriam’s world went black.

  Chapter 9

  Late April 1995

  It hit Wade out of the blue every now and then. He’d be focused on work, and suddenly there it would be. The pain.

  Today, he’d been on the move since dawn. The cows were starting to calve, so he rode around regularly, checking for problems. The older cows usually gave birth easily, but complications could always arise, and he kept an eye on the heifers—the first-timers. When they were close to their time, he moved them to the small maternity pasture close to the ranch house, where he could check them every few hours, day and night.

  When he’d ridden Romany, a sturdy bay gelding, along a section by the creek, he saw that the previous night’s windstorm had brought down a dead cottonwood, the top of it damaging the fence. He’d had to ride back to fetch the small chainsaw so he could get the tree off the fence. One day, when he found time, he’d buck up the cottonwood and cart it back to chop for firewood, but now the urgent priority was mending the fence.

  He tackled the task with practiced motions. Just part of a normal day’s work. And the thought came: My son will never do this with me. It was like a punch in the gut. He gripped the fence post with one gloved hand as he doubled over in pain.

  A few minutes later, glad no one was there to see, he slowly straightened and stared around him. Snow clung persistently in shady patches, but the rangeland was mostly clear now, the yellowed grass welcoming the pale spring sun. The cattle had come through the winter well, and he took an owner’s pride in surveying the sturdy animals dotting the landscape, especially the dozen new calves. But the panoramic view, so familiar and always so pleasing to his eye, brought another reality home to him.

  While he grieved the loss of his and Miriam’s tiny boy, there was a bigger picture on top of that. There’d be no more kids to share his soul-deep love for this breathtaking, demanding land. No more kids to tuck in at night, to teach to ride, to nag to do their homework, to have snowball fights with.

  No Bly to take over the ranch, not unless Jessie suddenly switched loyalty from horses to cattle, and he didn’t see that happening.

  He and Miriam could adopt, he reminded himself. Maybe, at some point. Right now, that was beyond imagining. For him, and, he was dead certain, for her.

  If only he’d paid attention to the signs and taken her to the doctor when she first started feeling achy, maybe she wouldn’t have needed a hysterectomy. If only he’d protected his wife.

  Sucking in a breath, he realized the air had chilled off. The sun was dropping toward the horizon. Quickly, he finished repairing the fence, then put the chainsaw and tools into saddle panniers, tightened Romany’s cinch, and mounted up. As he made a final inventory of the cattle in the fading light, he wished he had a dog to help, and for company. What was a ranch without a dog? But his parents had taken good old Shep, the ten-year-old Border Collie, to Phoenix. Wade had figured on getting another dog this year, and knew Jessie’d love it, but he wasn’t sure Miriam was up to it.

  Normally a healthy woman, she’d been slow to recover from the surgery. She just didn’t seem to care. Not about her health; not about getting back to normal life. Wade might’ve liked to share his grief with her, but she couldn’t even talk about the baby without crying. Hell, she couldn’t get through the day without crying. Anything would set her off.

  Thank God for Rose. For the first couple of weeks, she’d taken leave from her job as a high school teacher to care for her daughter, and since then she’d come out every day after school.

  Wade tried to help, but he felt like a bull in a china shop, tiptoeing around his wife and always seeming to do or say the wrong thing. So he focused on work, and there was plenty of that to do.

  Dr. Mathews said emotional healing took time. He and Miriam were both strong people, and they’d get through this.

  He didn’t identify any heifers that needed to be brought to the maternity pasture, so it looked like he stood a chance of getting a decent night’s sleep. Yawning, he rode into the barnyard at dusk, but the sight of his mother-in-law’s car woke him up in a hurry. Usually, she picked Jessie up after school, bought groceries, did a little housework, got dinner going, then headed home in the late afternoon. Anxiety filled him. Had something happened to Miriam?

  Quickly looping Romany’s reins over a hitching post, he rushed to the back door and into the mudroom, then flung open the door to the kitchen. Rose was slicing carrots at the kitchen counter. Jessie sat at the kitchen table, a schoolbook in front of her. The scent of tuna casserole—a childhood favorite of Miriam’s—filled the air. Things seemed normal. He took a breath, let it out, then said, “Hi, Rose. I thought you’d have left.”

  She turned to him. “I wanted to talk to you before I go.” A slight frown. “You still have your coat and boots on. Do you have to go back out?”

  “Only to get my horse settled. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  As he went to deal with Romany, he wondered what Rose wanted to talk about. Sure hoped she wasn’t going to say she couldn’t help out anymore.

  Ten minutes later, he was back at the house, shedding his heavy outerwear in the mudroom. This time, when he opened the kitchen door, Rose was seated at the table with Jessie.

  Wade walked in sockfooted, rested a hand on his mother-in-law’s shoulder for a moment, then bent to kiss the top of his daughter’s head. “Hey, Jessie-girl.”

  “Hey, Pa. Any new calves today?” She might not be as keen on cattle as on horses, but she loved baby animals of any kind.

  Rose said, “You and your pa can talk ranching later. Right now, I need him for a few minutes. Would you go up and tell y
our mom that dinner will be ready in half an hour? Then you can read a book until it’s time to eat.”

  When she’d gone, Wade sat down across from Rose. “Is Miriam okay?”

  Rose frowned. “She picks at the lunches I leave, and half the time she’s not even dressed when I get here. I hate to see her like this.”

  “Me, too.”

  She tilted her head, and blue-gray eyes very like his wife’s studied him. “How are you doing, Wade?”

  What could he say? If he’d been a little boy and she’d been his mom, he’d have broken down in tears. She’d have hugged him and fixed whatever problem was bothering him. But he was an adult. His mom was in Phoenix, and when he talked to his folks on the phone he tried to be upbeat rather than worry them.

  He shrugged. “It’s hard.” Knowing this was tough on Rose, too, he asked, “How about you?”

  She nodded. “Like you said, it’s hard. Hard losing the baby, and hard seeing my own child this way.”

  “But we have to carry on.” Gruffly, he added, “Can’t tell you how grateful I am for the way you’ve been here for us.” It pained him that they needed that help. He should be able to look after his wife and child.

  “I’d do anything for Miriam and her family.”

  He saw the sincerity in her eyes. “I know you’re hurting, too,” he said softly. “I wish there was something I could do.”

  Rose shook her head, looking tired and sad. “It’ll just take time. For all of us. And that’s sort of what I wanted to talk to you about.” Her shoulders lifted and fell as she took a deep breath, then let it out. “You know that Henry’s the manager at the bank.”

  “Yeah, of course. Has been since he was promoted . . . when was that anyhow? Four or five years ago?”