Chapter 16

 

 

 

 

Finn

Six years ago

 

“Your mother hates me,” Kelly says to me, her eyes focused down on the engagement ring and wedding band which are now prominently displayed on her left hand. “She’s going to be even more pissed she didn’t get to see her only son get married.”

“She doesn’t hate you,” I reassure her, my hand reaching over to Kelly who’s sitting in the passenger seat of our car. I squeeze her hand and then rub her beautiful swollen belly. Everything about Kelly is beautiful. My ring on her finger. My baby in her belly. My last name at the end of her first name. “Besides, it’s Christmas and we’re giving her a grandchild.”

“I don’t think that matters, Finn. She told me she was too young to be a grandmother.”

I laugh, shaking my head. For a woman who had the shit repeatedly kicked out of her for her entire married life, she’s certainly come into her own since my father died. It’s like that giant filter she had clamped over her mouth while he was alive has evaporated.

“Too late now, baby. In sixteen weeks give or take, she’ll be a grandmother. At least your parents are excited.”

Kelly throws me an agitated look. She does not like her family. To be honest, I don’t believe they’re that bad. I think what Kelly really objects to is the fact that they don’t have a lot of money. White trash, is how she refers to them, which I don’t agree with. Her father is a working-class guy who’s done what he can for his family. Kelly’s mother is a bit…overbearing, but very sweet. I like them a lot actually.

Night and day from my family and I mean that in the best possible way.

“My mom wants to throw me a baby shower.”

I smile at that. Kelly doesn’t have a lot of girlfriends, and the few that she does have, haven’t offered to do that for her. “That’s great. When was she thinking?”

“I don’t know,” she huffs, folding her hands over her belly. “Maybe the end of February. A little closer to the due date.”

“Sounds–” Bang! Out of nowhere, we’re hit from behind with a loud grating crunch.

The car spins clockwise on the slippery road, my hands flying around the wheel, trying desperately to get us in control, but to no avail. My foot pressing down on the brake doesn’t do anything either, it just makes the tires screech and burn. Kelly is screaming as she stares in petrified horror at something out her window. The cement barrier we’re headed straight for.

My eyes fly over as I reach across her, trying to shield her from the impact. I can’t get to her. My seatbelt has no give to it. “Kelly!” I yell just as we slam into the barrier.

Our airbags deploy on impact. Kelly’s head bounces off the side-impact one of hers, and mine bounces off the one which comes out of the steering wheel, breaking my nose instantly with a sickening crunch. My knee slams into something with so much force that I holler out at the pain.

Blood squirts out of my nose and down my face, some of it pooling in the back of my throat, making me cough and choke. It takes me half a second to come back around and when I do, I look over at Kelly who is staring down at her hands which are covered in blood.

“Baby?” She turns to me. “Are you okay?”

Her eyes are wide and her forehead is bleeding a lot and she just stares at me, like she has no idea what just happened or if she’s okay.

“Kelly,” I command. “Talk to me.”

She blinks and nods. “Yes, I’m okay. I’m okay.”

“Does your belly hurt? Can you feel the baby at all?” I ask, unbuckling my seatbelt and trying to move over to her. The entire passenger side of the car is crushed in, pressing against her.

“I don’t know, Finn,” she begins to sob. “I don’t know.”

“Okay, baby. Calm down.” Her eyes close and they don’t open again. “Kelly, look at me, baby. Keep your eyes open and on me. Stay awake.”

She opens her eyes and focuses on me.

Someone is knocking outside my window, they’re yelling, asking if we’re okay. I tell him we need an ambulance. He tells me they’ve already been called and are on their way.

I don’t think I’ve ever been so grateful for anything in my life.

“Kelly, I’m going to reach between your legs.”

“What?” she shrieks. “Why?”

“I’m just going to check and make sure everything is okay.”

“No, Finn. Just wait for the ambulance.”

I nod at her. She’s panicked. I’m panicked. I’ve never been this terrified before in my entire life. “Kelly, do you feel like you’re bleeding down there?”

“No. And I feel the baby, I think.”

“Does anything else hurt?”

“I’m okay, Finn.”

I breathe out a sigh of relief at that and another one when I hear sirens approaching. Ambulances and fire trucks descend on us. They’re shouting about how they can’t get Kelly’s car door open as they refuse to let her come out my side because they’re afraid of a head and spinal cord injury. So instead they use the jaws of life to get Kelly out. They won’t let me stay in the car with her either despite my yelling and fighting.

As I watch my pregnant wife being carefully extracted from our crushed car, I let the paramedic work on my nose and check out my knee. I don’t give a shit. All I care about is Kelly and our baby. I cannot stand sitting here while they’re in there and I can’t do anything to help them.

The fire department finally manages to extract Kelly from the car. She’s crying. Sobbing. Fuck, I can’t take this. My heart is beating out of my chest. Adrenaline is coursing through my veins. I need to get to my family. They’re all I’ve got. Racing out of the ambulance I was sitting in, I reach her side. I take her hand and stare into her eyes as the paramedics strap her to a backboard and put a brace on her neck, before bringing her to the ambulance.

I follow her into the rig and the guy has the audacity to throw me a look. “I’m going with her,” I tell him and the look in my eyes has him keeping his mouth shut about it. Don’t even try it, that looks says.

“Turn her on her left side,” I yell at the paramedic as we race down the highway towards the hospital. Kelly’s blood pressure is not good, but it improves when he does that. “She’s pregnant,” I snap at him like that’s not blatantly obvious. “When she’s on her back she’s putting pressure on her vena cava.”

He just nods at me and continues to take care of Kelly. Putting pressure on her head laceration and making sure her vitals are stable and that she’s getting enough fluids and oxygen. I want to be the one taking care of Kelly. I want to hear my baby’s heartbeat and know they’re okay in there.

But I can’t do any of that.

All I can do is hold her hand as we ride to the hospital with our shared fear swimming between us. “It’s going to be okay,” I tell her even though I don’t know if it is, because the paramedics won’t check the baby. Ten minutes later they’re wheeling Kelly in. The baby’s heartbeat is ninety-eight. Not great, but at least there is one.

“Kelly, do you feel any pressure? Any contractions?” the doctor asks.

“No. I don’t think so. My back and side hurt as does my shoulder and head. But my stomach feels okay.” Kelly looks to me, like she’s asking more than telling and I nod at her. I kiss her head. I reassure her that everything she’s doing and saying is the right thing. But my hands tremble against hers and I know she can feel it.

“Good,” the doctor says with a relieved smile. “Okay, we’re going to get an ultrasound. The baby’s heartrate is a little low, but we’re going to monitor that very closely. Do you know how far along you are?”

“Twenty-four weeks today.”

The doctor nods, that relieved smile slipping. It’s obvious she wishes Kelly had said that she was farther along. I’m wishing that too.

“Finn?” Kelly sniffles, doing everything she can to hold herself together, despite the tears rolling down her cheeks. I don’t know what to do. How to fix this. She looks to me when I don’t respond. “Finn?”

“I’m here, baby. It’s going to be okay.” That’s my mantra. That’s what I keep telling her, because if I tell her that enough, it will come true. It has to.

Kelly nods. Kelly believes me even if I’m not sure I’m telling her the truth yet. The alternative is too much to fathom.

Just as they’re wheeling us to ultrasound, Kelly lets out a loud scream, arches her back and then there is a gush of blood. All hell breaks loose.

The doctor is between her legs and they’re running with Kelly on the gurney who is still screaming, down the hall and into the elevator and down another hall until we’re in the OR.

“You need to gown up,” one of the nurses says to me and she pulls me away while I watch them place a mesh cap over Kelly’s hair and an oxygen mask over her face and cover her with blue sterile drapes. “Here,” she says, throwing me a bunch of things which I catch reflexively and put on.

Dread is pooling deep in my gut, twisting and stabbing at me like a thousand knives. I’m shaking and my heart is pounding and I can’t stand this lack of control. I can’t stand that Kelly is on that table and my very premature baby is about to be born. I can’t stop this. I can’t make them okay.

“Dear God,” I pray aloud. “Let them be okay.” And then I walk back into that OR and sit up by Kelly’s head, resting my face next to hers as we cry together. I tell her I love her. That’s all I know for sure in this moment. We cry until the nurse tells us that our son has been born. We cry while I stand up and watch as the neonatologists work furiously on my son to get him intubated and his heart to beat.

Because he’s not breathing on his own and his heart isn’t beating.

My hand grips Kelly’s, who cannot see him. “He’s tiny,” I say, more to myself than to her, but she hears me and she sobs. My words are hurting her, so I keeping my mouth shut. His skin doesn’t look real yet. And his eyes are fused shut. And he’s blue. And he still isn’t breathing or beating.

But he’s without a doubt the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen and even though I haven’t touched him, I love him more than my own life.

“Is he alive?” I manage, but they ignore me. They’re pumping him full of drugs through a catheter in his umbilical cord and they’re breathing for him and pushing on his chest and I don’t know what to do. I turn back to Kelly, but her eyes are closed as she helplessly weeps, while the doctors close her up.

I had no idea love could hurt this much. Could be this terrifying.

After another three minutes, they stop working because there is nothing more they can do for my son. I can’t breathe. Everything inside of me hurts. The pain is unreal. Like nothing I’ve ever experienced before and I am no stranger to pain. I collapse back onto the stool, my legs no longer capable of supporting my weight. Holding Kelly’s head in my arms, we cry out our anguish, wishing we could die with him.