Dance Away with Me - Susan Elizabeth Phillips Page 0,109
was in Valley City, fifteen miles away. Not that far.
Savannah gazed up at her from under her green spray of hair. “I’m scared.”
“You’re going to be fine.” The same words Tess had uttered to Bianca.
“What do you want me to do?” Kelly asked.
Tess searched her mind and couldn’t come up with a thing. She simply stood there, frozen and stupid.
“Phish, do you have a plastic tablecloth we can put under her?” Ian said. “And cover up the windows so she can have some privacy. Mrs. Winchester, find some clean dish towels, string, and scissors.”
Ian remembered what Tess couldn’t.
“The fire department’s on its way,” Phish said.
Only fifteen miles. They’d get here in time. They had to. Because Tess absolutely could not do this.
“Do something, Tess!” Savannah pleaded. “Make it stop hurting so bad.”
Tess stood there unmoving. Not speaking. Watching Bianca’s life drain away in a sea of blood.
A familiar male voice whispered in her ear. “Don’t make me slap you, sweetheart. I’m an artist, not a fighter.” And then he pinched her rear. Hard.
Tess’s head came up. She sucked in a fresh stream of air. “I . . . need to wash up.”
Ian turned her toward the sink behind the counter. She moved. One step at a time. She passed Kelly carrying a stack of clean dish towels. She unlocked her jaw and heard her own tremulous voice. “Get Savannah’s pants off.”
She began scrubbing up at the sink. Phish was at the windows, closing off the view of the crowd who’d gathered outside as Ian spread a plastic tablecloth on the floor. Tess stared at a box of disposable food preparation gloves, and then picked them up. After all Michelle’s talk of precipitous labor, it was her daughter who’d fallen victim.
Kelly had Savannah’s pants off. Swallowing hard, Tess knelt between her legs. Savannah’s water had broken. A vaginal exam in these conditions would risk infection, but without it, she couldn’t know how far Savannah’s labor had progressed. In the old days, she would have relied on instinct, but her instincts were shot, and she was paralyzed.
“Tess! Help me! Why aren’t you helping me?”
Swallowing her nausea, she rubbed Savannah’s arm. “Can you get on your hands and knees? Would that feel better?”
Savannah managed a nod. Kelly helped her roll over and get into a more comfortable position, a position where she was less likely to tear. Savannah cried out. Tess responded automatically, unsteadily. “You can handle it. Your body knows what to do.”
Bianca’s body didn’t. It betrayed her.
Tess’s T-shirt stuck to her chest. Ian was right behind her, his hands warm against her shoulders. She was used to the sights and smells of childbirth: the poop and pee, the bulging perineum, the leak of amniotic fluid—but he wasn’t. She should tell him to leave, but she couldn’t. She needed him.
The contractions were coming more quickly and with greater force. Savannah had no time to adjust to their strength, and Tess could feel her mounting panic, right along with Tess’s own. “We’re going to . . . going to breathe together. Breathe with me, Savannah.” But as Tess tried to inhale, the air stuck in her windpipe.
Her hands twitched. The breathing pattern was as familiar to her as the sound of her own voice. Pant, pant, blow . . . Pant, pant, blow . . . She’d led countless women through the sequence of those two quick pants followed by that short puff of air, but her lungs had constricted. The room started to spin. She couldn’t find any oxygen.
Ian’s mouth brushed her ear in a whisper. “Chicken shit.”
The air rushed into her lungs, and the room settled. She inhaled again, her body steadied, and she began the breathing pattern.
The minutes ticked by. Kelly wiped the hair from Savannah’s damp face. Savannah fell into the rhythm of the contractions as they gained more intensity.
The front door burst open, and three of Valley City’s volunteer firefighters rushed in. Ian shot up and positioned himself in front of them. “It’s under control.”
No, it wasn’t under control!
“She’s a nurse midwife,” Ian said. “She’s handling it.”
“Get them out of here!” Savannah gasped. “Don’t let them touch me.”
“Stay by the door,” Ian told the men. “She’ll let you know if she needs you.”
She. He meant Tess, not Savannah.
The firefighters were trained to give way to anyone with a higher degree of experience, and they did as he directed, even as Tess started to order them to take over. But she could see the top of the baby’s head.