Wildflowers from Winter (35 page)

When she stepped out of her car and walked to Robin’s front stoop, she decided to put her skills to use. Real use. It was time to renovate herself—the Bethany behind the facade.

The baby was due in six weeks. Which gave her six weeks to figure out which walls needed tearing down and which walls could stay. Six weeks to rebuild something real.

Someone
real.

She creaked open the door, stepped into the foyer, and blinked against the light filtering down the staircase. Was Robin still awake? She twisted the knob and closed the door, trying to silence the catching latch. When she turned around, Robin was there, standing on the stairs, clutching her stomach between her hands, a grimace on her face.

Bethany’s pulse hiccupped. “What’s wrong?”

Robin concentrated very hard on the bottom step and didn’t answer until her face relaxed. “I went to the bathroom because I thought maybe my water broke.”

A shock of alarm pulsed through Bethany’s limbs. Water either broke or it didn’t. What did she mean
maybe
?

“And ever since, I’ve had a few pains. Like menstrual cramps.”

Bethany took three quick steps to the staircase.

“I called the doctor. He said to get to the hospital.” Robin’s hand trembled as she brought it to her neck, as if attempting to coax out her next words. “It’s too early for the baby to come, isn’t it? I haven’t even packed a bag yet.”

Bethany’s legs turned shaky. The doctor wanted her to get to the hospital? She took Robin’s clammy hand and led her to the door. “I’m sure everything will be okay. Everything will be fine.”

She wondered if she was lying.

The child’s life flashed through her mind. Seeing that tiny blip of a heartbeat on the screen. The fast-paced
whoosh
ing that had filled the doctor’s office two weeks later, flooding her soul with joy, excitement, a mysterious longing. She’d watched Robin’s stomach grow rounder every day, feeling for herself the tumbles and kicks knocking from within Robin’s womb. Bethany tried to swallow. But the muscles in her neck had clenched too tight.

She raced into the kitchen, grabbed Robin’s purse, and led her outside to the car. By the time they sat down, Robin’s face had screwed up into another grimace. When it was over, she drew in a ragged breath and looked at Bethany under panic-stricken eyebrows.

“I can’t do this, Bethany. Not without Micah.”

Bethany stepped through the hospital doors and strode to the front desk. “I’m here to check in Robin Price. She’s thirty-four weeks pregnant and in labor.”

She glanced over her shoulder. Robin hovered beside the wall, her eyes as wide as her face was white. Bethany looked back at the woman. Tapped her foot. Drummed her fingers against the counter. And checked her urge to jump across the desk and enter Robin’s information herself. What in the world was so difficult about typing in a name? What part of “thirty-four weeks” didn’t she hear?

The woman looked up, curved her lips into what could only be the same smile she gave every other patient who walked through the doors, and told them to head up to Neonatal. Bethany bit back a sarcastic thank-you as
the woman brought them a wheelchair, then Bethany hurried Robin to the elevator. Once inside, Bethany closed her eyes.

Make this turn out okay
.

It wasn’t eloquent. It wasn’t even a request. Bethany’s mind uttered the prayer as a demand, like a mother telling her naughty child to stop it, right this instant. When the doors opened, she pushed Robin to the desk. Two nurses sat behind it, both young, both pretty, both bored. The smaller of the two met her at the counter.

“Dr. Hannigan told us to come. She’s barely thirty-four weeks pregnant.”

The nurse smiled. “He arrived a couple minutes ago.” She nodded toward a room, her short curls bobbing like apples. “Why don’t you follow me?”

They entered a small room with a bed and a monitor. White and barren. The nurse gave Robin a hospital gown to change into, left the room, and returned a few minutes later.

“Okay, Robin. My name’s Lacy, and I’m going to have you lie on the bed so I can check to see what’s going on here.” She patted Robin’s knee.

Bethany sat at the edge of the stiff chair in the corner, tapping her toes against the linoleum floor.

When Lacy finished, she rolled her chair back. “You’re dilated to four.”

Robin sat up, the blackness of her pupils eating away the pale blue of her eyes. “Isn’t this too early? Can the doctor stop it?”

The nurse kept a smile plastered across her face. “Once the water breaks, the doctor doesn’t like to stop the progression of labor.”

That was it. She didn’t elaborate or offer an explanation. Instead, she placed her hand on Robin’s forearm and squeezed. “Dr. Hannigan will be here in just a minute.”

Lacy snapped the rubber gloves off her hands as she stood from her chair. She exited the room, leaving Bethany and Robin alone with their fears. Bethany searched for something to say. She rifled through her vocabulary
but came back with empty words. Words that wouldn’t help. So she kept her mouth closed, her fingers clamped over her thighs, and batted away every negative thought invading her mind.
What if?
after
what if?
flew at her like baseballs from a possessed pitching machine in a batting cage, but Bethany choked up and kept swinging until the door handle clicked and Dr. Hannigan strode into the room, Lacy behind him.

He sat down in the chair by Robin’s bedside as Lacy unhooked something from a machine, drew up Robin’s gown, and positioned the device over her exposed skin. As soon as it made contact, that rhythmic
whoosh
ing filled the room, pushing a knot of hope into Bethany’s throat. She took steadying breaths and forced her mind upon one simple fact.

The baby is fine. The baby is fine. The baby is fine …

Dr. Hannigan studied the monitor. “It looks like you are going to have this little one sooner than we expected.”

Bethany wanted to argue. Robin had six more weeks to go. This couldn’t be a good thing.

“Have you been having contractions?” he asked.

“Just a few.” Robin’s face scrunched up as she said it.

Bethany could tell she was having one now, and there was nothing she could do to relieve Robin’s pain except wait and watch. And since she didn’t want to do that, she hurled her question at Dr. Hannigan. “Isn’t this too early?”

“It is premature. Normally we would try to stop it. But since her water broke, we’d risk infection by delaying, and we don’t want to do that.” The doctor turned to Robin, who no longer twisted her face in agony. “Babies born at thirty-four weeks often do just fine.”

Bethany stumbled over his choice of words.
Often
. She knew statistics.
Often
did not mean always. On the flip side of
often
was
rarely
. She didn’t like the idea of even a rare chance of something bad happening to Robin’s baby. “What’s going to happen?”

“Once the baby is born, we’ll have to stabilize him or her. The baby will
spend some time in the NICU, where we’ll check to see how well the lungs are developed, if the baby develops jaundice, that sort of thing.”

Underdeveloped lungs? Jaundice?
These sounded like frightening things. Serious things. She kept her mouth shut for the sake of Robin, who sat white lipped and trembling in the hospital bed, the monitor releasing that muffled
whoosh
ing into the air. Bethany wanted to grab hold of that sound. She wanted to hug it to her chest and make it swear never to stop. But how was it possible to embrace a heartbeat? How was it possible to gain any sort of control over a situation so completely out of her hands?

Robin’s face screwed up again. Her breaths came quick. She grasped her belly and twisted on the bed. Bethany looked away, her heart beating in tune with the tiny baby’s. A frantic pulse demanding attention.

Dr. Hannigan turned to Lacy. “Let’s get her into a labor and delivery room. I’m going to visit the NICU. I have a feeling this might go fast.”

Lacy looked at Robin and nodded toward the door. “I’m just going to wheel you down the hall. We’re going to keep you hooked to the monitor to make sure your baby is doing okay.”

Robin gave a feeble nod and scooted out of bed. When she stood, she placed her hand under the swell of her stomach, something Bethany had seen Robin do a hundred times. But this time, Bethany couldn’t handle it. She couldn’t do this. She was supposed to have six more weeks. Six more weeks until the baby came. Six more weeks to renovate herself. To figure out what she wanted for her future. The baby wasn’t ready for this. Bethany wasn’t ready for this. And by the look on Robin’s face, she wasn’t ready for this either.

“He doesn’t often wait until we’re ready.”

Evan’s words from earlier in the evening suddenly took on a whole new meaning.

After slipping out of the delivery room, Bethany called Evan and told him to meet her in the waiting area. That was where she should go. To the waiting area. So why was she walking down the stairwell, away from Neonatal?

She stopped on the second-floor landing, pushed open the heavy door, and stepped into the wide corridor. Up ahead, the reception area was empty. Soft funnels of light reflected off the counter, leaving everything else a muted shade of black or gray. Farther down the hall, a nurse exited a room and walked into another. The silence shouted for attention, commanding the hairs on her arm to stand up straight.

Without seeking permission, Bethany crept down the darkened hallway—wondering, with each step, what she was doing. She stopped in front of the opened door of room 236. She clasped her hands and pressed them against her abdomen. She should be with Robin, holding her hand, supporting her through her labor. She should not be standing in the entryway of Fenton’s hospital room, watching a sleeping man who preached a black-and-white God—where good circumstances meant God’s favor and bad meant His punishment.

But what would Fenton say now that he was the one lying in the hospital bed? Now that he was the one suffering? Now that he was the one paralyzed? She wanted to wake him up and ask him. She wanted to demand an answer. Listen to him stammer. Listen to him falter. Listen to him fail. But what good would it do? He probably couldn’t even talk.

She eyed the distended veins in Fenton’s hands, watched the fragile rise and fall of his chest, and the cords of anger wrapped around her soul loosened their hold, untangling themselves from the destructive knot they’d formed over the accumulating years of her childhood. In the quiet stillness of Pastor Fenton’s hospital room, Bethany found herself facing a question. One that demanded an answer. Not in six weeks. But right now.

Which God would she believe? Which God would she embrace?

She gripped Pastor Fenton’s God in one hand—a God who made her
mother cower, a God who showed no mercy to a broken man in a wheelchair, a God Bethany spent the last sixteen years ignoring. She examined Robin’s God in her other—a God who brought peace when there shouldn’t be peace. A God who brought joy when there shouldn’t be joy. A God who didn’t leave a widowed woman alone in her grief.

Her hands trembled.

Maybe the choice should have been easy. But it wasn’t. Not for her.

Robin’s God frightened Bethany. Not in the way a cat frightens a mouse or an abusive parent frightens a child. But in the way space and eternity and any unknowable concept frightens a person who doesn’t like not knowing. How could she accept this God-without-boundaries and remain who she was? But how could she deny the truth lying before her?

Her chest tightened. She stared hard at Fenton—no longer larger than life.

Taking a deep breath, Bethany peeled away one white-knuckled finger at a time. She unclenched her fist. She forced her shaking hand to spread wide. She turned her palm over. And she let go of Fenton’s God.

Her eyes closed. She leaned her head against the door, and the angry cords suffocating her spirit for far too long fell loose and floated away.

THIRTY-SIX

I
ce chips cascaded to the bottom of the bucket, spilling over one another in their rush to escape the machine. Evan pulled the bucket away from the lever and turned toward the hall, eager to get back to Robin. He wanted to step in for Micah and be there for her, but he had no idea what to do. This bucket of ice seemed like the only assistance he could offer. While she hadn’t requested it, he knew from movies it was a task usually undertaken by the father-to-be, so he pounced on it with mingled relief and enthusiasm.