“Do you have any more information?” Dr. Walsh asked as she scrambled into Jake’s truck. “Who she is? How far along she is? If the pregnancy is high risk?”
“No. I don’t think she’s local, though.” Jake hadn’t recognized her, but he would freely admit that he wasn’t the most social guy, so that didn’t necessary mean anything. “I came out of the general store downtown, and she was writhing around on the grass on the village green. She was shouting about it being ‘too soon.’ There’s a crowd, but everyone’s milling around in a not-very-useful way.”
“And here I thought practicing medicine in Moonflower Bay was going to be dull.”
“Do you have a phone?” he asked as he peeled down her street.
“Yes.”
“I’m going to give you a number. It’s for the lift bridge operator. We have to cross the river to get downtown. We need to tell him to have it down.” Dennis had called Jake in as backup so much in recent weeks that Jake had his number memorized.
Nora introduced herself to Dennis, and they had a brief conversation while Jake drove as fast as he reasonably could, his tires squealing as he hung a right on Huron. She disconnected the call. “He said he’s heard already and the bridge is down. He also said that someone named Sawyer has shut down the bottom end of Main Street, so there won’t be any traffic, so you can—I’m quoting here—‘drive like you just told Pearl that cake is better than pie, and she’s coming after you.’”
“That means drive fast.”
“I gathered that.”
Dr. Walsh was out the passenger-side door before he had fully screeched to a halt next to the town green. He could hear the sirens closing in on them. He’d reasoned that he could get Dr. Walsh to the scene before the ambulance from Grand View would arrive, and he’d been right but only just, from the sound of things.
Dr. Walsh was small, but as she strode toward the emergency, she took command. She started pointing to people and saying things like, “You. Find me some clean towels or blankets. As many as you can get.” And “You. Get me some hand sanitizer.”
He was following her, though he wasn’t sure why. His contribution to this event—get the doctor—was done. He had the odd compulsion, though, to hang around. To stand by and watch over things. Like a bouncer. An emergency-birth bouncer.
“Make way, please,” she said as she approached the woman. People shifted around, but they didn’t know her yet, so they didn’t really get out of the way.
“This is the doctor! Get out of the way!” he yelled. Several dozen startled faces turned toward him. Several dozen startled people got out of the way. He wasn’t much of a talker, generally. An unintended side effect of that was that when he did talk, forget yell, people tended to listen.
He stopped walking alongside Dr. Walsh once he was satisfied she had a clear path. But after two steps without him, she turned. “Will you stay? Keep people away?”
So she did need an emergency-birth bouncer. “Yep.”
As she approached the woman, who was lying on her back on the grass, Dr. Walsh’s demeanor shifted. She’d been barking orders, but she spoke now in a low, gentle voice. “Hi there. My name is Nora Walsh. I’m a doctor. I’m trained in family medicine and emergency medicine. Everything is going to be okay. Can you tell me your name?”
“I’m only thirty-seven weeks! It’s too soon. I feel like my back is breaking!”
“That’s an unusual name, but it’s nice to meet you, I’m Only Thirty-Seven Weeks.” Dr. Walsh took hold of the hem of the dress the woman was wearing. “May I?”
“Colleen,” the woman panted, and she nodded. She smiled at Dr. Walsh’s joke.
“Okay, Colleen, thirty-seven weeks is a wee bit early, but it’s nothing to worry about. Some babies just like to jump the gun. I need to ask you a few questions—”
A contraction hit, and the woman screamed.
“Just let them come. We’ll talk between them.” Dr. Walsh took Colleen’s hand but looked at Jake and jerked her head toward the crowd of rubberneckers that was reassembling. “Can you get rid of these people? And it sounds like the paramedics have arrived. Can you get them over here?”
He swallowed the lump forming in his throat—now that Nora was safely in control of the scene, emotion was seeping in around the edges of his consciousness—and nodded. When