by Wendy Owens
“Of course I am, but that doesn’t matter. I’m about to be a mom. I need to quit thinking about my love life and focus on how not to completely screw this kid’s life up.” I’m honest; I know the truth is the only way to get him to stop. I wipe away a drip of sweat from my brow, and I notice the heat of the fever.
“I don’t think you becoming a mother should have anything to do with this,” he argues.
“Wow, and I have no idea how you can say that. This baby is all that matters right now.”
He swallows and leans forward, forcing me to see his eyes when he says, “Baby or not, I need you in my life. I don’t want to wake up one day full of regret, asking myself why didn’t I fight.”
“Fight? What are you talking about?”
“For you, damn it. I know you love me, but you keep pushing me away. Like if you love me it’s some sort of betrayal to your unborn baby.”
“Don’t you get it? I can’t choose my happiness over hers.”
“I don’t understand. Why does it have to be an either or? She’s a part of you, and I’ll love her just like I love you.”
“And for how long?”
“Is that what this is about? You think I’m going to change my mind one day?”
“It happens,” I insist.
“I’m not Jack.”
“Nobody said you were.” I realize my voice is raised now. I reach over and take a sip of water, trying to soothe my burning throat.
“I want to cherish everything about you. The way you crinkle your nose when you laugh, the way to try to look sexy when you lick your lips, the way you keep trying different types of tea, even though I know you hate all of them.” Holden’s words make me want to wrap my arms around him, but at the same time they terrify me.
“How do I know if I can trust you?” I can feel my heart racing now, the sweat pouring out of me. Holden braces me when I have another coughing fit.
“Are you all right?” he asks again, and I nod my head.
“My dad always said looking into one’s eyes is like looking at the truth. Look in my eyes, Belle, and you’ll see.”
My head is spinning; I feel nausea wash over me, along with an overwhelming feeling like my head is expanding, about to pop. It’s as though I’ve just gotten off of a carnival ride, and I can’t even see straight ahead of me. I feel Holden reach out and grab me, and he’s saying my name over and over, but it’s like he’s getting farther away.
I focus my energy to try and look at his face, but I can’t. It’s cloudy and white all around me, darkness at the edges. I try and take a deep breath, but it’s not helping. If Holden releases me, I feel as though I might fall and continue to fall for an eternity, never hitting the ground. My heart jumps in my chest, and then the black residing at the corners of my vision moves inward, consuming everything until there is nothing. No voices, no sounds, no light. Just darkness.
“What do you mean here?” I hear Bea’s voice; it’s heavy with concern.
“Is that safe?” Holden asks. I try to open my eyes, but I can’t. I know they’re around me, but I’m unsure where I am. I think I’m lying down.
“If we take her out in this blizzard, we’ll never make it to the hospital in time. We don’t have any other choice.” It’s Dr. Marshall.
“What about an airlift?” Holden questions.
“My guess is there aren’t any choppers taking off in this, and even if they were, there isn’t enough time,” Dr. Marshall states bluntly.
“This can’t be happening.” Holden is panicked, but why?
“It’s going to be all right,” Bea reassures him. I wonder when someone will reassure me.
I try and open my eyes again, but nothing. My brain is telling my mouth to speak, but it won’t.
I want to cry. I want to shake the doctor and ask what there isn’t enough time for.
“You can’t give her something to slow the labor down?” It’s Holden’s voice again.
I hear Dr. Marshall sigh and then some clanking sounds of bottles. “The labor has already progressed too far, and I’m pretty sure Annabelle has full-blown pneumonia now. There’s no way she is going to be strong enough to push this baby out. If the labor progresses and the child is in the birth canal—Jesus, I don’t even want to think about what could happen. We need to take the baby now.”
Now I’m panicked. Take the baby? What in the hell is happening? This has to be a dream—one of those horrible dreams where you’re paralyzed while the magician is cutting you in half. It’s a nightmare. You need to wake up, Annabelle. Wake up! Now! But I still can’t move.
“I’m going to give her something to make sure she doesn’t wake up during the procedure.
Holden, I need you to help Bea get everything together on my list,” Dr. Marshall instructs the faceless people in the room with me.
I feel a prick in my arm, and I realize it’s a needle. I’m not dreaming. This is real. I need sit up and tell him I’m fine. Tell him I need to go to the hospital right away, and that I know I can make it there. But my damn body doesn’t seem to understand the urgency of the situation.
I hear footsteps and then a pause. It’s Holden’s voice, but he’s farther away this time.
“Is she going to be—” I can’t breathe as I wait for him to say the rest of the sentence. “You have to make sure she is all right.”
“I’m going to make sure she ...” I hear the doctor begin, but his voice trails off back into the black nothingness.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I drift, weightless in the darkness. I don’t know where I am, except it is neither here nor there. I must be alone, because I can’t hear anything except the white noise of the silence surrounding me. Turning my head, I attempt to catch a glimpse of something, anything; even a light would give me a sense of peace.
What happened? I ask myself, trying to remember my most recent memory. My chest aches. It’s coming back to me. The baby. I was having the baby. I force the questions from my mind; I don’t want to think about what has happened. If I answer where I am, I’m confident what I know will terrify me.
But my mind won’t hush. In the floating void, I’m left only with those terrifying questions. Am I dead? Is my child ... I try to squeeze my eyes, but the blackness that surrounds me doesn’t change. I’m alone.
“Dear God, please—” As the words linger in my ears, I wonder if spoke them, or if they were uttered by someone else and by some miracle I’m not alone.
“I know I haven’t been the greatest man through my life, but I need you, Lord.” No, I didn’t say anything. I’m sure of that now. It’s Holden’s voice; he’s here, in the darkness with me. I want to shout his name, but my mouth isn’t responding to the messages my brain is trying to send.
In the distance I can sense a heat source, the warmth of it flooding over one side of my face. The chill that had enveloped me is now fleeing as the numbing silence gives way to the sounds around me. To my right I hear a blustery, yet muted, gust of wind. I hear cracking of branches just beyond that. I think I’m in my room.
Consciousness stirs within me more as I listen for Holden once again. I can hear him breathing, a shakiness in his throat causing an uneasy feeling inside of me. I attempt to open my eyes, but when the tiniest piece of light peeks through the sliver, my lids manage to open, and it sends a shooting pain through my head, so I close them once again.
“I’ve been a fool. I was hopeless and empty before Belle came into my life.” Even now when he calls me Belle a chill runs down my spine. “I was in a place where I didn’t like the person I was. I thought having my heart broken meant I was ... I don’t know, entitled, I guess, to push the world away. I know now you brought her into my life. I should have kept her safe, but ...”
His voice trails off into a squeak. Is he really talking about me? My mind is now fully awake and racing. He said my name. Am I dead? Is this why he sounds so broken? What about my child? Holden, tell me if my baby is all right. I want to scream, but I can’t.
He sighs heavily, then draws in a deep breath before continuing. “I’ll do anything if you let me keep her ... if you let her daughter keep her mother.” Her daughter? I have a daughter. “If you let her come back to us, I’ll keep her safe. I’ve been so alone since Dad died, not letting anyone get close, but Belle makes me want to live again. Please, let me hear her voice, let me tell her that my life doesn’t make sense without her.”
I lay in bed, waiting for him to speak more. I know I should open my eyes, I should tell him that I can hear him in this insanely vulnerable moment, but I don’t. I want to hear more. I never want it to end. To hear him say things about loving me and needing me, it makes me feel in a way nobody ever has. And these aren’t words he’s telling me because he thinks they are what I want to hear. These are words said in desperation to a god he believes he needs more than anything, because in his mind, he might lose me. Realizing all this causes my chest to ache for a whole other reason.
Though I listen, he says nothing. I feel his elbows come to rest on the mattress at my side, and as he lowers his head, his hair tickles my arm, and his breath grows shallow.
Letting my barely moist tongue slip between my lips, I attempt to wet my mouth before speaking. Bracing myself, I break the seal of darkness, and force my eyes open, just barely. Swallowing hard, I whisper, “Holden?”
At first he doesn’t react. I assume perhaps he didn’t hear me.
“Holden,” I say again. He pops up, taking hold of my shoulders and repeats my name.
“Belle? Belle? Can you hear me?” He’s gentle as he shakes me, and I feel a drop of liquid from his hovering cheek land on my chin. He was crying, I realize.
I peer into his eyes and smile. “Am I okay?”
“You gave us quite a scare.” His eyes linger on me for a moment before he rushes to the door and shouts, "Dr. Marshall, she’s awake! Kenzie, bring the baby.”
My mind initially begins to process that Dr. Marshall had been on standby for me, but suddenly I realize Holden also called for Kenzie and the baby. Kenzie’s here? Am I about to see my daughter? “The baby?” The first words to escape my lips cause Holden to look back at me. He smiles, and it’s not the type of smile that prepares you for bad news. No, I can tell it’s a very different kind of smile. It’s the kind that you see when someone is happy for you.
“She’s perfect,” Holden whispers, not taking his eyes off me, his fingertips trailing the length of my arm. “I know she’s been wanting to see her momma, though.”
“There she is!” I hear Dr. Marshall exclaim as he enters through the open doorway, a stethoscope hung around his neck. He walks immediately to the bedside, opposite Holden, and scoops my hand up into his, feeling for my pulse and counting. I watch the doorway, eager to see the first glimpse of my child.
“How are you feeling?” the doctor asks. I ponder the question for a moment before responding. “A little groggy.” “Well, that’s to be expected after being asleep for so long. It will take your body a little while to —”
“How long was I out?” I demand, not waiting for Dr. Marshall to finish his thought.
“Two days, and I should really kick your butt for that, too.” Kenzie’s voice fills my ears, and my eyes lock onto her face as she enters the room.
“Kenzie,” I moan, my gaze drifting down to the tight bundle she holds in her arms.
“Why don’t we give them a minute,” Holden suggests to Dr. Marshall, who doesn’t seem to be listening. Holden makes his way to the door and around Kenzie, then coughs loudly to gain the good doctor’s attention.
“Huh,” Dr. Marshall grunts, looking over his shoulder. “Oh, yeah.” He then looks back to me pointedly. “I’m going to want to do a full exam shortly, understand?”
I nod and shift to sit upright on the bed. As soon as Dr. Marshall makes his way to the door and exits with Holden, Kenzie swiftly swoops in and makes her way into the spot where he had been standing. Instinctively, I reach out for the baby. Kenzie doesn’t hesitate, placing the swaddled newborn in my arms.
Pulling her into my chest, I take in a deep breath, preparing myself for the first glimpse of my daughter. I’m not sure what I’m expecting—perhaps to see Jack staring up at me, but this is nothing like that. She has my eyes, Jack’s chin, a thick tuft of black hair atop her small and perfectly round head.
A shiver runs through my body, the jolt causing her to open her eyes ever so briefly. I gasp, and a new and raw emotion I’m unfamiliar with consumes me. I feel my eyes fill, and a tear escapes, rushing down my cheek.
“She’s so beautiful,” I cry, not willing to look away from her face.
“She is, but I didn’t know what to call her. You never decided on a name,” Kenzie reminds me. Without giving it any thought, a name slips from my lips. “Emily.”
“Emily?” Kenzie questions before adding, “No, I like it. Emily. Hi there, Emily.”
I place a finger against her tiny hand and rub her soft skin between my fingertips. Though she seems lost in a deep sleep, her fist opens and wraps itself securely around my finger. A squeak of delight escapes from my throat.
“You know you really scared me to death,” Kenzie snarls.
“I don’t even understand what happened,” I begin.
“Apparently you decided it was a good idea to go and get pneumonia while pregnant and alone in a foreign country. Oh, and an hour away from the nearest hospital, you decide, during a blizzard, to then go into labor,” she explains, leaning forward in her chair, her voice heavy with sarcasm.
“I wasn’t alone,” I answer.
“No,” she says then hesitates, “I suppose you weren’t. So what is going on with you and this Holden guy exactly?”
“I don’t know.”
“He seems to care a lot for you.”
“Yeah, he does,” I say, thinking of the private prayer I had just witnessed.
“When he called me, he was scared out of his mind. That much was pretty obvious.”
“I don’t remember any of it.”
Kenzie jumps in with a retelling of the events. “Well, when he called, he said you were sick, and that the weather was too bad to get you to the hospital in London. But he had a doctor here with him who was going to try and slow the labor until there was a break in the storm.”
“Are you serious? I don’t remember anything.” I pull Emily closer to my chest. Her exciting entrance into the world now seems all the more amazing.
“Yeah, I raced straight to the airport and got on the next flight out of Chicago. Two connections and twelve hours later I was here. Holden kept me updated at each layover, but somewhere over the Pacific little Emily there made her grand entrance.”
“I wish I could remember,” I moan, peering at Emily’s face. My heart melts as I watch her purse her lips.
“Sweetie, I doubt you’d want to. Dr. Marshall didn’t know if you were going to wake up.”
“What?”
“Yeah, when my flight got in they still had the roadways shut down. I called, and Holden was flipping out. Bea had to get on the phone and explain what was going on. After the doctor got Emily out, your fever kept climbing.” This entire story gives me goose bumps, and it’s hard to believe it happened to me.
“So I just got better?” I inquire.
“Not exactly. Doctor Marshall told Holden if you were going to have any chance, they had to break your fever. Holden went out and started bringing in buckets of snow, and they packed it all around you.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yeah, Bea was telling me Holden wouldn’t leave your side for a second. She took care of Emily while they tried everything they could think of to keep you from going into shock. Then a couple hours before I found a cab, by paying triple his rate, by the way, your fever finally broke. And then it was just a waiting game.”
“I didn’t know how much he cared about me,” I say softly.
“Really? Well, it’s obvious he loves you. How do you feel about him?” Kenzi
e asks, staring into my eyes.
There it is, the direct question staring me in the face. After Jack’s warning, I wanted to swear off love as something that didn’t fit into my life as a single mother, but now, I am feeling something completely different. I can’t be wrong about him; he has to be one of the good guys. “I love him, too.”
“Does he know that?” Kenzie quickly follows up.
“He does now.” When Holden’s voice reaches my ears I feel my heart seize up, and I wonder if it will ever start beating again. It does, and I want to look at him, but I can’t. I can’t look up and see his expression. There’s no more denying my feelings for him ... he has heard me say them.
Kenzie stands. “Awkward. Well, I think I’ll go out and see if Dr. Marshall needs any help.”
I watch in silence as she exits the room, staring at her back so I don’t have to look at Holden’s face. And then she’s gone, so I look back at Emily.
“I named her,” I offer up in conversation, trying to alleviate the silence.
“Oh yeah?” Holden continues, approaching me and taking a seat.
“Emily,” I answer, nodding. I can hear his breath catch in his throat, which causes me to involuntarily look up at his face. His brow is narrow; I’m at a loss as I try to decipher the look.
“I’m sorry. I hope that’s okay.”
“That was my mom’s middle name,” he replies in a low tone.
“I know, Bea told me.”
“She did?” His eyes shift to the baby. “You didn’t have to do that, Belle.”
“It wasn’t just for you. I think it’s a beautiful name.”
“Thank you. That would make my mother happy.” Holden nods and grasps my arm. Both Holden and I stare at Emily for a few moments, then I hear him swallow and take a hitched breath.
“Are we going to talk about what I heard?”
“Perhaps we should discuss your manners and your habit of eavesdropping instead,” I suggest with a huge grin.
“Fair enough,” he concedes with a snicker. “But my poor manners don’t change what I heard.”
“What you think you heard.” I say with a bow of my head.