He came into the room zipping his jeans. “Lie down,” he said taking her arm.
“I have a cramp in my foot.” She was crying.
“I’ll rub it. Lie down.” He eased her onto her side and took her foot in his lap. He began working the cramp out, inch by inch, and she felt the muscles unwind.
“There’s something wrong with my eyes,” she said. “And my head’s going to explode.”
He got up without a word and returned with the blood pressure cuff. He put the stethoscope in place and listened without looking at her.
“I’m taking you to Blair,” he said, gently pulling the cuff from her arm. “Do you have some things packed?”
She shook her head guiltily. She’d forgotten his request to be ready for something like this.
“Someone can bring things over for you. Come as you are.” He tugged the hem of the baggy extra-large T-shirt she was wearing. “Don’t bother getting dressed. You’d just have to get undressed once we got there.”
They put her in a labor room by herself and turned the lights down low. They strapped thick folds of towels to the rails of her bed. It was as if they were creating the softest atmosphere they could for her. But it was only an illusion.
They drew her blood, stabbing her arm a few times before they found the vein. It had disappeared. Like Cole. He was around somewhere, obviously responsible for all that was happening to her, but she hadn’t seen him in hours.
They inserted a catheter in her bladder, linking her to the plastic bag on the side of the bed. They checked her reflexes, frowning at the way her body twitched and jerked, out of her control. An IV line ran into her arm, into the one willing vein they could find. A monitor was strapped around her belly, hooked up to a machine that let her hear her baby’s heartbeat. It was a wonderful sound, but she couldn’t relax, afraid that at any moment it might stop.
Cole walked in around six. He sat in the chair at the side of her bed, annoyingly calm. “Well.” He smiled. “Let’s see what we can do for you here.”
“Where have you been?” she asked, hoping she didn’t sound as upset as she felt.
“I checked on a couple of other patients, ordered some tests for you. Had a cup of coffee to wake myself up.”
“It’s been hours, though, I thought you’d gone home. Just left me here.” Don’t cry, she told herself. You’re a grown woman.
He frowned and leaned toward her. “Kit, we got here at five. It’s now a few minutes after six.”
One hour? “I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess I lost track of the time. If you have to leave, will you please tell me?”
“Of course.” He stood up. “You’ll be on much stricter bed rest here. I don’t want you up for anything. The goal is to keep your baby inside you for as long as we can without endangering your health, and the good news is that he or she seems to be doing well. So for now we have to wait and see.”
There was nothing to look at in this room. No window. Empty white walls cloaked in shadow. She had a right to be confused about the time. There was no way to measure it. She thought of her watch on her dresser at the house and longed for her room, probably sun-soaked by now, and for the never-ending hum of the ocean. What if she never saw the house again?
“Come on, now,” the older nurse with the glasses told her when she noticed her tears. “You’re making a big fuss over nothing.”
“I think the monitor sounds different than it did before.” The heartbeat was very faint. “Is my baby all right?”
The nurse didn’t even glance at the monitor. “Your mind can play tricks on you,” she said. “Everything’s just fine.”
She was positive it sounded different. There’d been nothing to concentrate on but that sound ever since she’d been in the room. She wanted to ask the nurse to look at the screen and its little green lines, but she said nothing. She couldn’t afford to have them annoyed with her.
She was certain they already were. She asked too many questions, she was too fearful, she pushed the call button too much. Their smiles were practiced and patronizing. When they walked out of her room, she thought she could hear them in the hall whispering about her. Complaining. A couple of spots in front of her eyes and she thinks we should drop everything and hold her hand.
There was no phone in the labor room. She wanted to call Cole’s office to find out when he’d be in to see her. It had been so long.
The nurse with the glasses came in again to check the blood pressure cuff that was now permanently attached to her arm.
“Do you think Dr. Perelle will be in soon?” Kit asked timidly.
“You’re not his only patient, you know.”
She felt a flash of anger, but it was overshadowed by her fear. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not too good at this.”
“At what?”
“At being a patient. I’m not used to it.”
The nurse laughed. “You’re doing fine, dear. But it doesn’t help to worry about things. Only makes it worse.”
Cole made it very clear that she was not his only patient. He came in just before noon, still dressed in his scrubs from the morning’s c-section. There was a sickening blotch of blood on the blue pants. It was a complicated surgery, he said, trying to account for his long absence. Now his office was backed up, the waiting room overflowing.
And was everything okay with her? Good, fine. He’d see her later.
At noon she had a new nurse. Alison Peters. Young enough to make her feel too old to be having a baby. Bright and quick. She touched everything. The buttons on the monitor. The band around her belly. Inspected everything with intelligent eyes. Kit watched her silently through hazy vision. She would not speak, would not alienate this one.
Alison finished her work and sat on the edge of Kit’s bed. She smiled and squeezed her arm. “Must be scary,” she said, “locked in here with a bunch of machines.”
Kit started to cry and Alison took her hand.
“Do you understand everything that’s going on?” she asked.
“Is the baby all right? I thought the monitor sounded different.”
“The sound changes as your baby moves around,” Alison said. “It’s harder for the ultrasound to pick up the heartbeat if your baby moves out of its range. That doesn’t mean the heart’s not still strong and healthy.”
“Oh,” Kit said. That made perfect sense. “Do you think the baby could survive if I had it now?”
“The Intensive Care Nursery has a lot of experience with premature babies. There’s a very good chance that your baby could do quite well.” Alison handed her a tissue. “Would you like a back rub while we talk?”
“I’d love that,” she said. She could keep this woman with her, right next to her. “But don’t you have other patients you need to get to?”
“No.” Alison began to untie the back of Kit’s gown. “You’re my only patient. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me.”
Cole came in at three. He looked tired. “Rennie’s in the hall,” he said. “She’s on her way home from summer school and asked if she could stop in to see you. Is that okay?”
“Absolutely!” It would be wonderful to see anyone from home.
“I’ll tell her to keep it short,” Cole said, opening her door.
Rennie stood at the end of the bed, biting her lip.
“It’s sweet of you to stop in, Rennie,” Kit said.
“What’s the matter with your face?” Rennie asked.
She touched her cheek. “I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it.” She looked at Cole.
“Her face is just a little swollen,” he said to Rennie.
She had to find a mirror. She’d had no idea.
“Are you going to have the baby now?”
“I don’t know.” She looked at Cole again. He shrugged.
“If you don’t have the baby today, can you come home?” Rennie turned to Cole. “Could she?”
“I think we’d better keep her here for a while, Rennie,” he said.
She waited until the door had completely closed behind Rennie before she spoke. “I’d like the mirror out of my purse, please.”
He looked at her for a moment as if deciding how to answer. “There’s a mirror inside the top of your tray table,” he said, rolling it closer to her.
She hesitated, her hand on the top.
“You don’t look that bad,” he said.
She opened the top and caught her breath. Her cheeks looked as if she’d had all her teeth pulled at once. And her eyes. The lids were puffy white sausages that hid her lashes. “I had no idea I looked like this,” she said, closing the top.
He sat down on the chair next to her bed. “Let’s talk,” he said.
“I don’t want any more visitors.” No one should see her like this. Her coworkers from the PR office were planning on coming down that afternoon. “I don’t want to see anyone,” she said.
“Don’t worry. The nurses know not to let anyone in. I thought a minute or two with Rennie wouldn’t hurt, but I guess I was wrong.”
“No, that was okay.” She gently touched her fingertips to her eyelids. They were ready to burst. She gritted her teeth together to keep from crying.
“Your pressure’s gone up a little higher,” Cole said. “I’m putting you on magnesium sulfate to ward off . . . any problems. If things don’t improve, you’ll have to deliver.”
“Now? You said yourself it’s too early.”
“There comes a point when you . . . when I have to decide if your baby would be better off in the Intensive Care Nursery than inside of you.”
For the first time it hit her. Her baby was in real trouble. “Cole?”
“Yes?”
“If I’d been more obedient about taking it easy, would I be lying here right now?”
“I don’t think it would have made any difference. And there’s no point to thinking that way, anyhow, so no guilt trips. Okay?”
“I can tell you your baby’s sex, if you’d like to know.” He was watching the ultrasound image on the screen.
“Oh, yes.”
“You have a daughter.”
“What?” She needed to hear him say it again.
“A daughter. A girl-child. My goddaughter, remember her?”
She looked at the image on the screen. “Alison,” she said.
He looked surprised. “Alison?”
“I just like it.”
“Alison as in Alison Peters?” He hadn’t lost that stunned look.
“She’s been wonderful.” The one human touch in a room full of plastic and machines.
“A little impulsive, don’t you think? You know someone for a couple of hours and name your baby after her?”
“It’s a good name, Cole.” It was perfect. Alison was as real to her as if she were already lying in her arms.
40.
He could tell by Cheryl’s face that his problems had gotten worse overnight. She handed him the computer sheet with the latest lab results and sat down in the chair by his desk, putting her feet up on the other chair. He felt her blue eyes on him as she waited for him to react.
He studied the sheet for a long time, as if he could change the numbers by concentrating. “Well,” he said, “I guess inducing labor would be just short of infanticide.”
Cheryl looked calmer than he felt. “If her pressure goes any higher, you’ll have to choose between that and matricide.”
She was only half joking, maybe not joking at all. He hated these decisions about any patient. That it was Kit terrified him. His judgment was clouding over.
“The nurses are getting nervous, Cole. They’re afraid she’s going to seize.”
She was thinking he’d waited too long to start the mag sulfate. He wondered about that himself.
“Cheryl”—he leaned across his desk toward her—“I don’t want to deliver her until I have no other choice.”
“I don’t understand what you’re waiting for.”
This was what he usually loved best about Cheryl—the way she’d stand up to him, make him think. But right now it irritated him.
“You seem to be thinking only of Kit,” he said.
“And you’re thinking only of the baby.”
Was it his imagination or was Cheryl giving him dirty looks in his office examining room? He hoped his patients couldn’t pick up the tension between them. The nurses on the unit were grumbling about him. That he knew for certain. Cheryl was keeping it no secret. Maybe they were right. Maybe he was overcompensating for his tie to Kit. He wished he could extricate himself from the whole mess. He could stand off in a corner and with complete objectivity say, this is what should be done.
“My head is killing me.”
He lowered the railing and sat on the edge of Kit’s bed. “I’ll get you something for it,” he said.
“How am I doing otherwise?”
He shook his head. “Not so good. I’ve decided to induce you.” He’d made up his mind at lunch. He’d done all he could for that baby. She was on her own now.
Kit looked at the ceiling. Her eyelids were so swollen that he couldn’t have guessed the color of her eyes.
“I’m worried that Alison won’t make it.” She looked at him and he guessed she was hoping for reassurance.
“She’s doing surprisingly well inside you,” he said. “That’s why I’m hesitant to induce. But since you’re—”
“What if I said no? What would happen?”
“Convulsions are a strong possibility.” He didn’t mention stroke or coma. See if convulsions would be enough for her.
She sighed. “Oh, shit.”
“And your baby will run into problems getting enough oxygen.”
She played with the wire to her call button. “My baby’s not even born and I’m already a lousy mother.”
“Don’t do that to yourself.”
She pulled a tissue from the box at her side and blew her nose. “So what happens now?”
“We’ll add some Pitocin to your IV to bring on your labor.” He should warn her that it might not work. “Your cervix isn’t very favorable for induction so you may not be able to deliver vaginally even with the Pitocin.”
She frowned. “A section?”
“It may be our only option.”
Her contractions didn’t start for nearly an hour, but when they did they were just what he had hoped for—hard and fast.
She was miserable. He felt sorry for her. She told him she felt trapped. He sat on her bed and smoothed the damp curls off her forehead. Every part of her body was hooked up to something. She was trapped.
“The pain is worse than I expected,” she said.
He nodded. “The anesthesiologist is on his way.” They would both be more comfortable when she had some pain relief.
“I’m sorry I’m such a shitty patient.”
He smiled. “You’re not.”
“Yes, I am. I’m a shitty patient and a shitty mother and a shi—” She gasped with the sudden grip of a contraction.
He watched the monitor. “Breathe through it, Kit,” he said. “Don’t hold your breath.”
She went limp as the contraction ended, tears rolling down the sides of her face and into her hair. “I’m not ready for this, Cole,” she said.
She was right, in more ways than one. Her cervix wasn’t performing, still thick and closed. He’d be amazed if this worked. “Listen”—he leaned closer to her ear—“I have to get back to the office. I’ll stop in between patients.”
She grabbed his sleeve. Her eyes asked him how he could leave her.
He looked at his watch. “It’s three o’clock,” he said. “My last patient’s at four-thirty, and then I’ll be all yours.” He squeezed her hand. “I’m just down the hall.”
He couldn’t concentrate on his patients, shouldn’t even charge them for their visits. He saw Kit between appointments. There was little change, except that each time he saw her she looked at him with more fear in her eyes, more awareness that the induction wasn’
t working.
He found Jay in the lounge. He poured his tenth cup of coffee of the day and sat next to him at the table. Jay watched him expectantly.
“Here’s the picture,” Cole said into his coffee cup. “She’s been having good contractions for a couple of hours, but her pressure’s still up and her cervix isn’t doing a thing.”
“If it were some other patient, what would you do?” Jay was whispering. There were other people in the lounge.
Cole took a swallow of coffee. It tasted like iodine. “It’s not some other patient,” he said.
Jay rested his hand on Cole’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Cole shut his eyes and felt his head spin. “I’m playing with fire here unless I do a section.”
“So section her.”
Was it that simple? He looked up at Jay. “Would you assist?” They rarely operated together anymore, but right now he wanted Jay with him.
“I was hoping you’d ask.”
There was chaos in the hallway by the labor rooms. One of the nurses grabbed his arm. “She’s seizing.”
It was like a scene from a horror movie. Kit’s arms and legs thrashed in spastic rhythm; saliva ran from the corner of her mouth.
“Start the Valium,” he said hoarsely.
Alison Peters was working with the IV tubing. “Already have,” she said without so much as a glance in his direction. An older nurse he didn’t know leaned over Kit, watching her body rock convulsively on the bed.
He should have started the mag sulfate sooner. Not that it would have been any guarantee.
“Give her a bolus of mag sulfate,” he said.
“Yes, Doctor,” said Alison.
He watched helplessly, gripping the metal arm rail of her bed. He tried not to think about what the seizure might be doing to her. To the baby.
Kit’s violent movements subsided and he felt his own body go limp. His knees were about to give out, but he had no time to waste. The gurney appeared, and he and Alison lifted Kit onto it and raced down the hall to the OR.
It was the quickest section he could ever remember doing. Even with Jay assisting—Jay who only performed c-sections these days when Cole asked him to—it was smooth sailing. They were perfectly matched today—Cole with the greater knowledge of the procedure. Jay with the calmer approach. They balanced each other. When they were finished and the pale, limp baby girl had been rushed off to the Intensive Care Nursery, it was all he could do to keep from telling Jay he loved him. It was the closest he’d ever come to getting those words out.
Secrets at the Beach House Page 23