“No,” Charleigh replied with a laugh. “After that, there’s a couple of bassinettes that need to be put together. The infant carriers need to be put in my Tahoe. A dual jogging stroller is in the closet that’s still in the box. Clothes and blankets need to be put away. And…” Ooh. Charleigh felt what she thought was a gas pain and stopped. Dang! She’d been having them all day long, and the cramps seemed to get a little worse every time.
But Charleigh just couldn’t seem to go to the bathroom. Constipation was one of the worst, if not the worst, consequences of being pregnant, in her honest opinion, and she told the guys so.
“Just be glad that you can’t get pregnant,” Charleigh said, heading for the door.
She was going to try one more time, and then she was going to take a shower and go to bed. Her very last weekly appointment with Doctor Emerson before the birth was early the next morning, and Charleigh wanted to sleep as long as possible.
“What do you think the nurses will say when they see me walk through the door with you in the morning?” Kent asked as he emptied the contents of one box onto the floor.
“Just make sure you take plenty of Sharpies, Superstar,” she replied with a laugh.
“Hey, Char, do you think I can have this bear when I go home tonight. I mean, he is my favorite driver,” Dillon joked, holding up the bear with a black and red fire suit replica and a backwards cap next to his face.
“No, I think Junior best stay here with me. He belongs to Caleb and Jacob,” she laughed harder, wiping tears away from her eyes. “Kent, keep an eye on this guy here to make sure that he doesn’t make off with any of my boys’ loot.”
“Will do.”
Charleigh took one more look around the room from the doorway. Oh yeah, she was anxious. Very, very anxious.
By this time next week, Charleigh hoped to be back home with her healthy little men sleeping in this room. Which she hoped would be finished if these guys stopped goofing off and got to work.
She yawned.
“Just go get in the shower. I’ll make sure that everything is put away before I head to bed. We have to be in Durant early in the morning,” Kent reminded.
“Aye, aye, Captain,” Charleigh laughed and saluted.
“Hey, don’t salute me. He’s the soldier.” Kent pointed at Keith.
“Yeah, and I’m a grunt. I actually work for a living, pretty-boy.”
Charleigh laughed as she headed down the hallway toward her own bedroom. She got halfway there and felt another pain. This one was bad enough to steal her breath away, and she stopped to lean against the wall for a moment.
The bubble dissipated just as quickly as it had formed, and Charleigh continued on her way.
She sat down on her toilet for five minutes while nothing happened yet again. Giving up, Charleigh took off her clothes and stepped into the shower. After turning on the water, she sat back, closed her eyes, and let the warm water cascade down over her face and chest.
The heat was beginning to relax Charleigh as she realized how tired she really was. She could probably fall asleep right there in the shower and stay there all night. The water was so nice and warm on her skin, it was like a blanket.
And just as she started to drift off, pain filled Charleigh’s body once more. It felt different this time, and her eyes flew open as her belly suddenly hardened beneath her palms.
Oh, Lord. Something was wrong, Charleigh realized. Could she be in labor, or was it simply Braxton Hicks? Obviously Charleigh wasn’t exactly sure because she’d never given birth before.
No, it couldn’t be false labor, because she’d read that Braxton Hicks were supposed to be painless. Ooh. These were definitely very painful.
Coming to the conclusion that she was in labor, Charleigh struggled to her feet. She needed to get help. Fast. Stuff could go very wrong if she didn’t get to the hospital.
Oh, Lord. Oh, no, Please. There was a puddle of blood-tinged water on the seat where Charleigh had just been.
Biting hard on her bottom lip, Charleigh tried to remind herself to breathe through the pain. It was easier said than done. Once the contraction was over, she pushed open the shower door and rushed to get her robe from where it hung on a hook on the back of the bathroom door.
Just as Charleigh reached that point, she was overcome by another contraction. It was as if her insides were being ripped out. She leaned her head against the door, and panted through the pain.
“Help me,” Charleigh tried to yell, coming through the doorway. It seemed to catch in her throat and came out only as a whisper.
“Help.” She tried again with no success.
Halfway across the bedroom, Charleigh was attacked once again. She stopped and gripped a post on the bed’s footboard for support. Her legs felt like limp noodles.
“Oh, God,” Charleigh whispered as a tear ran down her cheek.
Resting her head against the post until the cramp was over, she looked down to see tiny red streams snaking down both of her legs.
The previa. Her cervix was dilating and blood was draining from her placenta. Her worst fear was that she would bleed to death. That might very well happen if Charleigh didn’t make it down to the nursery where the guys were working.
Breathlessly, Charleigh began to move again. Her lungs were screaming for oxygen, but her brain wouldn’t allow her to stop. Every second mattered. It was literally a race for life or death.
It was only six steps from the bed to the doorway, but it felt like an eternity. Like she was moving slower than slow motion.
In the hallway, Charleigh tried to yell again, but nothing came out. It was as if her voice was being held captive. So with every step, Charleigh began to bang her fist against the wall. Even if she couldn’t call out to them, she was determined to get their attention in one way or another.
“What the…” Dillon said, coming out of the nursery. He saw Charleigh, pale as a sheet, standing a few feet away from her bedroom door. Blood was running down her legs. With his heart sinking, Dillon rushed to her.
“Help,” she whispered to the man as he scooped her up into his arms.
“It’s gonna be okay, sweetie,” he replied, carrying her back down the hallway. “You just hang on.”
As if Charleigh was weightless, Dillon brought her back into the nursery where the other four men were.
“Guys, I need one of you to call 911, and someone else needs to get us some towels.” He laid Charleigh down on the floor and immediately began to take her pulse.
The other four men stood stunned for only a single moment, and then immediately jumped into action.
Kent grabbed a cell phone out of his back pocket and began to dial for help. Kevin came over to see what he could do to help.
“I’ll get the towels,” Keith said, and ran from the room.
“Charleigh? Charleigh, can you talk to me?” Kevin looked into her eyes. “Can you tell me if anything hurts?”
She nodded slightly, feeling woozy. “I think… I think I’m in labor.”
“Okay,” Dillon said, “Good girl.”
Keith came back with white towels and handed them to Dillon, who began to unfold and spread them beneath Charleigh’s bottom.
Charleigh could hear Kent talking in the background but didn’t understand what he was saying. She looked up at the ceiling, which was beginning to look fuzzy.
“Don’t let anything happen to the babies,” Charleigh whispered to no one in particular just as a contraction wracked her body. She reached up and griped Cordell’s hand.
“No. Nothing is going to happen to you or those boys. Do you hear me?” Cordell declared firmly, choking back tears. “Where is that ambulance?”
Kent snapped his phone shut. “The dispatcher said they’re ten minutes out.”
Dillon and Kevin looked down at the towels and exchanged a look. They were drenched red.
“Forget the ambulance,” Kevin said. “Charleigh doesn’t have ten minutes. Get me more towels. We’ll take her to the
hospital ourselves.”
“Call her Uncle Josh, then,” Cord agreed, standing. “Her family needs to know, and he can get us an escort or something.”
Charleigh lost consciousness shortly after that. Kevin rode in the backseat of the Tahoe with her to keep an eye on her vitals. Her pulse rate was weak and breathing shallow. Kent drove no less than ninety miles per hour all the way, flashing caution lights and honking at every car that got in their way.
“It’s not gonna do her any good if you roll this thing,” Keith urged, gripping the armrest of the passenger seat. Kent said nothing.
Cordell and Dillon followed closely behind in Dillon’s Dodge Ram truck.
The Emergency Room was expecting them and all of Charleigh’s family had been notified that she was being rushed to the hospital.
“Pull through there,” Keith pointed out the ambulance entrance of MCSO.
By the time they arrived, Charleigh was still unconscious.
“Twenty-two year old female. Thirty-seven weeks pregnant with twin boys. Experienced complications with Placenta Previa late in the second trimester,” Kevin filled the ER nurses in on the specifics as they loaded Charleigh into a gurney.
An hour and a half passed, and they hadn’t heard anything. Charleigh’s family had filed into the ER Waiting Room. Madie and Lenore were there with Jenna. They had overtaken the area, and the receptionist finally had to ask them to move to the waiting room for the labor and delivery to make room for patients who were actually sick and hurt.
Cord sat in the far corner of the room with Dillon. Charleigh’s dried blood dotted Dillon’s shirt. He picked nervously at a sore on the elbow of his left arm.
For the most part, the group was silent. When someone did speak, it was only in hushed tones. A twenty-inch television was tuned into the ten o’clock news, but nobody paid attention to it. They were waiting for a bit of news of their own and couldn’t be bothered at the moment with everything else that was going on in the world.
At a quarter past eleven, Ronald Emerson finally appeared in the doorway. He wore a pair of blue hospital scrubs with a white bandana tied around his head. Hands on his hips, the doctor’s eyes scanned the people in the room until they settled on one man. He walked over to John Randall and sat down in an empty chair beside him.
“How is she?” The old man asked wearily. Madie, Jenna, and several other family members came to see what the prognosis was.
“We’ve got her stabilized for now,” Ronald replied, but he had to be honest. “It doesn’t look good.”
He’d known this man and his whole family all of his life. He’d even sat at John Randall’s kitchen table for supper many times. So he owed them that much. He was talking to John not as a doctor but as his friend.
“I’m having her prepped for an emergency C-section right now,” Doctor Emerson sighed. “Charleigh’s a very sick woman, and even though I have her on a transfusion, she’s lost so much blood. We could go through with the whole surgery and lose them all, regardless.”
Kevin, who had been with Charleigh throughout the entire examination, came to stand beside his grandmother. He was wearing an outfit similar to the doctor’s.
“She’s ready when you are,” Kevin said, putting an arm around Madie.
Ronald stood up and nodded. “I will do everything humanly possible to get Charleigh and those babies safely through the surgery. You have my word.”
“Thank you, Ronnie,” John said, getting a little choked up.
“It’s in the Lord’s hands,” Madie added.
Doctor Emerson squeezed the old woman’s hand before turning to Kevin. “Would you like to observe? I don’t think Charleigh would mind.”
“Absolutely,” Kevin replied. “She’s been asking for Cordell, too.”
“That’s fine,” the doctor said and headed toward his patient.
Kevin hugged his grandmother.
“You take care of her in there,” Madie whispered in his ear. Her voice cracked a little.
“You know I will.” And then he went over to where Cord was still sitting beside Dillon. Both men looked up at him.
“So, you’re going to have to deliver the babies early then?” Cordell asked for confirmation of what he had just overheard.
Kevin nodded. “She’s in a pretty bad way. I’m afraid to say that they may not make it.”
“Then don’t,” the other man snapped, fighting back tears.
“She sent me to get you.”
“She’s awake?” Cord stood instantly.
“In and out.”
Quickly, they walked out of the waiting room together and down the hallway toward the operating room. A nurse was waiting just outside the heavy metal doors to help Cord into surgical garb.
Once he passed through those doors, there was no turning back. But when Cord saw Charleigh lying on that table, covered by a white sheet, her face was just as pale, he was planted in place. He couldn’t run even if he wanted to.
If Cordell didn’t know any better, she was already dead. Only the steady beep, beep, beep of a heart monitor told him otherwise.
“It’s all right,” A nurse said, patting him on the shoulder. “Go on over. She’s awake and responsive.”
Cord nodded and forced himself to move forward. There was a small metal stool just beside the table next to Charleigh’s head, and he sat down.
“Charleigh, I’m here.”
At the sound of her name, she turned her head toward Cord. Charleigh couldn’t say anything because her nose and mouth was covered by an oxygen mask. She blinked once, twice. Her emerald green eyes were swimming. Each iris was faded slightly around the pupil. Charleigh stared into Cordell’s face, but he wasn’t sure that she actually saw him.
He reached up and griped one of her hands that rested on her breasts.
A blue drape separated them from everything that Doctor Emerson, Kevin, and the nurses were doing. There was only the sound of the heart monitor beeping and the occasional whirr from an oxygen pump.
The clear mask on Charleigh’s face was fogged over.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Cord whispered and then tucked a stray ringlet back into the blue paper surgical hat that covered Charleigh’s hair.
Kevin was on the side where the action was happening. He would’ve preferred the other side of the curtain, looking down at the round plumpness of Charleigh’s belly that was painted the burnt-orange color of antiseptic.
“Here we go,” Doctor Emerson said and began the incision.
Seeing the bright red of Charleigh’s blood slowly ooze from the wound, Kevin realized that he was holding his breath. He wouldn’t be able to really breathe until those babies were out, and he knew for sure that Charleigh was going to be okay.
***
Charleigh closed her eyes just as she heard the first cry. The sweetest sound in the world. Just as she had expected it to sound. It brought a smile to her face.
She opened her eyes and looked up to find tears glistening in Cord’s eyes.
A moment later, there was a second cry. Kevin appeared in Charleigh’s line of sight. He seemed to be crying a little bit, as well.
“They’re here, Char,” Kevin leaned down and whispered into her ear. He kissed Charleigh’s cheek. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
She looked past the two men and saw two clear, plastic enclosures. And inside of those were the tiniest, sweetest people Charleigh had ever seen. Her heart did a cartwheel in her chest. Remembering the first time she’d laid eyes on Jamie, it was kind of like that. The most incredible rush of love flooded through Charleigh’s entire body.
Beyond that, just in front of the two heavy doors that led out into a long hallway, stood the love of her life. Jamie watched as nurses worked with their two sons. A smile spread across his lips.
They’re here, and they’re going to be fine. Charleigh tried to communicate with him telepathically.
And then his eyes met with Charleigh’s. His expression sobered.
&nb
sp; “Suction,” Charleigh heard Doctor Emerson call out, but he sounded so far away. Much farther than just on the other side of that sheet.
The lights overheard were harsh and overbearing. Charleigh wrenched her eyes closed. She opened them again just in time to see the nurses roll the incubators through the operating room doors. They passed right through Jamie as if he were air.
After a moment, Charleigh realized that Jamie was wearing all white. His crisp white dress shirt was white. A white jacket and pants. She continued to stare at Jamie. He appeared pristine, in a sense. Perfect. The word floating around in Charleigh’s mind like a lost balloon was angelic. My very own guardian angel.
But then Jamie held his hand out to her. At first, she wanted to scream. No! She couldn’t leave her babies! They’d all fought so hard. She couldn’t die after all that.
“We’ve got to stop this bleeding,” Doctor Emerson said. His voice was stern and a bit frantic. Kevin rushed back to his side.
Charleigh heard this. Doctor Emerson’s voice seemed to echo in her mind. Suddenly Charleigh felt strange. Her mind was fuzzy. She felt herself slowly slipping. It was strange. The sensation of being pulled out of her body was like nothing that she’d ever felt before.
The fight had taken so much out of her, though, and Charleigh was tired. So very, very tired.
She could finally be with Jamie. That’s all she’d ever wanted, after all. To be with the man that loved her with all of his heart. And now she could.
A tear rolled down Charleigh’s cheek as she turned her face back toward the bright lights above. Strangely, it was brighter than before. She took one last breathe and closed her eyes.
Charleigh felt herself give over to Jamie. Okay. With that single thought, it was as if she had been pulled out of her own body, and Charleigh could see everything that was going on around her from where she suddenly stood next to him.
“We’re losing her,” Doctor Emerson said to Kevin, who stared across Charleigh’s body at the other man with a look of sheer panic.
“We need a crash cart,” the doctor called out.
One of the nurses grabbed Cordell by the shoulder and pulled him back toward the doors. Another ripped away the curtain that had separated Charleigh’s body into two sections, giving the doctor more room to work.
You're Gone (Finding Solid Ground) Page 38