Nobody's Child

by Austin Boyd

  “Sophia!” she screamed, gingerly stepping over her friend and onto the stairwell. She struggled to find a way down without crushing Sophia’s torso, a chest that fought to get the semblance of a breath.

  Moments later, she cradled Sophia’s bloodied face in her hands, fast shallow pants of air coming from her mouth. Her eyes shut, she recognized Laura Ann’s touch, barely nodding, but not forming any words.

  “Relax. I’ve got a good hold. You won’t fall,” Laura Ann reassured her. “Try to take a deep breath. Slow.”

  Sophia shook her head, too weak to talk, her mouth wide open to snatch every possible puff of air.

  “I’m taking you down,” Laura Ann said, then threw an arm about Sophia’s waist. With another arm cradled under her friend’s head, she worked her way down the stairs, dragging her over each step on a controlled slide over slick oak and tall risers.

  Near the bottom of the steps, she lowered Sophia’s head to the wood, desperate to speak with Ian, yet unable to tear herself away to run for the radio. The choppy breaths continued, little wheezing pants that Laura Ann knew would not fill the lungs of an expectant mother. She put a finger to Sophia’s throat, frustrated that she couldn’t find a pulse. Sophia’s heart raced like the intense flutter of a hummingbird, with no defined beat.

  “I’ve got to get the radio!” She squeezed Sophia’s shoulder. “I promise. I’ll be back.”

  Sophia’s panting grew more ragged, but she managed to raise a hand, as if waving Laura Ann away.

  On the horns of a dilemma, she let go of Sophia and ran.

  Laura Ann’s heart leapt when Ian replied minutes later to her radio call, his voice scratchy, but readable.

  “Say it again and slow down.”

  “Sophia’s collapsed. She was climbing the stairs in the barn. She’s wheezing, like she can’t get a breath. She can’t move.” “Can you get a pulse?” “I tried. It’s racing. I can’t count it.”

  “She is breathing, right?” he asked. She could tell he was moving fast, struggling to talk. Probably helping someone in town and trying to talk at the same time. His own dilemma.

  “Panting hard. And panicked.”

  “We’ve got to get her out, Laura Ann. Can you move her?” “I can’t carry her … but I might be able to stand her up.” “Can you get her into the truck?” “And go where?”

  Ian didn’t reply right away, like he was forming a thought. She waited, praying for his voice, for his reassurance. For some word on how to save Sophia, from so far away.

  “Buckle her in tight,” he said, the signal stronger than before. “I’m leaving town now.”

  “Okay. But — “

  He hadn’t stopped talking, and her transmission stepped on his.

  “ — at the crossing.” “Ian! Say it again.”

  “I said, I’ll meet you at the crossing. Understand?” “Take her to the causeway?”

  “It’s our only choice. Lock her in tight and drive to the neck of The Jug, Laura Ann. Somehow, you’ve got to get that truck to the bottom of the hill. It’s the only way to get her out.” He paused, then added, “Watch her close. If she stops panting …”

  “What?”

  “Call me. Then start CPR.”

  Laura Ann screamed at the rain-rutted road and her slow pace. Seated on the truck’s bench seat, Sophia leaned into her shoulder, micro-breaths barely moving her chest, breathing like a dog that had run too far and too fast. She prayed for Sophia’s survival. A mile to go to the crossing. Much too far.

  Why this, Jesus? Please save Sophia. And baby James.

  The road smoothed out as she topped the ridge, layers of leaves on the forest road softening the ride. Sophia’s chest continued to heave in valiant attempts to get one solid breath. Laura Ann gunned the truck, moving it through the wood as fast as she dared.

  “I’m there!” a voice said on the radio, Ian’s first call in minutes. “At the crossing.”

  “I’m in the Management Area,” she called back. “What does the hill look like?”

  He hesitated, no answer. Laura Ann’s back tingled with a premonition of his next words.

  “You don’t have any choice, Laura Ann. You have to get down that slope. We can’t save her if you don’t.”

  Minutes later, she slowed the four-wheel drive to a crawl, sneaking up on the tortuous descent down to the Middle Island Creek. She’d loved driving this hill in her younger days, but never like this. Deep gullies, worn raw where water coursed down the road, yawned like canyons the entire length of the short grade. Steep wet clay, with no way to reach the bottom if the truck bottomed out, and slick as ice. Ian stood on the far bank, his truck nosed up to the stream, a rope in hand. He needed her truck on the other side, something to tie off to.

  Laura Ann rechecked the four-wheel lock, scanning left and right of the gullies. To her right, she’d tumble off the edge of the road, rolling the truck all the way to the bottom. To her left, a muddy bank of ugly red clay rose up steep.

  Only one choice.

  Her left wheel riding up as high on the clay bank as she could grab, and the right tire riding the middle of the rutted road down low, she plunged into the descent, both hands welded to the steering wheel. She felt Sophia’s hands seek her knee, a feeble hold as the cab lurched. Momentum and speed were her twin friends, the only way to power through the yawning jaws of truck-sucking trenches.

  The left front wheel slung mud in a furious torrent as she gunned the engine, climbing as far up the red bank as her nerves would allow. The truck tilted precariously, weaving down the road, one tire low between the ruts, the other four feet higher and spinning on clay that had never seen a vehicle’s tread. She raced pell-mell for the creek bottom, slamming at last into piles of rocks that littered the bottom when she leveled out near the water.

  Across the swollen creek, Ian pumped a fist in the air. He made a circle sign with his hand, his direction for her to spin the truck around. She let herself breathe at last, looking to her right to check on Sophia.

  Her head cradled into Laura Ann’s shoulder, her fingers clutching her knee, Sophia let out a short breath, and three short words.

  “We made it.”

  Laura Ann backed the truck up to the edge of the floodwaters, her hands cramping in their grip on the wheel. Ian called again on the radio from his place on the far bank, sixty feet away, a coil of rope in his hand.

  “Check her respiration and pulse.”

  Laura Ann nodded, disconnected her safety belt, and turned in the seat. “Sophia?” she asked, praying for some sign of improvement. No response.

  “Slower breathing, a little more regular,” she spoke into the radio after seeking a pulse. “Her heart’s still racing.” She ran to the other side to open the door and unstrapped her passenger.

  “Watch out,” he called on the radio, then heaved a light line to her, a rock tied to the end. It clattered to the shore a few feet away.

  “Pull it over,” she heard him say in the next transmission, his words partially drowned out by the roar of water that spilled over the log dam a few feet to her right. She grabbed the line and tugged, hauling a heavier rope, and behind it, a cable from the front of his truck’s winch. Less than a minute later, a towrope in hand, he called again. “Hook the rope to your hitch. I’ll take a strain.”

  Like towing the truck out of a bog after a heavy rain, she whipped the rope and hook about the ball on her hitch, then raised her hand, thumb extended. Ian took up the slack immediately with his cable winch, the rope popping up taut, tugging hard on her vehicle.

  Laura Ann returned to check on Sophia in the cab. She wiped the sweat from her friend’s brow. “Breathe for James,” she said.

  When she turned around, Ian had waded deep into the water, a second rope wrapped about his waist and slung over the towing hawser, with a harness of some sort and two life jackets threaded over one arm. To his left, barely visible in the fog, The Jug Store sat on the crest of the cliff overlooking their rescue, the men inside n
o doubt unaware of lives that hung in the balance below them.

  Ian forded the stream, water over his shoulders as he clung to the tight rope, unable to keep a footing on the rocky bottom, so swift ran the deep brown current. Sixty feet of frothing water drenched him, but he crossed it far faster than she thought possible, working hand over hand along the heavy line. She ran to him at the shore, pulling him close as he waded out of the current, soaked with cool brown.

  Ian thrust the harness into her hands. “From my tree stand,” he said, wiping his wet face with a free hand. “Help me get the life jacket on her first. Then the harness.” Together they moved Sophia out of the truck, then dressed her in the flotation and the camouflaged halter. The jacket and harness swallowed her like a child. Ian cinched them as tight as he could, then untied the rope he’d wrapped about his own waist.

  Without a word, Laura Ann understood his intention. He threw his waist rope over the cable, hitched a loop about it, then threaded the bitter end through the belt of her jeans. “Guide yourself along the high line. Gotta pull your way across.” She nodded.

  He whipped another hitch in the line a few feet ahead of Laura Ann, and used it to tether her with a carabineer clip to his belt, then gathered Sophia into his arms as easily as lifting a pillow. Sophia draped across one shoulder, he clipped a carabineer from her harness over the high line and stepped into the flood.

  Together they waded into the maelstrom. Sophia’s only salvation, a ride to the hospital, waited twenty deadly yards away.

  When they reached the other side safely, Ian unclipped Laura Ann. “Passenger side. Backseat.” Laura Ann ran for the truck door. He slipped Sophia off his shoulder into his arms, her shivering body cradled tight against his chest, then slid his patient, dripping wet, across the backseat.

  Her face pallid and eyes shut, Sophia lay panting in tiny breaths, her arms clutched tight about her chest. No more of the ragged struggling-to-breathe pants; she seemed to be slipping away.

  “Might go into shock. You’d better drive,” he said to Laura Ann, unbuckling the harness and jacket and tossing it into the passenger seat. Laura Ann slid the seat forward, giving Ian room to kneel in the back with his patient. Ian handed her a knife. She ran to the front of the truck to slice the high line free of the winch cable and reel in the slack. A few moments later, she stood at Ian’s side, passing him the medical pouch he always stored behind the driver’s seat.

  They said little. Laura Ann didn’t hesitate, slamming doors shut once his feet pulled in. Seconds later she had the truck started and in gear. Backing out of the creek bottom with a three-point turn, she raced up the muddy slope, spinning tires until the truck gripped the firm asphalt of Route 18.

  She would follow the creek all the way past Middlebourne, and with it the dense fog. What posed problems for Ian’s canoe meant a nightmare for driving, fog lamps no match for the dense mist. Once past The Jug Store, she crept forward at ten, then fifteen miles an hour, feeling for the edges of the roadway. A road that washed away in many places just days ago.

  “The truck radio,” Ian barked. She jerked a microphone from its holder and passed it back. Middlebourne lay two miles away down this soupy highway.

  “Ten-Thirty-Three. Ten-Thirty-Three,” Ian yelled into the mike. “Unit seven inbound Middlebourne, Route 18, destination Sistersville ER. Request medical assist. Over.”

  Laura Ann gunned the engine when a patch of clear road emerged, whizzing past small white houses and the occasional barn. The lifting fog wouldn’t last long; the road moved close to the creek again in half a mile. She prayed for people to stay off the highway early on this morning.

  “Unit seven, this is base. Copy your ten-thirty-three. Interrogative ten-twenty, over?”

  “A mile out of Middlebourne,” he replied.

  “Unit seven, base, is the patient in your truck?”

  “Ten-four. You ready to copy?”

  “Go ahead, seven. We’ll relay to Sistersville.”

  “White female, early thirties, seven months pregnant. Unconscious. Pulse weak.”

  “Got it. Watch those roads, Ian. Lots of fog.”

  “Copy. Request an emergency unit meet us en route.”

  “Working it. No guarantees.” The voice paused, then added, “Better keep moving.”

  Laura Ann slowed for a bank of fog that blanketed the road just before her entrance into town. It wouldn’t last long. Past town, she’d cross the river one more time and, Lord willing, the roads would open up. They were fifteen minutes and fifteen miles from the ER on the best of days.

  “Ian?” Laura Ann asked.

  “Yeah?” He ripped open a blood pressure cuff and strapped it around Sophia’s arm.

  “How bad is it?” she asked, turning hard right to zip down Main Street. Minutes later she rolled over the last bridge. Ahead lay a dozen miles of twisting blacktop to reach Sistersville.

  Ian didn’t answer for a long time, his hands busy pumping the blood pressure bulb. At last he spoke up, his voice subdued. “It’s serious, Laura Ann. Might be preeclampsia.” He paused to take the numbers. “With this blood pressure, they’re both in danger.”

  “Be more specific,” she demanded, stomping on the accelerator when the road straightened. “How bad?”

  Ian cleared his throat, pumping the blood pressure bulb again. He took a long deep breath, then answered.

  “Just pray.”

  Vinyl and linoleum. The pervasive odor of plastic overwhelmed her. Alone in the guest area of Sistersville’s tiny emergency room, Laura Ann huddled in a green molded chair, forcing back nightmares of too many days in rooms just like this, only a year ago. The beginning of Daddy’s quick slide from life.

  “She’s stable.” Ian dropped into the chair next to her.

  Laura Ann grabbed at Ian’s arm. Before she could speak, he answered her question. “Sophia’s conscious, but it’s more complicated than preeclampsia. The doctors improved her blood pressure with medication and they’re getting some more tests now.”

  His clenched jaw said more than his words. “Preeclampsia is a serious complication, Laura Ann. If her kidney function stabilizes, and they can keep her blood pressure down, she’ll come through it fine. Untreated, it leads to serious trouble for her and the baby.”

  Her eyes grew wet with more questions.

  “Possibly — a premature birth.” He bit his lip, looking away for a moment. “There’s an expert in Wheeling. They’ll transfer her there soon.”

  Laura Ann nodded, crossing her arms against the chill of the room and wet clothes. Like a human blanket, Ian wrapped his arms around her.

  Her shivers became his.

  CHAPTER 19

  JUNE 29

  “Insurance card and identification,” an attendant said the next morning, with a brief glance to acknowledge Laura Ann’s presence. The woman slid a pile of papers into a double-pocketed folder labeled “Wheeling General Hospital” and pushed it under the glass divider in Laura Ann’s direction. Her second hospital in as many days. A clear wall separated them, the woman on one side alive in a world of databases and bills. The patient’s representative on the other, wading through the pain of life.

  “It’s not for me. I mean …,” Laura Ann said, handing across Sophia’s driver’s license and an insurance card she’d fished out of her friend’s purse. “Sophia lives in Pittsburgh.”

  The administrative assistant nodded, typing in data she gleaned from the cards. “Anyone to sign for her?” she asked a few minutes later. “Any family?”

  Family?

  Laura Ann froze, unsure how to respond. Her flesh and blood grew inside Sophia, yet no one could know. Sophia was family, but how to describe it?

  “We’re sisters,” Laura Ann said at last, looking down. Was it a lie? A falsehood would telegraph itself across her face like white chalk on a black slate. She looked away. More than sisters, they were bound by the same blood shared across the tenuous border of a womb, Laura Ann’s DNA circulating inside her frien
d’s body.

  Sisters in a strange and yet wonderful way.

  “Sign here. And here.” And in another six places, signatures promising money from Sophia, bills that Laura Ann could never pay. Copies of papers just like those she’d signed for Daddy in his first visit to Sistersville’s ER, the genesis of the iron shackles that bound her in a seven-year mortgage. Steps on the path that brought her to this very day.

  Hours later Laura Ann trembled in the chill of air conditioning. Attendants and nurses scurried about clad in long sleeves, some in sweaters. Outside, the world sweltered.

  She shut her eyes against brilliant lights and dog-eared magazines. A soap opera droned on across the room. A motley group of parents and children surrounded her, old and young, heavy and thin, all dressed like they’d quit something mundane to run to the ER with a loved one. People here were dressed for living, not for going out.

  Her hands twitched, desperate to be at work, or to cradle a book. She yearned for something to fill the time while Sophia slept. Minutes here melted into hours, bound together by the fabric of whispered prayers. She stood up at last, determined to escape.

  “I’m here with Sophia McQuistion,” she said to a nurse at the front desk. “I need to step out for a moment. To knock off the chill. If there’s any news …”

  The nurse nodded and smiled. “You go on. I’ll have someone

  come get you. And after you deal with those goose bumps, come see me. I’ll get you something warm.”

  Sunshine beckoned, beaming through the automatic doors of the exit. Outside, she strode fast to the other side of the parking lot, reveling in the warmth and fresh air, welcoming the clutches of a humid day.

  At the end of the lot, a rapid tat tat da tat drew her attention. Ian wheeled his truck around the curve of the emergency entrance and tapped on the horn one more time in response to her wave. A special delight on this bitter day, Granny Apple sat in the seat beside him. She’d come!