hemorrhaging. Then bring the phone back into the bedroom.”
“Will do,” he said with a shaky voice. All color drained from his face. He dropped the case on the counter and grabbed for her phone.
Abby ran back to the bedroom. Ruth lay back against the pillows. Her dark eyes seemed to have sunk lower in her pale face. “I’m going to examine you now,” Abby said, forcing a pleasant smile. “We need to deliver this baby sooner rather than later.” She went about her routine—one used hundreds of times—and tried to maintain professional control. Panicking this woman further would serve no purpose.
Despite the feigned attempt at reassurance, Ruth Fisher had not been fooled. After Abby checked to make sure the baby wasn’t in a breech position, Ruth grabbed her arm. “Save my baby. Don’t worry about me.” Her words were little more than a hoarse whisper. “This was my choice and I have no regrets. But save my baby so it wasn’t all for naught.”
This was no time to decipher cryptic messages. If the placenta tore away from the uterine wall in just the right place at just the right time, a woman could lose enough blood within fifteen minutes to die. Abby believed that was what was happening. Anxiety constricted her chest so that her breathing was almost as difficult as Ruth’s. “This baby must come now, Ruth, so I want you to push with all your might.”
She did as she was told, somehow mustering enough energy to send the infant into the world. Abby caught the baby and lifted him away from the sodden sheets. Miraculously, he breathed on his own and squalled with strong lungs the moment she cleaned the mucus from his nose and mouth. “A healthy baby boy, Ruth. You have a son.”
Abby held the boy where Ruth could see, and for a fleeting moment a smile flickered across the woman’s face. Then her complexion blanched to the color of ash, and she lapsed into unconsciousness. There was no request to cradle her son or comments about his size or boisterous cries. Ruth’s breathing grew thin and raspy while her blood continued to pool.
Wrapping a receiving blanket around the infant, she passed him to Nathan, who stood helplessly in the doorway. “Will my wife be all right?” he gasped.
Abby couldn’t meet his gaze. “I’m going to stay with her. You make sure the baby keeps warm. Watch for the ambulance at the front window and holler when you see them pull into the driveway.” He hurried away, carrying the baby like a fragile porcelain ornament while Abby returned to Ruth’s side.
Without hesitation she pulled out a prefilled syringe from her bag and injected Ruth with a powerful drug to stop hemorrhaging…a drug she wasn’t supposed to have. But if anything could save this thin, dark-haired woman’s life, it would be the medicine in the syringe, entrusted to her by the retiring nurse-midwife. And then she prayed. She prayed God would save this young woman with every ounce of faith she possessed.
Abby tried everything she could to stem the tide, but God had His own plans for Ruth Fisher and her son—and for Abigail Graber, for that matter. By the time the paramedics arrived ten minutes later, she could no longer discern a pulse or even a wisp of breath. They flew into the room and went to work with clamps, defibrillators, and powerful drugs. One of the paramedics came to the kitchen to check the baby’s lungs, heart rate, and airways and pronounced him sound. Then Abby bathed the infant at the kitchen sink and wrapped him in a clean blanket, while Nathan stood by helplessly as the medical personnel exhausted every heroic avenue to save his wife. Finally, a paramedic exited the bedroom with an expression that required few words. “We’re sorry, Mr. Fisher. We did everything we could, but she’s gone. We’re going to call the sheriff’s department now.”
Nathan looked almost as pale as his wife. “May I sit with her?”
After a moment’s hesitation, the paramedic nodded. “Of course. Go on in, sir. We’re very sorry for your loss.”
Later, Abby sat at the scarred oak table with the new father and filled out the birth certificate. Ruth had selected the name Rachel for a girl and Andrew for a boy, but Nathan said he favored Abraham—the patriarch of the Jewish people. “It is a strong name, and a boy without a mamm will need to be strong, so it is fitting,” he declared.