to the paramedics while Mike navigated the bumpy road.
Mike had apologized for having to put the phone plug in the cigarette lighter for power. “I never remember to charge the battery.”
“Lost the charger, probably,” she heard Carrie mutter from outside. Lori had to stop breathing so fast. If they hit one more bump, Tyler was going to get to meet his new brother or sister up close and personal. Tyler looked so small sitting next to her on the seat, bouncing up and down even though he was belted in.
“Isn’t this cool, Mama?” His eyes shone. From his perspective, it was probably cool. All of Tyler’s passions were involved here: uniformed police officers, big dogs, huge trucks and a man who actually paid attention to him. When she nodded to agree with him, a wave of nausea roared over her.
“Bad move, huh?” Mike looked over at her sharply. How could he drive and keep his eyes on the road yet still monitor how she was feeling?
“Bad move.” She held her head still. Things felt better that way. “How far are we from—”
“Meeting the ambulance crew? Tell us, Carrie.” Mike turned his head toward the open back window.
Carrie spoke into the phone, then leaned toward the open window. “Maybe five minutes. You going to be able to hang on?”
“Sure.” Lori gritted her teeth. She wasn’t sure, but she was going to have to be, for Tyler’s sake, for the baby’s sake, even for the sake of the large man driving the truck. He didn’t look ready to deliver a baby.
The next five minutes seemed more like five hours. Lori would have burst into tears of relief when the yellow ambulance pulled up to the truck, but she lacked the energy. Mike braked and vaulted out of his side of the truck. “Don’t you dare try to get out on your own,” he warned. “Hey, Kenny, Rosa, this lady’s about to have a baby. How about some real quick movement this way?”
Before Lori could say anything, she was on a stretcher pulled up to the cab of the truck. In moments, she was looking up at the ceiling of the moving ambulance while someone with cold, sure hands was assessing the situation.
“Hi, I’m Rosa.” The dark-haired woman smiled. “You’ve got a head nearly crowning here, but you probably knew that already. Mike said to tell you that they’d follow us there and meet us at the hospital. He said not to worry about Tyler.”
“I won’t. Right now I’ve got all I can worry about right here.”
It was there in the ambulance, holding Rosa’s hand, that Lori had to come to terms with what she’d known for months. Gary was really dead. She was really doing this on her own, and it wasn’t getting any easier.
When Lori thought about Gary, she couldn’t feel any pain. Just a sense of peace, something telling her that maybe the most troubled soul she’d ever known had finally found rest.
She wondered if he was watching them somehow, could see what was going on. There was no time to wonder. Another contraction engulfed her. The ceiling of the ambulance blurred. When they hit a rut on the road she stifled a yelp. “Go ahead and yell if it will make you feel any better.” Rosa was still right there with her. “Anything that will keep you from giving in to that urge to push right now would be welcome.”
Lori managed a weak smile. “I guess you would rather the doctors at the hospital delivered this baby.”
Rosa nodded. “I’ve caught a couple myself, but it’s always good to have help. It would be more comfortable for you in the long run, too.”
“Then I hope the hospital isn’t too much farther.” That ceiling was starting to blur again. This baby was going to be here soon, wherever they were.
“Am I a big brother yet?” Tyler asked, looking around the commotion of the emergency room.
“We’ll find out. It wouldn’t surprise me at all.” Carrie held his hand and craned her neck over the crowd. “You see anything?”
Mike’s vantage point was better, but he still had no indication of where Kenny and Rosa might have taken their precious cargo. “Nothing yet. Let’s ask at the desk.”
“Yeah, she just made it.” The triage nurse came around the counter and went down to Tyler’s height. “You have a very pretty baby sister. Of course she might look all red and squashy to you, but she looks pretty good to Mom right now. If you wait about twenty minutes more, we’ll get you back there to see her, once we clean them both up.”
Tyler’s brow wrinkled. “How’d they get dirty?”
The nurse laughed. “Well, they didn’t, exactly. But being born is pretty messy.” She looked at Carrie and Mike. “Maybe one of your friends can take you to look at the vending machines while we let your mom know you’re here.”
“Cool. Do they have candy bars?” Tyler looked around for the machines.
“They sure do. And really good chips.” Carrie led him to the small room off the hallway where the machines were. Naturally she’d take the easy part. Mike straightened up.
“Guess that means I’m going back with Mrs. Harper. You say she had a girl?”
The nurse nodded. “At least eight pounds. And she really is pretty. I wasn’t lying to her brother. Rough way to start out life, though.”
Lori looked beautiful but frail propped up in her hospital bed holding a very new baby. They were an oasis of calm in the emergency room. Only a curtain separated the bay that held mother and child from organized chaos on either side of them. Mike hadn’t looked in the other cubicles, but one seemed to be occupied by someone elderly and quite deaf, while the other seemed to hold a brace of wildcats, or maybe just an unhappy toddler and mother.
Lori looked up from the bundle in her arms. “Hi. You made it. Isn’t she something?” Her smile was touched with exhaustion. “I’m still figuring out what to call her. Gary was so sure this was going to be a boy. He said it would be Gary, Jr., this time. I can’t think of any way to make Gary into a girl’s name though.”
Mike shook his head. He had no idea what to say to this lady. “Nothing comes to mind right away. Carrie’s out getting Tyler a candy bar. The nurses wanted us to hold off bringing him back for a few minutes, give you some more rest time.”
Lori smiled again wanly. “Good. I have a feeling rest is going to be in very short supply in a little while. Once they figure out we’re both okay, we’ll probably go home. With no insurance, they won’t keep us long.”
“No insurance? Didn’t your husband leave you anything? What about Medicaid? Something?”
Lori’s eyes clouded. “He hadn’t been at his job that long. Gary’s boss said we wouldn’t be qualified for health insurance until he’d been there for a year anyway and even then not for a baby that was already on the way. Said it was one of those ‘preexisting conditions’ all the insurance companies talk about.”
Mike suspected that whatever Harper was doing in Friedens, Missouri, it hadn’t been the kind of job that came with a medical plan. Meth labs were a little short on benefits. Still, now wasn’t the time to bring any of that up. Lori Harper didn’t seem to know much about what her husband had really done for a living. There would be plenty of time to break the
