How It Rolls (24 page)

             
He chuckled and turned to get on the interstate. “Geez, five minutes ago you were making sure we were gonna wait until we were thirty and now you’re planning our house.  You move quick, I like it.” Oh no, he’d turned into a pompous ass on me.

             
“Just drive Hawkeye.”

Chapter 28

Reed

Somebody remind me to keep my phone away from Falcon.  If I wake up to White
Wedding one more time I was gonna scream.  Yes, it’s only been one time.  One morning, waking up to Billy Idol, is quite enough.

              The next morning I watched Falcon console Nellie after Owen left for his trip.  I decided to spend the night with her on Tuesday night since neither of us had to work the next day.  A slumber party with Nellie had to be a trip, she was just too much fun. 

             
Falcon and I stayed up most of the night talking about nothing and everything.  We had both forgotten about the ring and about three am he placed it on my finger.  I hadn’t let myself see the detail before but under the lamp of my bedside table I examined it properly.  The lily cut diamond was absolutely flawless and three sapphires sat on the band on either side of the platinum band.  I couldn’t have picked a more perfect ring if I shopped for it myself. 

             
Nellie wasn’t herself most of the day on Monday and Tuesday was more of the same.  Falcon was worried and sat in front of her at my house while she ate.  She blamed it on Owen but it was more than that.  There were circles under her eyes and she just looked beat down.  I went to her house after practice and tried to cheer her up.

             
We ate pizza and ice cream out of the cartons while we watched scary movies. We dyed my hair, finally, and here I sat looking the epitome of tealness.  Falcon was gonna freak.  And maybe this color would convince him to stop calling me Poppy even though I secretly loved it. 

             
We laughed and talked about our men.  She was right, Owen had some muscle on Falcon but Falcon won in the patience and temper department.  She was really married to a hot head and she loved him to pieces.  We talked about the wedding and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it may be years before I was ready.  She told me about her and Owen’s wedding and the famous break-up.  And listening to her I began to see that Chase and Sylvia weren’t the only ones who had beaten the odds.  Those two would go the distance too. 

             
After I had been there a few hours, Nellie complained of some stomach pain and drank a ton of the pink stuff to help.  She blew it off as indigestion and we started up the next scary ghost movie.  She went to the bathroom several times and each time made lewd jokes about pregnancy and poop.  One thing you could count on, Nellie and poop jokes.               

             
She had cramps for a few hours now and I was really starting to get worried.  I knew something wasn’t right.  She kept shooing me off but I could see she was in pain.  She put a call into her doctor and they hadn’t returned the call yet.  I told her we should just go to the hospital but she dismissed my request.   She got up to go to the bathroom and she stopped on the way and grabbed hold of a small table but after a few moments, kept walking.  I paced in her absence.  Something was wrong.  She kept saying that her doctor appointment was next Monday and Owen would be back by then.  She chanted it like a prayer, “Owen will be back on Monday, Owen will be back on Monday, Owen will be back on Monday.”

             
I was brought out of my worry by a faint whimper from the bathroom.  I got up and stood outside the door.

             
“Nellie, are you okay?” I put my hand on the knob, ready to turn it.

             
“I’m—I don’t…”

             
“Nellie?”  I stopped asking and went in.  The tears came even though I needed them to stay back.  I rushed to her; she was slumped against the wall, still sitting on the closed lid toilet, having apparently fainted.  One stream of red trickled down her left leg and the front of her dress was covered in blood.  She must’ve started bleeding when she stopped at the table and didn’t tell me.  I picked her up to a sitting position and called her name to try to wake her.  She woke up a little and then fell back unconscious.  I reached for my phone in my back pocket to call 911.  They told me to wait and they were sending an ambulance. 
Please don’t let her lose this baby.

             
I dialed Falcon.  This was a phone call I never wanted to make.  It seemed like forever before he picked up.

             
“Hey, are you cheering up my bestie?”

             
“Falcon keep calm, I just called 911.  Meet us at the hospital.  She’s cramping and bleeding.  Something is very wrong with her.  I’m afraid it’s the baby. “

             
“What happened? “ He barked into the phone as he shifted into big brother Falcon and I heard his tires squeal in defiance as he slammed on the brakes.

             
“I don’t know. The ambulance is on the way.  She’s passed out cold.  I’ll see you at the hospital.”

             
“Ok.”

             
I hung up on him and waited.  I tried to wake her up again but she just moaned and was still clammy.  Her forehead was dotted with sweat.  I had to let her go to let the paramedics in.  I propped her up the best I could and answered the door.  And then they took over.  I almost threw up at the scene before me.  It wasn’t the physical part; it was Nellie, the sweetest person I knew, going through this.  They bustled her back and forth calling her name after getting it out of me.  They stuck her with needles and pumped a blood pressure cuff.  The burly moustached man covered her with the stiffest, scratchiest blanket I’d ever seen on top of the gurney. Her head lolled back and forth as the maneuvered her. They yelled at me to grab her purse and I obeyed.  It took them forever to get her down the stairs and to the front of the bookstore to the ambulance.  Why they had parked in the front instead of the back, I’ll never know.  I got in; sitting on the hard steel bench beside her while they attempted to wake her up and asked her what seemed like random questions. 

             
Please don’t let her lose this baby.

             
They turned to me for information and off the top of my head I knew her due date and I knew she took really good care of herself. And I remembered her complaining about the taste of the prenatal vitamins so I told them.  I answered questions about drinking, smoking, and recreational drugs.  The answers were all negative, of course.

             
She gained some lucidity along the way and she looked at me with tears in her eyes.  “It’s gonna crush Owen,” she whispered and then the paramedic shone a flashlight in her eyes, flooding her with questions and awareness tests.

             
We got to the hospital and they took her to a room. I held her hand all the way until they tore us apart at the entrance to the sterile smelling room.  I ached for her and for Owen.  A nurse held my shoulders, stopping me from going in.  As the doors closed, the little circle window hit my nose.  Through those doors was my family.  She had become my family.  They all had.  I had a family.

             
Someone whispered for me to go to the waiting room and I followed the red arrows on the floor until I reached it.  I sat in the first chair available, next to a man with army green pants on and muddy boots.  Two palms were placed on my knees and I looked in front of me to see Falcon, squatting down in front of me.

             
“Reed, how is she? Did they tell you anything?”  He squeezed my thighs as he spoke softly to me.

             
“No, they just took her.” Tears I didn’t know were there toppled over my bottom lids and hit my jeans.

             
“Did she wake up?” He pressed.

             
“Yeah, she said ‘Owen’s gonna be crushed’. Then they started asking her questions and then we got here.”  I gripped her purse handle tightly, my connection to her and brought it up to hug it to my chest.

             
Falcon teared up then and laid his head in my lap.  I could hear him take deep breaths, so calculated they could never be normal.  After a few minutes he stood and led me to a couch.  He sat down next to me, draped his arm over my shoulder and kissed my temple.  About an hour later Maddox came in through the automatic doors.  Falcon and he talked back and forth and then we all fell silent again.

             
A few hours later a woman came out and said ‘Family of Nellie Black.’ Falcon and Mad stood up and then looked at me like I was nuts when I didn’t follow suit.

             
We followed the nurse to a room where we found Nellie laying in a stiff metal bed.  Her face was turned towards the window and a nurse came in to cover her with a warm blanket.  She shot something in Nellie’s IV and patted her hand before leaving. Nellie’s arms were crossed over her chest as silent sobs wracked her thin body.  I heard the doctor tell Falcon something about a spontaneous abortion and fetal something or other.  Finally Falcon, after the third time, informed him that if he called it that term again he wouldn’t need his medical license any longer.  Maddox clenched his fists to drive the point through.  It was the first time I’d ever seen him angry.  But his anger was justified.  This was my friend, my sister and that was her precious child, not a medical term to be repeated.   I walked past the testosterone fueled feud and sat on the side of her bed and did the only thing I knew to do.  I wrapped my arms around Nellie and sobbed right along with her.  She would never get to hold the baby that everyone already loved.

Chapter 29

Falcon

Here’s the
thing about Nellie and me.  I don’t need to ask to know something’s wrong.  She doesn’t call before she comes over.  She forces me to spill my guts and I always feel better no matter how much I fight her.  And when she needs me, I’m there before she asks.

              They released her the next day.  She made me promise not to call our parents or try to get Owen.  Owen was on a boat but I could get in touch with them through the Coast Guard if I needed.

             
“Chase and Sylvia are having the time of their lives and Owen’s research will hopefully lead them to more grants.  And those grants fund their work.  Anyway,” She looked through the window of the hospital room, “It’s not like anything’s gonna change.  What’s done is done.”

             
Reed only left the hospital to shower, eat, and come back.  She doted on Nellie hand and foot, whatever she wanted.  And talk about fierce, one nurse came in to take blood and Nellie squealed in pain.  By the time the nurse left she probably regretted the day she ever enrolled in nursing school. 

             
We brought Nellie to her apartment.  I went straight to the bathroom to see to cleaning up the blood but it was already done.  When I came out, Reed was doing Nellie’s laundry while Nellie rested in her bedroom. 

             
“I thought you said she passed out in the bathroom.”

             
“She did.  I came yesterday and cleaned up before she got here.  I didn’t want her to see the blood again.  She didn’t need to see that.”  She continued to put clothes in the washer like she didn’t just reveal how much she cared for my best friend, my sister. 

             
“Should we call her mom?” Reed asked while I was still in thought.

             
“Nellie said not to, she didn’t even know Nellie was pregnant.  She isn’t a fan of Owen, anyway.”

             
“But blood is blood.  If I had any blood relatives, I would want to see them, know what was going on in their lives.  I bet her mom cares, even if she doesn’t act like it.”

             
“Do you ever wonder about your Aunt Elaine?  Do you ever think about getting in contact with her?” I started in on the small pile of dishes leftover from their half slumber party.  She took up the spot next to me, drying the dishes as I washed them. 

             
“Sometimes I do.  I wonder why she didn’t want me.  I wonder where she is and if she has any pictures of my parents.  Some days I can’t remember them at all.  I remember things they said or if I smell lilacs, it smells like my mom.  But I think if I reconnected with Aunt Elaine that maybe it would bring some of that back.  I don’t know.” She shrugged and put the glasses in the cabinet.

             
I nodded in response. 

             
We heard Nellie call Reed from the other room and she put the plate she was drying down and practically ran to her.  I took a minute to order dinner.  I heard the shower and figured it was Nellie needing Reed to help her.  She was still very weak and had lost lots of blood.  Owen was going to beat me senseless when he got home and found out I didn’t find him.  And I couldn’t say I would blame him one single bit.  And if I had called Mom she would leave Italy with or without my dad.  I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing or not.  But I knew I was honoring Nellie’s wishes, even if they got me beaten like a red headed step child.