Newborn Needs a Dad / His Motherless Little Twins

by Dianne Drake

  And he sure as hell wished he hadn’t kissed her.

  Aching back, cold to the bone, the first hour into the rescue had been an exercise in patience because all they’d done was wait. Neil and Eric were at the van, word was there were survivors, but so far no one had been sent up. Several others had gone down, though, to tie off the van to make it secure. It was a slow process. Gabby was frustrated and uncomfortable, and that was about her physical circumstances. The way she felt about Neil’s reaction…actually, she was trying not to think about that.

  People all around her were pitching in. It was an amazing thing to watch, because tables were set up and coffee was being handed around to rescuers and watchers alike. Blankets were coming out of car trunks and being wrapped around the shoulders of anxious parents waiting to find out if their children were in the vehicle at the bottom of the ravine. It was an almost surreal scene, because everybody seemed to know their place there. Everybody but Gabby, who decided to go lie down in the back of an ambulance while she waited, when the estimate for the first patient to be brought up turned into another thirty minutes. So she made her whereabouts known to one of the attendants, then stretched out, trying to fight off the dull, heavy sleep that wanted to slip down over her. Emotional sleep, she decided. Something to heal her dull emotional state.

  But she didn’t sleep. She just existed in oblivion for a few minutes, not thinking, not planning. Not asking herself the obvious questions. Eyes closed, and focused only on her breathing, maybe her mental escape lasted five minutes when all of a sudden Gabby had the distinct impression that she was being watched. When she opened her eyes and turned her head she saw him. He was kneeling next to the stretcher on which she was resting, his face only inches from Gabby’s. “Who are you?” she whispered, so not to startle the child.

  He whispered back. “Benjamin Tyler Janssen, ma’am.”

  Polite child, and scared to death. She could see that in his eyes. “And what can I do for you, Benjamin Tyler Janssen?” She guessed him to be seven, give or take a year.

  Benjamin shrugged, didn’t answer. Tears were welling in his eyes but not spilling.

  “Were you in the accident?” He could have been. Maybe he’d climbed up the side of the drop-off on his own.

  “No,” he replied, his voice quivering as the tears got closer.

  “Are you hurt, Benjamin?”

  “No.”

  That was good. “Are you here looking for someone who might have been in the accident?”

  “No,” he answered again, as the tears finally began to roll down his cheeks.

  By now, Gabby knew Benjamin wasn’t going to be forthcoming with information, and if she wanted to find out what was going on, she’d have to ask the right question. Which could go on all night. Except the child was here at an accident scene, kneeling in the back of an ambulance. The doctor in her took over. “Is someone you know sick, or hurt?”

  “My grandpa. He said he didn’t feel so well, then he…” He sniffled, then wiped his tears on the sleeve of his jacket.

  “What, Benjamin?You have to tell me so I can help him.”

  “He went to sleep. And he wouldn’t wake up.”

  A whole list of possibilities raced through Gabby’s mind. Stroke, heart attack, complete cardiac arrest. “Well, I’m a doctor, Benjamin, and I want to go see your grandfather right now. Can you tell me where he is?”

  He nodded. “He’s still in the car. We were going back to our room and he had to stop because of all the sirens.”

  Meaning they had been on the road to the lodge and had pulled over for the emergency vehicles. At least, that’s what she hoped he meant. “You’re staying at the lodge?

  “Yes, ma’am. We can go hiking every day. Grandpa takes pictures and sells them to magazines.”

  So grandpa was a professional photographer, which meant he was probably in pretty good health. Gabby hoped that would be enough to sustain him for a while. “Do you see that black bag sitting on the stretcher right behind you?” she asked, as she scooted to the edge of her stretcher, preparing to stand.

  Benjamin turned around. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, right now, I need you to be my assistant and carry it.” While she carried the bag of first-aid supplies she was taking from the ambulance—an IV set-up, a flashlight, a bag of saline solution, a blanket and some incidentals. Not much, because she couldn’t deplete the ambulance. So, after stuffing everything into the pillowcase she’d been using during her much abbreviated rest, she followed Benjamin out the back of the ambulance, told one of the attendants where she’d be, then followed Benjamin through the crowd, which seemed to be growing larger by the minute.

  At the edge of the scene, where the number of people dwindled, and the flurry of activity had died down, Gabby stopped for a moment to dial Neil’s cell phone. She didn’t expect him to answer, but she hoped that at some point he would listen to his messages. “It may be a heart attack or a stroke,” she started to explain. “Won’t know until I get there. But we’re going down the main access road. Call me when you get my message.” As she clicked off, she wasn’t sure that he would.

  “Do you live near here, Benjamin?” she asked, hoping a little conversation would help calm the boy.

  “No. But we come here sometimes. My grandpa likes the pictures he takes here.”

  “And no one else comes with you?”

  “Just me and Grandpa. My mom and dad stay home.”

  Mom and dad. That was a relief, because she’d been wondering if Benjamin’s grandfather was raising him. “Well, as soon as we get your grandpa taken care of, we’ll call your mom and dad.” Benjamin was picking up his pace, and Gabby sensed they were nearing the car. Right now they were only a few hundred yards away from the crash site and she could still see the reflection from the lights set up all around it.

  “Hurry up!” Benjamin yelled, breaking into a run.

  She called Neil’s cell phone again. “I think I’m at the car now.” She flashed her light on it. “It’s an SUV, red, with a luggage rack on top.” And a man slumped over the steering wheel. “Gotta go,” she said, clicking off. Then clicked right back on. “And I’m not doing anything stupid,” she added, then clicked off again.

  “Benjamin, what I need for you to do is stay here, on the road, and if someone comes by, wave at them, try to stop them. But don’t run out in front of them.” A mother’s advice. And it felt right.

  “Is he going to be OK?”

  She wanted to make promises, but she knew better. As she opened the passenger’s door and looked at the man in the next seat, her patient looked so bad she wondered if there were even any promises to make here at all. “What’s his name?” she asked Benjamin.

  “Ben,” he said, his voice quivering as the tears started again. “Grandpa Ben.”

  “Well, then, let me see what I can do for Grandpa Ben.”

  After she’d climbed inside and seated herself next to the man, the first thing she did was feel for a pulse in his neck. Nothing. She repositioned fingers, tried again, still nothing. But on a third repositioning…a pulse! Very thready, very irregular, but it was there.

  “Is he OK?” Benjamin called from the road.

  If only she could twist around and be more flexible. Or at least be flexible enough to have a look in his eyes. But she couldn’t. The space was too cramped and she had too much bulk, so she climbed back outside the vehicle and went around to the driver’s door.

  “Is my grandpa OK?” Benjamin yelled again. This time more agitated than frightened. He was expecting a miracle, and she didn’t want to let him down. But the situation wasn’t looking good for Grandpa Ben, and the fact that she was so limited wasn’t helping.

  “I have to do a few more things before I know what’s going on,” she told the boy. Part of her wanted to hug the child and prepare him for the worst, and part of her wanted to send him back up the road so he wouldn’t have to be here if, or when, his grandfather died. She remembered seeing her mot
her die. It had been an aneurysm, had happened fast, while her dad had been working and she’d been home alone with her mom. It was a memory no child should ever have. But she needed Benjamin here with her, needed his help. “Benjamin, what I want you to do is make a phone call for me.” She tossed him her cell phone, then opened the driver’s door. “Call the number at the top of my list and tell the man who answers what I’m about to tell you…”

  “Grandpa Ben, can you hear me?” she shouted at her patient. He was a big, muscular man. Curly brown hair, broad shoulders. Handsome and rugged, but much too large for her to move. “Ben, can you hear me?” No response. Not even a little stirring.

  She checked his eyes. Pupils equal and reactive to light. Good. “Did you dial the number?”

  Benjamin nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  Such a polite little boy. Manners were important. She intended to instill proper manners in Bryce. “Did anyone answer?”

  “No,” he said.

  “That’s OK. But you’ve got his voice mail, right?”

  “Right.”

  “Then say P-E-R-L. Pulse thready, tachycardia. Respirations…” She counted for several seconds. “Normal, shallow. And BP…” She pumped up the cuff, took a listen, got nothing, took another listen, couldn’t hear a thing. “Can’t hear it.”

  Benjamin repeated her word for word.

  “Mild cyanosis…”

  Benjamin stumbled over those words.

  “Skin cold and clammy.” Over the next two minutes she made all the diagnoses that she could standing next to the driver’s side, leaning in. And that’s as far as she could go. Physically, she couldn’t lift the elder Ben out, even with little Benjamin’s help. And she couldn’t even climb in and administer anything. So she was stalled here. Standing guard over a man who needed so much when she could give him so very little. “Tell him I’m starting an IV with saline.” After that, she needed help or the man would die. Of that, she had no doubt. Even without the proper diagnostic tools, she knew a heart attack when she saw one. A severe heart attack.

  “Ben,” she shouted again, hoping to rouse him. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she saw a situation where Ben woke up and with a little help from her was able to climb into the next seat over. Easy solution—she’d drive him to the hospital. But that wasn’t happening. And each and every time she felt for a pulse, what she felt was the heart rhythm of a man closer to death than he had been when she’d checked him the last time.

  “The man said he’s coming,” Benjamin shouted.

  “What man?”

  “The one on the cell phone. He called back. Does that mean my grandpa is going to be OK? Is that man going to help fix him?”

  “That man is a very good doctor, and he’ll do everything he can to help your grandpa.” She took another pulse. Unfortunately, Benjamin’s grandpa was failing fast. Too fast. By the time she saw headlights coming toward her, she couldn’t find a pulse at all. Couldn’t count a respiration.

  “He’s coding,” she called, as Neil jumped out of the ambulance he was driving. “And I can’t get him out of the car seat.”

  “Get what you need from the ambulance,” he said, running past her. “And, Gabby, it’s just the two of us. We couldn’t spare anybody else from up top. They’re finally getting the kids up and it’s taking every medic we have up there.”

  In the ambulance, she found cardiac drugs and a portable defibrillator, which she handed to Benjamin to carry over to Neil. There was also a bag to force air into his lungs and an intubation tray if the field resuscitation went that far. By the time she got everything to the road, Neil had Grandpa Ben out of the driver’s seat, lying in the dirt, with the SUV headlights pointed directly on them. He was doing chest compressions, alternating them with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Gabby’s first task was to hook the leads from the defibrillator to Grandpa Ben’s chest, which she did, only to find him in ventricular fibrillation—a condition where the heart was more quivering than beating. Her second was to ready the cardiac drugs as Neil did the cardioversion—shocked the man’s heart.

  “Damn,” he muttered, when it didn’t convert to a normal sinus rhythm. “Do you know if he’s had previous heart problems?”

  “Don’t know. I looked in his pockets and in the glove box in his car and didn’t find anything—no drugs. So I’m assuming not. And he’s physically active.”

  “Of course he’s physically active. Do you know who this is?” Neil asked, as he prepared to give Grandpa Ben another shock.

  “Someone I should know?”

  “Ben Gault, one of the most noted photographers in the country.”

  She’d seen his photos in an exhibit in Chicago last year. Impressive. In fact, she’d bought a couple of copies and hung them in her condo. Admittedly, Ben Gault’s subject matter was responsible for some of her discontent. All the hours she’d looked at the nature he’d captured through the lens had made her realize she wanted more than she’d had. It had been the start of something big in her life. Suddenly, it occurred to Gabby that she’d been looking at the Three Sisters from different angles all those months. No wonder she’d felt at home here so quickly. “The Ben Gault?”

  “The one and only.”

  After the drugs were pushed in, Gabby took the portable oxygen little Benjamin had dragged over, and attached it to the bag and mask to ventilate him. But the mask wouldn’t get a tight seal. Grandpa Ben’s face had huge contours that wouldn’t meld to the mask seal, so the only other option was to intubate. Which she couldn’t do, because Grandpa Ben was on the ground, and whoever did the intubation would have to get flat on their belly. Heaven knew, she couldn’t do that now. So she took over chest compressions as Neil placed the tube in their patient’s lungs.

  “I’m concerned that he hasn’t shown any signs of rousing, even before he crashed,” she whispered to Neil, as he wiggled into a good position, then pulled up Grandpa Ben’s chin to start the procedure. “I have no idea how long he’s been this way, which also has me concerned.”

  “But he didn’t crash until just before I got here, did he?”

  “Your timing was perfect. And I was getting scared, because there wasn’t anything I could do.”

  Neil didn’t respond as he slipped the straight-bladed laryngoscope into Grandpa Ben’s mouth and had a look at his vocal cords. Neither did she talk as she continued pumping on the man’s chest. Her back already ached, her arm muscles were cramping up, and even her shoulders were complaining.

  “You OK?” Neil asked, once he slid the breathing tube into place.

  “Are you?” she asked in return.

  He glanced up briefly. “I don’t want to talk about it, Gabrielle.”

  “I think we should. I want to tell you about Gavin.”

  “You want to tell me about my brother?” He snorted. “Well, guess what? What you know about him is nothing I want to hear.” On purpose, Neil turned away from Gabby as he taped the tube into place, then he took over the chest compressions and gave Gabby the task of ventilation. No more words spoken between them.

  Gabby knew better than to pursue it. This wasn’t the time. Neil wasn’t ready. Maybe he never would be.

  An hour later, Ben Gault was alive and doing better, tucked into one of the hospital’s few intensive care beds, and except for a few words concerning their patient, she and Neil had said nothing to each other. In fact, the air between them was downright cold. She’d expected that, but she’d hoped she was wrong, that Neil wouldn’t have reacted the way he had. “It is what it is,” she whispered to Bryce, as she went to check on little Benjamin.

  “Can I see my grandpa?” he asked.

  Gabby sat down on the waiting-room sofa next to him, and put her feet up. “He’s sleeping right now, but maybe in a few minutes we can sneak in there together and have a look, if you promise not to wake him up.”

  “Is he going to be better when he wakes up?”

  “We hope so, Benjamin. We’re doing everything we can to help him.”<
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  “He promised to take me to Hawaii with him this summer.”

  “You travel a lot with your grandpa, don’t you?”

  “When my mom and dad let me go. Sometimes they don’t, but mostly they do.”

  “And I’ll bet you love it.” She was thinking about Bryce and how he would miss out on having a grandfather like Ben Gault. Her dad would have been great, like Benjamin’s grandpa was. Bryce wouldn’t have a father either. No men in her son’s life, which was something she couldn’t help. But Bryce would miss out on so much. For a while, she’d hoped Neil might be that man in her son’s life, but the likelihood of that happening was so slim she wouldn’t allow herself to hold out any hope.

  “It’s fun. I like it when we go hiking together, and he lets me carry his camera. I have my own camera, too. Grandpa Ben bought it for me last Christmas.”

  “I’ll bet you take good pictures, don’t you?”

  Benjamin nodded.

  “What things do you like to take pictures of?”

  “Animals. I like horses. And goats.”

  “You like goats?” Gabby laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever really seen a goat in person.”

  “You’ve got to watch them,” Benjamin warned seriously. “They can be sneaky.”

  Like life, she thought as she settled in to wait with Benjamin. His parents were on their way to White Elk and she’d promised them she’d take care of him until then. Already she was loving it, and thinking about life with her own son. Thank you, Gavin, she said to herself, as she slumped down and made herself comfortable.

  She was a natural with the boy. They’d been chatting for an hour and she had such a way with little Benjamin that he couldn’t help but watch. She would be a good mother to his nephew. He had no worry about that.

  No worry…he actually had a right to worry. Before, he’d been concerned as a friend, as someone who had been growing more than fond of Gabrielle. But now it was different. He was connected to her baby in a way he couldn’t have expected. Sure, he’d had moments when he’d thought about being her baby’s father, thought about being part of her little family. It had been a nice thought then. Now it was totally senseless. To be honest, he didn’t know how to deal with it, even if he wanted to. He had growing feelings for a woman who was carrying his brother’s baby, and there truly was no solution for that.