Chapter 3 - The Five Missing Hours
The first paramedic knelt beside my bed. "I'm Ivy. Tell me your name."
"Mariana Mercer. Thirty-one weeks. The baby's not moving."
Ivy's eyes met her partner's for half a second. They worked faster.
Ruth hovered at the door. "It just started. I found her like this ten minutes ago."
"That's not true," June said from behind her. "She said it started hours ago. She asked for an ambulance before I called."
"You don't live in this house," Ruth snapped.
"No," June said. "I just live close enough to hear what you ignored."
Ivy asked when I'd first noticed the bleeding. "About two in the morning." I forced the words out. "I called for Ruth at least four times. My phone disappeared."
"We'll sort that out later," Ivy said gently. "Right now we're taking care of you."
They lifted me onto a stretcher. Pain tightened across my stomach, then eased, leaving me shivering. Ruth reached for my arm as they rolled me past her.
"Don't tell Daniel I was upset," she whispered. "He won't understand."
"Neither do I," I said.
On the driveway, June stepped beside the stretcher and tucked my fallen blanket around my feet. "Your baby's going to have people fighting for her," she told me. "I'm one of them."
I'd never told June we were having a girl. I must have smiled, because her eyes filled.
In the ambulance Ivy attached monitors and asked about medications and recent falls. I answered between breaths. No fall. No injury. Just waking in pain, a terrible heaviness, and blood that wouldn't stop.
"We need the maternity trauma team," she said into the radio.
At a red light her partner's phone rang. He listened, then frowned. "Hospital got a call from the family. They're being told the patient refused transport."
"I didn't," I whispered.
May you like
He turned the screen so Ivy could see the caller's number.
It was mine.
