ICU.
The gravity of his words hit home just as the phone rang.
The message cut off as I answered the incoming call.
“Aunt Bernie.” Ashley started talking before I could fully press the phone to my ear, let alone speak. “It’s mom. I--”
“I’ll be there in five minutes, honey.” I focused on using my most soothing tone of voice, even though my insides had gone into full-out panic. “She’ll be all right. You’ll see.”
And as I shot Poindexter an apologetic look and raced for the front door, I could only pray the words I’d spoken were true.
o0o
“There are moments when everything goes well; don’t be frightened, it won’t last.”
–Jules Renard
SEVENTEEN
“MKAOXMP WXSRL F AOXMP LK XMARMLRDZ XM AOR EREKVZ FL AOR GXLO AK WKVPRA XA.”
-EXNORD IR EKMAFXPMR
My insides coiled into a tight knot as I searched for a parking space inside the Cooper Hospital garage, urging my car to climb higher and higher, up ramp after ramp.
I slipped into a restricted space between a minivan and an SUV. So much for compact cars only.
I scrambled out of the driver’s door while Ashley catapulted from the passenger side. When I spun around to face the bank of elevators, I hesitated, flashes of the past hitting me so strongly I could smell them. Taste them.
How many times had Ryan and I taken the same set of elevators after a prenatal ultrasound for Emma? How many times had we hung our heads, weighed down by the growing signs something was wrong. Horribly wrong.
As Ashley and I pushed the Down button and waited, I looked over my shoulder at the cutout in the building’s exterior wall, remembering the time I’d stood in this very spot looking down at the concrete jungle below.
I’d cried for Emma. Cried for Ryan. Cried for me.
I’d cried for the dreams and joys and life events that were never going to happen.
A car had pulled into a nearby parking space, and as Ryan took my hand he’d said, “Would you get a load of those clowns?”
I’d looked up in time to see the car’s occupants. Two adults in full clown regalia--red noses, fuzzy wigs, brightly-colored costumes--obviously on their way to the children’s wing.
I’d smiled even as tears slid down my face, finding their way into the corners of my grin.
Ryan had anchored an arm around my shoulders and tugged me toward the car. But more importantly, he’d made me smile.
He was the one person that could during that terrifying time in our lives.
Ryan and I had understood each other, yet somewhere during the five years since, we’d become two strangers who once shared a life-changing experience. Nothing more.
“Aunt Bernie? Are you all right?”
I shook myself free of the memory and nodded to answer the frightened tone of Ashley’s voice. I reached for her hand and held on tight as the elevator doors slid open.
In the lobby, we signed the visitor’s log before we headed for the security guard at the end of the hall.
I kept hold of Ashley’s hand until the second set of elevator doors slid open, depositing us in a hallway filled with hushed voices, worried families and tension.
MICU. Maternal Intensive Care Unit.
I’d hoped never to have reason to be here again, yet here I was. The smells and sounds and memories threatened to send me screaming.
My own bloody show had happened at the beach with a houseful of company.
“There’s lunchmeat in the fridge,” I’d called out as Ryan and I headed to the hospital. “Don’t forget your suntan lotion. We’ll be right back.”
Now it was Diane’s turn, and as Ashley and I stood side-by-side, fighting to keep our composure, I prayed Diane’s pre-term labor would turn out far different from mine.
Ashley and I walked to the nursing station. I gave our names, asked where we could find Diane and David and when we could see them.
While we waited, a doctor straightened away from one of the telephones, the stiff set of his slender frame sending the past crashing over me.
Dr. Platt.
He glanced in my direction, but not a flicker of recognition crossed his stern expression.
He didn’t so much as bat an eye, and why should he? It had been more than five years since he’d made my life a living hell. Yet, even now, the sight of a bulky binder tucked beneath his arm made my blood run cold.
I could picture him standing in the door to my MICU room as if it were yesterday, cradling his binder, flipping pages, studying test results and case notes.
“We’re building a case.”
I’d often