She had just put the finishing touch on the nursery, a yellow valance covered with brown monkeys. Stepping away from the window, Angeline dimmed the lights and basked in the moonlight pouring through the window. As she massaged her belly, her eyes drifted towards the lonely rocking chair. Soon, very soon, she would sit there and cradle her baby, their baby, feel the soft sweet breath on her cheek as tiny lips suckled at her breasts, and she would smile. She pictured Kane standing at her side as she bobbed back and forth in the chair. Would he know what to make of the tiny life in her arms? She believed that he would, but she’d probably have to remind him to support the head in his burly palm and…
Angeline’s fantasy came to a grinding halt as a sharp pain rushed through her body. Holding herself close, she sucked in a deep breath and pressed her hand to the wall. The ache came and went in the space of a single second, and she tried to convince herself that the little guy or girl was doing nothing more than giving her a swift kick. Maybe the baby sensed that the room was ready and wanted the grand tour right now.
“Soon, sweetie,” she promised as she patted her belly. “I—”
The pain came back, stopping her speech, and Angeline fell into the wall. Just breathing was harder, and as she ran her hand across her face, a sheen of sweat and tears dotted her fingers.
Screaming out in agony, Angeline slipped to her knees. Struggling to wrestle her phone from her pocket, she gripped it with trembling hands. Logic dictated that she should call for an ambulance, but as the pain flared through her veins, her heart wanted Kane. She needed to feel his arms around her. He had to be here for this.
Angeline dialed once and felt the ring back vibrating against her cheek. When he didn’t pick up, she didn’t leave a message. Ending the call and dialing again, she prayed that he would see her number flashing across his screen. Whatever he was up to would wait, had to wait when he saw that she was calling.
Two tries. Three. Still no answer.
“Come on, Kane,” she muttered under her wracked breath. “Where the hell are you?”
“Angie?”
Brent appeared in the doorway, his cane in his shaking hand. At first glance, he seemed annoyed at having been roused from a deep sleep, but as soon as he saw his daughter, crumpled and sweating on the ground, he moved fast and tried to reach her.
“Angie!”
His legs gave out, and at the sight of him falling, Angeline forgot her own agony. “Dad!” she cried. Angeline was barely off the ground when she stumbled. Desperate to protect her baby, she wrapped her flailing hands around her belly, and when she hit the floor again, she lost her phone and watched with fearful eyes as it slid to the other side of the room. “No,” she whispered. “Oh no.”
Turning to her back, Angeline tried to breathe through the cramps wracking her body. As the room started to spin, she felt her father crawling on his elbows to reach her. “I’m here, Angie!” he said. “I’m right here.”
The feel of the father’s hand on her shoulder brought her some comfort, and Angeline tried to focus on his scared smiled as he rubbed her arm. Brent obviously wanted this to be like the time she had fallen off her bike and skinned her knee on the pavement just beyond their house. A little iodine, a few thousand band aids, and his little girl was as good as new.
But this…
Screaming at the top of her aching lungs, Angeline cowered into her father’s quivering embrace. Brent tried to hold her through it, but it wasn’t enough. And if Kane wasn’t coming…?
“Get… get the phone, Dad,” Angeline panted. “I don’t… I can’t…”
“Okay, okay,” Brent said.
He paused for all of a second to kiss her brow, and he tried to stand, supporting his weight with the arm of the rocking chair. It swayed out from under his hold before he was up, and then Brent collapsed to the other side of the room. The sound of him grunting and groaning brought her some peace—at least he was okay. However, as a wave of warm water cascaded down her thighs, she knew that the baby was coming.
Even though her father was in the same room, she was without help. Closing her eyes, she prayed for the sound of Kane’s bike coming up the drive. Seeing her like this would drain the color from his face, but he would follow her instructions and call for an ambulance. She could hold out until the flashing lights and the blaring sirens replaced the moonlight, and everything would be alright.
”Kane,” she muttered. “Come now. Please…”
Brent was struggling back to her side, and Angeline weakly waved towards her lost phone. However, her father did not follow her lead. Gathering her in his shaking arms, he peered down at her with tears in his eyes, and Angeline bit down on her lip as her head lolled from side-to-side on the floor.
“Just call,” she murmured. “Please help me, Dad. Please.” A new charge rushed down her limbs, and she writhed under her father’s hold.
“Angie! Don’t leave me. Don’t…”
Gazing up at him, Angeline thought of her mother. Her father had already lost one woman that he loved. Could he stand another loss? She knew that there was no way.
Straining towards him, Angeline tried to hold his face, and she nodded weakly. The memory of her mother as they had seen her last—cold and caked in makeup inside a coffin bordered by the overwhelming scent of flowers that only gave her father an excuse to explain his tears in front of his friends—worked its way to the forefront of her mind. She would get through this and show him that he didn’t have to suffer another loss. She…
“Oh God!”
As soon as Angeline sat up in his arms, her head was back on the floor. Her will was growing weaker as the baby held court. It was coming like a freight train, and she was suddenly afraid of the perfectly set room, far from sterile. Where were the gowned men and women with gloved hands? Where was Kane?
She shrieked again, and Brent held her tight. With fluttering eyes, she looked over her shoulder. A small light that wasn’t the moon peeked through the window.
“Kane?”
There was a soft knock on the door. Kane wouldn’t knock. He didn’t have to. So who was here? Was it a stranger? Was it Noel? Ready to swoop in and steal the child that would never be his? Angeline wanted whoever it was to just go. She would figure out the next step when—
Her cries reached the rafters, and she shuddered in Brent’s embrace as she heard the door open. A voice moved up the stairs, and Angeline’s heart lightened when she recognized the sound.
“Hello?” it called out again.
“Jeremy!”
Kane’s brother suddenly appeared in the doorway. It seemed to take him all of a second to survey the scene and any bad blood dried up when she gazed at him with pleading eyes.
“Jeremy?”
“Angeline?”
Falling to Brent’s side, he touched her hair lightly.
“The baby?” he asked.
“What the hell do you think?” Brent bellowed.
Brushing her father off, Jeremy whipped out his phone. When she heard him explain the location of the house and her current condition, she sagged slightly in her father’s arms. Angeline had no idea why he was here or what he wanted, but she was grateful for his hand in hers as he nodded.
“Hang on, Angeline,” Jeremy said.
However, she couldn’t. She felt the baby slipping out from her. As she gritted her teeth and tried to press her legs together, Angeline knew that she was losing the battle. Jeremy turned his head to Brent, but her father could offer nothing but a terrified shrug as his little girl quaked in his arms.
“Where is my brother?” Jeremy asked in a thick voice.
Pointing towards her phone, Jeremy scrambled across the floor and tried to succeed where Angeline had failed. With each call to voicemail, Jeremy’s face tightened. He was about to fling the phone away, when Angeline grabbed his wrist and spoke from her heart.
“Kane… please…”
Watching Jeremy through fluttering lashes, she saw Jeremy roll his eyes, but as his fingers moved across the screen, she felt certain that he was texting her wish to her lover’s eyes. He would see it. He would come.
“Help me!” she screamed. “Someone please…”
But would it be in time?
Tossing the phone aside, Jeremy removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. Angeline was stunned to attention at the feel of his hands against her thighs and tried to move closer to her father. Jeremy was here; he had called for help; but, he was not her friend. He hated her for Kane’s incarceration and hated the baby coming fast when Ellen’s womb was barren. Would he suddenly prove more vicious than Noel and rob her of the baby in some twisted form of revenge? Would he give her child to Ellen?
Angeline tried to fight him off, and Brent tried to lift her away from Jeremy’s hold.
“What do you think you’re—”
Brent barely had her off the ground when his legs gave out again, and Angeline reached for her father as Jeremy turned her face to his.
“The baby’s coming,” Jeremy said. When she stayed silent, his fingers ground into her cheeks, and his stare was harsh as he repeated his statement.
“Yes!” Angeline said. “I don’t… please don’t… I’m sorry!”
Jeremy didn’t speak as eased her back to the floor. Stroking her face for all of a second, his hands returned to her thighs, and even as his voice seemed a million miles away, Angeline leaned into it.
“Push, Angeline.”
It wasn’t supposed to be like this—not with his brother. She would wait for Kane to see the text message and hope for the sound of his bike, the sight of him in the doorway. Looking for him now, Angeline thought that she saw him, but as her lips lifted into a grateful smile, Kane vanished. She tried to will him back, but then the rush of the baby desperate to see the room was all that she could think of.
“Come on,” Jeremy urged. “You can do this.”
Instead, Angeline only thought, “Not without Kane. I need him here.”
“Angeline!”
Angeline trembled under his touch, still uncertain of his intentions. Jeremy’s cold glare morphed into something resembling concern, and as Angeline felt her father’s hand in hers, she peered into Jeremy’s eyes.
“I don’t want… I don’t want anything bad to happen.”
Jeremy’s touch was kind, his voice soothing, as he leaned closer to her face. “Then, work with me, Angeline. Let this be a nice surprise when he comes home.”
And he would come back to her. She knew that.
Believing in Jeremy for the first time, she gripped her father’s hand until she thought the bones of his fingers might break and strained to bring the baby into the room. It would be okay. The ambulance had to show at any second, and they would make their way to the hospital. Kane would be more than a mirage, and…
“No…”
Her pain stopped, but the room went silent. There should be crying; Jeremy should be announcing what it was; Brent should be calling for a blanket. However, she heard nothing but the sound of flesh smacking flesh as ragged breaths tunneled into an unseen abyss.
“My baby…”
“Angie, don’t.”
She fought past her father’s arms and stretched forward. Jeremy was trying to breathe life into the body of her limp baby. Touching her suddenly bare belly, Angeline’s eyes went wild. This was supposed to be a safe place for their child, a perfect place.
Not a tomb.
“No!” she screamed. “Please, Jeremy! Please.”
There was still no sound as Kane’s brother worked on his hands and his lips on the limp little body in his trembling arms.