Perfect Timing

by Catherine Anderson

  Quincy hurried from the room and angled left up the corridor. He paused for a second outside their daughter’s unit. If he walked in there, he’d be putting his wife’s life on the line. His pulse slammed in his temples, and for just a second he almost lost his nerve. Then, acutely aware that someone might rush up to stop him at any moment, he said, “To hell with it,” and bent to open the door. The big nurse in the colorful balloon top whirled from the incubator to gape at him and Ceara.

  “You need to leave,” Quincy told her.

  “No, sir, you’re the ones who need to leave. I’m still checking on your baby girl.”

  Quincy took two steps into the room. “I’ve cleared this with Dr. Stevenson, and you need to go.” He didn’t want this wonderful nurse to be held responsible for anything that was about to happen. “Please, at least go out and check with the doctor. If she doesn’t back me up, you can always rush right back in here.”

  The nurse glanced at Ceara, taking long measure of her pallor. “She should be in her room, not here.” Despite the protest, the woman slumped her shoulders and cut a circle around Quincy to reach the door. “I hope you know what you’re doing. Your wife is sick, you know.”

  Quincy wasn’t sure anymore if he knew what he was doing—or sure about much of anything, as far as that went. From the moment he’d found Ceara in Beethoven’s stall, his whole world had been turned topsy-turvy, and things he once wouldn’t have believed now made total sense to him.

  He gently deposited his wife in the recliner. She smiled weakly up at him. “I love ye, Quincy Harrigan. I need ye to ken that now, fer I may ne’er be able to tell ye again.”

  Quincy’s heart felt as if razor-blade chips were being pumped through his valves. He cupped her pale face in his hands. “I’d like to hear you tell me your way, Ceara.”

  Her eyes went bright with tears. “Looking at yer dear face makes me heart dance with joy.”

  Quincy swallowed hard to make his voice work. “You’ve brought color into my life. Before you dropped into my arena, my life was painted in different shades of gray. Now it’s painted in bright hues and sunshine, even on rainy days.”

  Her tears spilled over her lower lashes to trail down her pale cheeks. For what seemed an endless moment, their gazes locked, and messages that couldn’t be expressed with words passed between them.

  “Ye’ll be a good da,” she whispered. “I ken that ye will always be there fer her. And ye’ll tell her every single day how much her mum loves her? With me words, not yers. Ye’ll tell her in me own way?”

  Quincy nodded. “And I’ll make sure your mum sees her, and that our little girl sees your mum—all of them, all of your family, in the crystal ball. Loni will do that for us.”

  Ceara nodded and smiled again. “’Twill be good fer her to know me family.” Just then, the baby grunted, trying to discharge a breath, and Ceara glanced over at their tiny daughter in the incubator. “’Tis time, Quincy. Give her to me.”

  Quincy turned to do that, but the baby had so many wires and tubes hooked up to her that he didn’t know how to pluck her minuscule body out of there.

  “Take all of it off,” Ceara told him. “She shall have no need of it once she’s in me arms. ’Tis me word ye have on it.”

  Quincy’s hands shook as if he had palsy, but he started removing lifesaving tubes, leaving the breathing tube for last. His baby girl was so tiny that he was able to lift her out through the hole, using only one hand, with his other cupped against the dome just in case, so he wouldn’t accidentally drop her. The love he felt when he actually held his daughter nearly overwhelmed him.

  “Hurry,” Ceara whispered. “I canna bring her back if she dies. I can only heal her.”

  Quincy carefully placed their baby in his wife’s slender, fine-boned hands.

  “Ach,” Ceara said. A radiant smile spread over her pale face as she tucked her daughter close against her neck, just under her chin. “Me precious wee one.” With one last look at Quincy, she whispered, “Ye make me heart sing happy songs,” and then she closed her eyes and began whispering prayers in Gaelic. Even as Quincy watched, Ceara’s face turned whiter—so white that the faint tint of pink to her lips went chalky.

  Never in his life had he felt so helpless. Seeing Ceara do this . . . Oh, God, allowing it was the hardest thing he’d ever done. He dropped to his knees beside the chair, afraid to touch mother or child for fear he would somehow put more drain on his wife’s body. He rested his head against the cushiony recliner back, his cheek against Ceara’s burnished curls as he gazed down at their daughter and the rhythmic movement of his wife’s chest. One of the baby’s itty-bitty hands was splayed over Ceara’s collarbone. Quincy watched those fingers, barely wider than a strand of uncooked spaghetti, go from purple to a healthy pink.

  “’Tis done,” Ceara murmured. “Ye must take her now. Swiftly.”

  Quincy carefully lifted their baby into his hands. He was startled half out of his wits when the infant jerked and started to cry, her wails as tiny as she was, but even so, Quincy knew his little girl now had functioning lungs. One glance at Ceara almost made his knees fold. She had gone limp and slumped sideways on the chair, her head resting on one of its arms. Her skin looked waxen. The only colorful bit of her left was her beautiful hair. And—oh, God—Quincy no longer saw her chest rising and falling.

  “Help!” he yelled. “Now, Marie! Hurry!”

  The door burst open. Quincy tucked his daughter against his neck, as he’d seen Ceara do, and stepped back so hospital staff could try to care for his wife. Bedlam. Cursing. So many people in the tiny room that Quincy backed into a corner, both hands cupped over his daughter, which was overkill. He could have protected her on all sides with only one palm. A gurney was brought in. Men worked in tandem to gently but quickly lift Ceara from the recliner and put her on the mattress. Before Quincy could blink, his wife was wheeled from the NICU.

  The big nurse in the balloon smock entered the room as soon as the doorway cleared. When she saw the empty incubator, her gaze shot to Quincy’s cupped hands just under his chin. “Oh, my God, what have you done?”

  Quincy felt his daughter’s tiny arms and legs moving, and in one part of his brain, he wanted to shout, I’ve saved my baby! but the other half of his brain was yelling, I just let my wife commit suicide. He leaned into the corner, no longer trusting his legs, and as Ceara had done only seconds earlier, he told the nurse, “Take her. Swiftly. I think I might pass out.”

  The nurse muttered curses as she took the baby from him. She didn’t waste time on any more words as she rushed to the incubator to get the infant hooked back up to life support. Quincy watched it all in a daze, unable to push away from the walls that pressed against his body like an embrace to keep him on his feet. Other nurses rushed in, both male and female. In the dizzying kaleidoscope of his reality, all of them were a blur. Words bounced into his brain and then ricocheted around, like echoes inside a canyon. It’s a miracle. Look at her, breathing on her own. Have you ever seen anything like this? My God, sweetie, what a little fighter you are. Brett, she doesn’t need to be intubated now. Let it go.

  Slowly, Quincy’s senses righted enough for him to gather the strength to stand on his own. He got to the door, and then found himself in the hall. His mind felt as if it were stuck in neutral. But he had to get down that corridor to Ceara’s cubicle.

  Ceara, his precious Irish rose, was dying. He had to be with her, let her know again that he understood, that he would be all she wanted him to be for their beautiful daughter. Even unconscious, she’d sense, somehow, that he was with her.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Prevented from entering Ceara’s room, Quincy found himself on a corridor bench, staring stupidly at the floor. Shock? He didn’t know. This isn’t happening, he thought. It was crazy beyond belief, totally off the reality chart. But as Father Mike had said the night of his and Ceara’s marriage, there were mysteries in the universe that mere humans could not grasp.

 
; So all of this was happening. His wife had just put her life on the line to save their baby. Their little girl was now doing well on her own. And Quincy had allowed all of it to happen. His guts churned and clenched. Ceara. Dear God, how could he have let her do it?

  Even as Quincy asked himself the question, he knew he’d done the right thing. He couldn’t have denied Ceara the opportunity to do what he would have done himself if only he’d had the ability. Not if he believed in equal rights. And he did, damn it. It just sucked that in this instance, standing up for what he believed in might cost him so dearly. Knowing you’d done the right thing didn’t make it easy.

  Quincy felt disconnected from everything around him, yet the pain in his chest was so intense it made breathing difficult. He had to concentrate on it. In. Out. Again. Suddenly Quincy remembered that he hadn’t called his family. He knew they couldn’t help, but when the going got tough the Harrigans hung together. He had enough problems right now without all of them screaming at him for not contacting them. Pawing blindly at his belt, he located his phone. He decided to text Clint, because his dad, not being of the cell phone generation, often missed calls and messages. Need u at hosp. Urgent. Get Father Mike over here, pronto.

  As Quincy stuffed his phone back into its case, he realized he had no clear recollection of where he was in the hospital. He guessed maybe that was because his entire being yearned to be elsewhere—with Ceara, a woman so sweet and dear that she had filled up his whole world with her light. His chest ached so much he wondered whether it would kill him. But that would be too easy, a quick end and a fast escape. Life never played out that way. He could lose Ceara, his fiery-haired, beautiful, impossibly precious wife. And somehow he had to live through it to raise their child, just as he had promised her he would. Quincy knew his father had somehow managed to keep going after losing his wife, solely for the sake of his kids, but Quincy didn’t know if he had it in him.

  Suddenly Stevenson sat beside him. He had no idea where she had come from. It seemed to him she’d shot up out of the floor tiles. She seemed to sense the agony he felt, for she touched his hand.

  “You made the right choice,” she said softly.

  “Did I?”

  Her fingers squeezed his. “It was the only choice. Ceara wanted it, and if either of us had tried to stop her, she never would have forgiven us. Where there’s still life, there’s still hope. Let’s not give up just yet.”

  Quincy felt as if his thoughts floated in thick syrup, and bringing one to the surface so he could focus on it took gargantuan effort. “Hope? I thought the baby was doing great.”

  Stevenson chuckled. “Oh, yes. I’ve never seen anything like it. She’s a preemie in every way, but all the symptoms that usually present such risk with a preterm birth have vanished. She’s perfectly okay now except for being so incredibly tiny, and over time, she’ll grow.” She sighed. “I only wish Ceara were doing as well. I’ve tried everything I know, but I can’t get her to stabilize.”

  Quincy straightened. “You mean she’s still alive?”

  “Oh, God.” Concern wrinkled Stevenson’s usually unlined countenance. “No one came out to update you? I told one of the nurses to find you.”

  Quincy barely heard her. Somehow he found himself standing up. “Where is she? Can I be with her? Please don’t say I can’t. Hearing my voice, knowing I’m there—well, maybe it’ll give her strength to fight the weakness.”

  Stevenson stood. “I agree, but I’ll go you one better. The baby is still incubated, but now only because, with her body mass being so slight, I think the stable temperatures inside the incubator are better for her. If we swaddle her in blankets, I think it would be safe to take her in to see her mommy. Ceara is too weak to hold her, but if she’s at all aware of what’s being said to her, knowing her baby is near and doing well might help her make a turnaround.”

  In a daze, Quincy followed the doctor to the NICU. His daughter protested when she was removed from the incubator. Her tiny fists and feet pumped, her face went bright red, and she let out a small, enraged shriek. Somehow it reminded him unbearably of Ceara. Stevenson laid her on a dressing table and began to efficiently wrap the little girl in prewarmed receiving blankets. Quincy, standing with his back to the window, was startled when wind gusted against the glass, followed by rain that struck like a spray of bullets.

  “My goodness,” the doctor cried as she hurried to swaddle the infant. “What a storm! That sounds like really high wind.”

  Quincy frowned and stepped over to peek out past the blinds. Below, he saw people struggling to walk across the parking lot, their bodies bent to press forward against the gale-force gusts. Beyond the asphalt area where full-grown pines peppered the hospital grounds, the evergreen canopies whipped to and fro like feather dusters. Water had already pooled in the parking lot, so deep it reached above people’s ankles.

  Unusual, he registered. There had been no sign of a storm when he’d driven Ceara to the hospital. Behind him, he heard the doctor making cooing sounds as she surrounded the child with the warm blankets, and the baby suddenly stopped crying. A chill pebbled Quincy’s skin when the storm abated in tandem with his daughter’s change of temperament. He remembered Ceara’s story of her birth, how she’d called up a terrible gale when she left the warmth of her mother’s womb.

  Coincidence?

  Quincy turned to study his baby girl, now tightly wrapped in the soft, oven-warmed blankets and happy again. Shit, she’s a druid. She’d clearly inherited her mother’s gifts—at least some of them, anyway. Raising her without Ceara’s guidance would be challenging, Quincy knew, but he was too overwhelmed right then to think about it.

  The doctor carried the baby to Ceara’s room with Quincy nearly treading on her heels. A wave of sadness hit him when he saw that his wife was in a maternity suite now, only it had been transformed into a temporary ICU. There was a bassinet near her bed, seating for family, and a sofa that could be pulled out for a father to stay overnight. This should have been such a happy moment. Instead Ceara was hooked up to machines and so pale that for a panicked instant he wondered whether she’d died while Stevenson had stepped out. But no, that machine was still bleeping.

  Quincy took his daughter, cautiously getting her swaddled shape cradled safely in one arm, and then he stepped close to Ceara’s side. “It’s Quincy, honey. I’m here with a very special visitor: our baby girl. You saved her, Ceara. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever witnessed. You healed her completely! She can breathe just fine on her own now. Her skin tone is a healthy pink. Doc Stevenson says except for her size, she’s perfect now.”

  Ceara didn’t so much as wiggle an eyelash. Quincy studied the heart monitor. The beats came intermittently, and in between he saw flutters. He didn’t like her blood pressure numbers, either. When he glanced at Stevenson with an arched brow, the doctor touched a finger to her lips, signaling him not to ask questions. Quincy agreed with the woman’s call. If Ceara could hear—if she was aware on any level—discussing her condition in her presence wouldn’t be wise.

  Quincy cuddled his daughter closer. She felt so insubstantial, and yet when he looked down she had poked her tiny fist in her mouth and was sucking on it to beat the band. “She’s sucking her fist, Ceara. You know what that means, don’t you? She’s wanting her mum so she can nurse.”

  Still no response. Stevenson was studying Ceara’s chart with a frown and not really paying attention, so Quincy decided to just keep talking. “She’s so beautiful, Ceara. Absolutely gorgeous. And you’ll never guess what! When Dr. Stevenson took her out of the incubator to bring her here, she got mad as blazes when she felt the cool air, just like you did when you were born.” Quincy forced a laugh, even though he was far from feeling any trace of amusement. “And you guessed it: The little stinker called up one hell of a storm. I’ve never seen anything like it, wind strong enough to nearly uproot full-grown trees, and rain falling so hard and fast it would have caused flooding if the doctor hadn’t gotten h
er wrapped and warm as fast as she did to end the temper tantrum.”

  Just then a tap came at the door. Quincy turned to see his dad poke his head into the room. Water dripped off the brim of Frank’s Stetson, and the shoulder of his shirt was drenched. “Family’s all here,” he said. “We’ll wait outside.”

  Stevenson approached Quincy to take the baby. “I think we’ve visited long enough. You can bring her back later. I’ll have a nurse return her to NICU, and then I’ll talk with your family out in the hall. I’m sure all of them have questions.”

  Quincy watched the physician leave and then returned to his wife’s bedside for a private moment with her. He scooted a visitor chair close and sat down, curling his hand over one of Ceara’s. Her flesh felt cold as death. Beneath his fingertips, he felt the weak flutter of her pulse. Tears nearly blinded him, for he knew he was going to lose her. How cruel could life get, damn it? Deep in his heart, he’d believed her to be already dead when he’d been sitting in a daze on that hallway bench. Then he’d learned differently and allowed himself to hope, only to face the fact now that she was going to die on him anyway.

  “You make my heart sing, Ceara.” Quincy groped for other words—special words to describe how she made him feel. “You’re my sunshine, honey. My only sunshine. Please fight to live. With every smidgen of strength you’ve got left, fight to stay here with me and our little girl. Without you, I’ll have no light in my life. You understand?”

  Quincy thought he felt her hand twitch under his, but the movement was so slight he might have imagined it. He stood and bent low to kiss her white cheek. “I love you so much, Ceara. Try with everything you’ve got to come back to me.”

  Wiping his cheeks, Quincy crossed the room and exited into the hallway. Just a few feet away at the opposite side of the corridor, he saw his family gathered with the doctor in a waiting area. On feet he could no longer feel, Quincy moved toward them. Everyone jumped up to hug him and whisper words that didn’t register in his brain. When the hellos were finished, Quincy sat down next to his father, maybe because, even at forty, a guy needed to be close to his dad at a time like this.