The Girl and Her Ren

by Pepper Winters

  Cassie ignored him, took one look at Ren, then focused entirely on me. “Shit, Della.” Snatching my phone, she barked. “Ambulance. Two of the damn things. One for a man with asbestos cancer and another who’s just gone into labour.”

  She nodded to whatever the woman said on the other end. “Yes. Back meadow. John Wilson will help you.”

  I screamed as yet another deeper, demanding fury filled me. A fury tangled with bone and blood and bruises.

  “You need to hurry,” Cassie snapped.

  Throwing my phone into the grass, she gathered me close, placed her hand on Ren’s shallow breathing chest, and kissed my cheek. “It’s okay, Della. You’ll both be fine. You’ll see.”

  I was glad she was there.

  Grateful for help.

  Only problem was…I didn’t believe her.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  REN

  * * * * * *

  2022

  FLASH.

  The field with grass at optimum dryness to bale.

  Flash.

  A clunk and crunch as the baler wrapped up in stalks.

  Flash.

  Red and blue lights around me. Sirens loud inside me.

  Flash.

  Intruders, questions, the swish and sway of reckless driving.

  Flash.

  Wheels screeching, oxygen flowing, a sharp prick in my arm.

  Flash.

  Della’s screaming, strangers shouting, a world in utter disarray.

  Something dragged me down, something heavy and warm and thick. I wanted to go with it, to give in, but the awful, awful sound of the one person I’d promised to protect every day of my goddamn life wrenched me through the fog.

  I clung to her voice, clawing to her, crawling to her, fighting mud and sludge and pain.

  My eyes opened.

  I was no longer in the field.

  I was no longer dressed from the waist up.

  I was no longer a farmer but a patient.

  “Oh, thank God!” Della grabbed my hand, her fingernails digging in. “Ren. I thought…” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t wake up.”

  The outside world had been replaced with the insides of a hospital.

  An emergency room with traffic and trauma and triage.

  My throat was raw and lungs seared.

  I’d been in pain lately.

  The backache.

  The chest ache.

  But I had things to do.

  Life to conquer.

  A future to pave.

  Della bowed over me, pressing her forehead to my cheek. “Please, please don’t scare me like that again.”

  My arm came up from where I lay on a narrow bed, hugging her head, kissing her hard. “I’m sorry, Ribbon.” I coughed, and she flinched.

  Her eyes widened, then she buckled over me, digging her face into the crutch of my shoulder, her lips spread in a guttural scream.

  My weakness?

  My confusion?

  None of it fucking mattered.

  Jack-knifing upward, I tore at wires stuck to my chest and ripped an oxygen tube from my nose. “Della.”

  “Hey, Mr. Wild. You need—”

  “Stop!” I roared, clutching onto Della as she stumbled by my bedside. “What the hell is wrong with my wife?”

  “She refused to leave,” a skinny nurse with mousy blonde hair snipped. “She’s in labour. Apart from physically manhandling her, we couldn’t do anything about it.”

  “Goddammit.” I swung my legs off the narrow bed, dislodging yet more medical equipment. My lungs burned. Chest throbbed. Heart palpitated in an uneven rhythm.

  But I didn’t care about any of it.

  “Get back into bed, sir,” someone commanded.

  I grimaced as my world flipped upside down. My feet found a ground that rocked. My mind found a world that sloshed and greyed. I swam in light-headedness, scooping Della into my arms, and laying her pregnant weight on the very same bed I’d just vacated.

  “Sir, she needs to be in maternity.”

  “She’s in pain, can’t you see? Help her instead of spouting bullshit!”

  Della screamed as yet another contraction worked through her. Her legs spread wide and dirty shoes dug into sterilized white. “Oh, fuucckk. God, it hurts.” Her hand found mine, squeezing me to the point of metacarpals crunching.

  “Someone get her something!” I yelled. “What the hell good are you, huh? Do your goddamn jobs and help her!”

  My lungs wheezed, and a ribcage-splintering cough found me, bending me in half.

  “Sir, you need to calm down.”

  Coughing, coughing, always fucking coughing, my anger spilled like magma. When I could breathe, I roared, “And you need to fucking help her! Now!”

  Della groaned, adding another layer to the mayhem.

  “Sir—”

  “What the hell is going on here?!” A doctor with a shaved head and goatee marched forward, waving his arms as if he could part the sea of medical staff like the messiah.

  Grabbing a clipboard that hung on the end of the bed, he scanned the notes, then pointed in my face. “You. Seeing as you’re awake. Oncology. Now. You need some tests.” Spinning to face the skinny nurse loitering around Della, he ordered, “You, go get the midwife assigned to Mrs Wild.”

  His eyes fell on another staff member. “You, go tell those people demanding answers that he’s woken up and she’s about to have a baby. We need silence, not anarchy.”

  When his bossy gaze met mine again and found I hadn’t left Della’s side, he bared his teeth. “Get. Oncology. Now.”

  “I’m not leaving.” I stepped closer to the bed, partly to touch Della’s face and partly because I needed to lean against something. Coughs rattled and wheezed, not appreciating I fought their desire to make me bend over again.

  I refused to cough.

  I wasn’t the one in need of treatment, Della was.

  “My wife is having a baby. If someone doesn’t look after her—”

  “Threats now?” The doctor rolled his eyes. “Leave before I have you committed.”

  “I’m not leaving until I know my wife is okay.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake,” the doctor grumbled. “If you collapse, you’ll be strapped in the psych ward just to teach you a lesson.”

  “I’m not going to collapse.” My needs faded every time in lieu of Della’s. I could be on death’s door and tell the devil to wait until I knew Della was safe.

  My jaw locked together as I fought another wave of coughing. “So, are you going to do something?”

  “You’re in a hospital, Mr Wild. Of course, we’re going to do something.”

  Della moaned and writhed as another nurse dashed toward us. With efficient jerks, she pulled a curtain around us, cutting us off from the emergency room mania.

  Once private, she pushed Della’s dress up her legs, pulled her underwear down, and laid a green cloth over her lap. With calm hands, she manhandled Della’s feet, placing them as close to the side of the bed as possible.

  No one mentioned she wasn’t in a hospital gown or tried to remove her shoes.

  It was too late for any of that.

  “The midwife is on the way,” the nurse said. “We don’t have anywhere else for you to go on such short notice, and you’re too far along to be moved. You’ll deliver here and then be transferred to maternity.”

  Della grimaced, her skin blotchy with pain. “Okay.”

  It wasn’t okay.

  None of this was okay.

  I’d woken to the worst kind of horror.

  The goatee, bald-headed doctor nodded brusquely. “Glad order has been restored. They’ll look after you from here. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Sweeping out from the curtain-created room, his voice barked more commands outside.

  I coughed again, fighting it from turning into a fit. “You all right?” I asked Della, pressing my fist into her pillow for stability.

  She bit her lip, nodding in agony. Her face shone with
sweat, scrunched and red.

  I’d done this to her.

  I was the monster responsible for such torture.

  “I’m so sorry, Della.”

  For five months—since we found out she was pregnant—I’d been fucking petrified of losing her.

  I wasn’t a happy, expectant father.

  I was surly and snappy and scared shitless of losing her.

  So many things tore me into knots, and as the days marched onward, and she grew fatter and more cumbersome, I’d had nightmares of losing her.

  At least she hadn’t struggled with this pregnancy as she had with her first.

  But that didn’t make me worry any less.

  And now, my wife had gone into premature labour. Only by a couple of weeks but enough to make her every grunt and groan rip my broken lungs into ribbons.

  I was so selfish to want a kid with her.

  So self-centred to expect her to go through this purgatory.

  I didn’t know how much time passed.

  I didn’t know how long the gates of Hell could stay open.

  I felt weak and useless and begged time to hurry.

  All I could offer was my hand as she bore down and started to push.

  The midwife arrived and spoke soothing and calm.

  The noise from outside our curtain faded.

  The fear that Della would die in childbirth continued to terrorize me.

  On and on Della struggled, until finally, she gave one last scream, and something tiny with the wail of something huge arrived.

  He sounded pissed off, insulted, and angry.

  Once again, my breath rattled and lungs struggled to convert air into oxygen.

  My vision danced with greyness as a flurry of activity happened between Della’s legs, and something bloody and raisin-like was burrito-wrapped and placed on her heaving chest.

  For a second, I hated it.

  I despised it for hurting the creature I loved most in the world.

  But then, its ugly, pinched face turned to me, and my knees almost gave out.

  Because what I’d told Della was true.

  My love for her would never change.

  It would never diminish.

  Never fade or struggle to choose.

  Staring into that bloody, new-born face, love grew.

  And grew.

  And grew.

  It grew until it spilled into every nook and cranny inside me, a sticky syrup there to stay.

  The heart was a miraculous thing—I’d always known it was. And now, it fabricated a new chamber, building a home for Jacob inside the castle where Della had always lived.

  My heart was no longer just an organ…it was a city ruled by my wife and son.

  My son…Jacob.

  The tiny noisy human.

  The baby that carried my blood, my breath, my bone.

  The child who would protect my wife long after I had gone.

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  DELLA

  * * * * * *

  2032

  THE FOURTH INCIDENT.

  Ren’s collapse and Jacob’s birth.

  A date that would forever herald happy and horrified memories.

  When they put my baby in my arms and Ren kissed my brow with a look of utter awe and besotted wonderment, I knew it had all been worth it.

  The stress of his collapse.

  The pain of Jacob’s delivery.

  I would do it all over again because we held life in our arms.

  However, I must warn you.

  I must advise you that you have a choice from here, dear reader.

  A choice that I never had, but a choice, regardless.

  Up until now, life was perfect.

  And it can remain perfect…for you.

  You’ve read a story that pens as a fairy-tale with its troubled beginning, love conquering all, happy marriage, and perfect baby.

  After all, I did start this book with the words ‘Once Upon A Time…’ which requisites a happily ever after.

  And I can give you that.

  You can stop here and bask in our marriage, new home, good fortune, and baby in his baby carriage.

  But if you don’t…be brave.

  Be brave, just like I am, because our tale is based on fact, not fantasy.

  It is based on life. A life that everyone must endure.

  Life that some would rather not read about because it’s too close to the truth.

  Why cry for a story when there are so many hardships in your own world?

  And I get that.

  I really do.

  So…I tell you again.

  You can stop.

  I won’t think any less of you.

  I won’t be sad you didn’t stay with me until the end.

  But, please know, from here on out, I can’t lie to you.

  I will give you happiness.

  I will give you hope.

  But I will also give you pain.

  But you already know that.

  You know what’s coming.

  We all know time is never on our side.

  This is your final warning.

  Stop.

  Close the book.

  Move on.

  But if you’re like me and understand that nothing perfect lasts forever, if you’re strong enough to accept what life ultimately gives, it taketh away, then thank you.

  Thank you for being there beside me.

  Thank you for not leaving me alone.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  REN

  * * * * * *

  2022

  “THE TESTS show your mesothelioma has spread.”

  Any happy feelings I had from watching my son come into the world popped like a shitty balloon.

  I balled my hands. “It’s not mine. It’s never been mine. I didn’t fucking want it in the first place.”

  “Sorry. Bad phrasing.” Rick had the decency to look apologetic, his white lab coat bright on my over-stretched senses. “But it doesn’t change facts. The tumours have increased. You’re no longer stage one.”

  Shit.

  Shit.

  Shit.

  The entire time I’d been subjected to yet more tests, I’d refused to sit down, but now, I tumbled into a chair in front of Rick Mackenzie’s desk. He’d come in especially to oversee my results, seeking an answer to why I’d fallen unconscious in the pasture.

  All I could remember was struggling to breathe.

  And then…nothing.

  “Did you hear me, Ren?” he asked gently.

  I nodded, leaning forward and wedging my elbows on my knees. “Yes, I heard you.” My voice was barely audible, not prepared to accept such things.

  How could a single day hold the highest of highs and lowest of lows?

  After Della had given birth and Jacob had been cleaned, weighed, and returned, the hospital staff had ensured Della was comfortable, helped dress her in a clean gown, and wheeled her to maternity where she’d earned a much-needed rest.

  I’d ignored the annoyingly persistent doctors about heading to oncology while Jacob underwent his own tests—seeing as he was premature. He was carefully checked, just to make sure he was in working order.

  And thank God, everything functioned as it should.

  He was a robust little thing.

  Only once Jacob and Della were asleep, and wouldn’t know any better, did I take the lift to the level where permanent sickness slinked down the corridors and death slithered on the air, trawling the wards for its next victim.

  I despised this place.

  I despised it even more after coming from maternity where the flapping of cranes could still be heard from dropping off new-borns, bringing new life to every corner.

  My chest ached as I coughed.

  Rick’s forehead furrowed. “Cough up any blood lately?”

  “No.” I sat taller, straightening my torso for a better breath. “Not since that first time. Think I’d just irritated my throat.”

  Rick nodded, studyi
ng my file that had grown rather comprehensive. He slouched, running a hand through his salt and pepper hair. “As a doctor, I know these things happen and this was an inevitability, but as your friend, I can’t help feeling like I let you down.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “Why do you say that?”

  “You were responding so well to Keytruda. We should’ve just kept you on it.”

  “Yeah, but I’d gone stable.” I didn’t know why I was arguing or trying to make him feel better. I guessed I didn’t want him feeling as wretched about this as I did.

  How the hell would I tell Della?

  How would I admit that the past year—running full tilt into our future with houses and businesses and babies might be one of our last? I’d worked my damnedest to get things sorted. I’d arranged my funeral and paid for it behind Della’s back. I’d taken out life insurance on myself in Della’s name to cover the cost of our mortgage with enough left to send Jacob to school. The fine print had been exhausting with my diagnosis but as long as I lived seven years, they’d pay out. If I didn’t…I’d have to look at alternatives.

  I’d covered my bases the best I could.

  I’d crossed my t’s and dotted my i’s or whatever that saying was.

  I had the worst parts of my death covered.

  But just because we’d finally earned everything we wanted, and I’d protected Della as much as I could, it didn’t mean I was ready to fucking die.

  We had so much to look forward to, yet I might be leaving her with a brand-new baby and a broken heart.

  “Christ.” I clamped a hand over my mouth as a rush of horror filled me. My fingers dug into my cheeks as my heart slammed.

  Rick looked up. “You okay?”

  Dropping my hand, I groaned, “No, I’m not fucking okay. Della just had our child. How the hell can I leave her with that on her own?”

  “You’re not dying straight away, Ren.”

  My vision greyed as my heart turned arrhythmic. “How long?”

  He shrugged. “There’s still plenty of time. You’re stage two. Yes, it sucks, but it’s better than stage four. We’ll put you back on Keytruda and supplement immunotherapy with a few sessions of chemo.”

  I froze. “Chemo?”