brow, and he leans over the bed rail to dab it away with the edge of the bedsheet.
“I’m here, sweetheart,” he whispers to his wife. “Always.”
She squeezes his hand as another pain hits. Straus grimaces right along with her.
Frank turns to Winnie; the umbrella tucked under his arm is soaking his fine suit, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “My wife’s expecting twins, but she’s four weeks early. We were traveling across country and the hurricane forced us off the road. She went into labor.” He speaks in a robotic tone with a mild midwestern accent.
Straus wants to ask why they were traveling across country with the wife in such a delicate condition, but he doesn’t. It’s none of his business.
“Do you have them?” the woman snaps. “Do you have the bracelets?”
From his pocket, Frank pulls out two delicate silver bracelets embedded with tiny pearls linked by diamonds. They are the kind of baby bracelet meant as forever keepsakes.
From where he’s sitting, Straus can see that each bracelet has a silver charm engraved with a name, but he can’t read them.
“Right here, honey, right here.” Frank lays the keepsake bracelets on the table between the two beds. “Both of them. One for Amelia, and one for Anna.”
At Robin’s sonogram appointment, she and Heathcliff asked their doctor not to tell them their baby’s gender. They want it to be a surprise. Soon, Straus will know if he is having a son or a daughter and his pulse quickens. Either gender is fine. They just want a healthy baby.
The lights flicker once more, and a fierce rain batters the windowpanes.
“Keep an eye on those bracelets,” Frank’s wife warns. “They cost a fortune. Those diamonds are real. No cheapy zirconia for my girls.”
Winnie frowns. “You must put those in the hospital safe.”
Across the room, another mother cries out. “It’s coming! It’s coming! My baby is coming!”
Winnie spins on her heels and darts for the mother.
“Wait,” Frank says, his voice suddenly commanding and animated. He grabs Winnie by her scrub jacket and stops her in her tracks.
“What is it?” Winnie’s tone is barely polite.
“I demand the best care for my wife.” He pulls a wad of cash from his pocket and starts peeling off hundred-dollar bills. “She comes first.”
Winnie’s spine stiffens and she stabs the sharp-dressed man with an angry glare, shoves away the hand fisted with money, yanks free from his grasp, and flies to the side of the woman ready to deliver.
Lightning crackles, thunder crashes, and that’s when the lights go out. Bedlam. Pandemonium. Chaos. People gasp and shout.
Outside the wind roars, freight train loud.
Straus can’t even hear his own thoughts, and terror grips him. He lived through Hurricane Allen, just barely, and for the first time he fears none of them will survive this night.
His wife squeezes his hand. “Tell me it’ll be okay, Heathcliff.”
“It’s going to be okay,” he whispers, pressing his lips close to her ear.
“Promise me.”
Straus clings to her. He loves this woman with every fiber of his being. “I promise.”
The emergency generator kicks on, but it’s only got enough power to fuel the lights in the hallway and delivery room that lies just beyond the main ward. He can make out shadows of beds and patients, but that’s it.
Winnie and the shift supervisor switch on pocket flashlights. In the crook of her elbow, Winnie holds a baby out to the shift supervisor. The woman whisks the newborn away to another area where Straus assumes is an awaiting incubator.
“The baby,” Robin whispers. “The baby is here.”
“Yes.” Straus nods. His gaze follows the retreating shift supervisor. “The lady had her baby.”
“No,” she whispers so softly he can barely hear her. “Our baby.”
Stunned, Straus moves to investigate.
Blood is everywhere. So much blood. Too much blood. Warm and sticky. The taste of fear fills his mouth, hot and slick and coppery.
“The baby isn’t crying. Heathcliff, why isn’t our baby crying?” Robin’s voice is weak, almost inaudible.
Alarmed, he knows the truth before he ever sees his child.
A girl.
She is still and pale, with blue lips and the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck. He removes the cord as if doing so will save her and scoops the child into his arms. She’s covered in her mother’s blood.
Still she does not move. Her eyes are forever closed.
No, no, no!
Tears wet his cheeks. It cannot be. His heart is beating out of his chest. How will he ever tell Robin? They’ve waited years for this baby. She can’t be dead. He shifts his attention