terror. Her mother was drenched with sweat and she was a ghostly color.
“The baby's … turned … around …” And then, as though she suddenly had a thought. “Vanessa … ask them for … my bag … I have money … call Teddy. Do you know … the number?” Vanessa nodded, still desperately afraid. “Tell him—” But she couldn't go on then, the pain was too ferocious. It was several minutes before she could start again. “Tell him the baby's breech … breech. Understand?” Vanessa nodded. “They tried to turn him and they couldn't. They're giving me a few more hours and they'll keep trying … go on …” Her eyes looked desperately at her daughter. “Tell him … tell him to come now, today. And hurry.” Vanessa nodded again, and hesitated, but after the next pain her mother begged her to get her bag, find a phone, and call Teddy without waiting another minute.
Vanessa had a difficult time getting the nurses to let her have her mother's handbag, but when they realized that she didn't even have money to eat, they finally relented. She then stealthily went to a phone booth down the hall, closed the door, and put the money in to call the operator and make a collect call to Teddy. It was seven o'clock at night in London by then, but in New York it was only one in the afternoon and she knew that she would find him at his office.
“Dr. Fullerton?” The nurse sounded surprised. “Yes … his niece? I'll get him.” Teddy was on the line a minute later, the call was accepted, and Vanessa almost got hysterical as she tried to tell him what she had seen and what her mother had told her.
“She's all tied up, Uncle Teddy, with her legs up in the air, and we've been here since five o'clock this morning, and she says … she says … the baby's beach, and they tried to turn him and can't, and—” She began to sob into the phone and he tried to calm her.
“It's all right, sweetheart, it's all right. Just tell me what she said.”
“They're going to give her a few more hours and keep trying to turn the baby. She wants you to come right away, and she said hurry.” At his end he almost burst into tears too. A breech birth three thousand miles away. Even if he caught the next plane, it would be anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours before he got to her. She needed a Caesarean section done immediately, and waiting useless hours to continue trying to turn the baby could kill her and lose the baby.
“It's going to be all right sweetheart,” he told Vanessa, wishing he believed it. “Do you know her doctor's name?” At least he could call him, but Vanessa didn't. “The hospital?” She gave it to him quickly. “I'll call them and we'll see if we can't get things moving.”
“Can't you come, Uncle Teddy?” It was obvious from her voice that Vanessa was beginning to panic.
“I'm going to catch the next plane, sweetheart, and with any luck at all I'll be there first thing tomorrow morning, your time, but maybe the baby will come before that.” It would only be twenty-four hours by then, but he knew that for Serena, strapped to a delivery table, her legs in stirrups, with a breech birth, and a possibly unsympathetic staff continually trying to turn the baby, he could mink of no worse torture for her to endure. “Can you get back to Mommy, sweetheart?”
“I'll try. I don't know if they'll let me.”
“Tell her I'm coming. Do you know where Vasili is?”
“No, and I don't want him to come. He's crazy.”
“I know, I know. I just wondered. Did you leave him a note at the house about where you are?”
“No.”
“What about his brother?”
“Mommy said he can't come until the end of the week because his wife is sick.”
“Okay, tiger, then you just hold the fort until I get there. Think you can do that? It may be a long night, but I'll be there, and pretty soon it'll be all over.” He was already making notes for his secretary. He wouldn't even go back to his apartment. He could buy what he needed in London when he got there. All he would take with him was his medical bag and a briefcase. “I'm very proud of you, Vanessa darling. You're doing great.”
“But Mommy—”
“She's going to be fine too. I promise.