by Carol Grace
Sam had learned not to accept a patient’s story at face value. Often there were symptoms they were hiding, for one reason or another. Shame or fear or failure to pay attention. He was especially good at ferreting out deep-seated causes for physical problems. There had been a time when he was tempted to do a rotation in psychiatry, but he preferred surgery, enjoyed the team spirit in the OR, the ability to perform miracles with his hands and his equipment. It was just when things went wrong, when he couldn’t perform the miracle that he wondered if he’d made the right decision.
Hayley was hiding something from him. He didn’t know why and he didn’t know what. But he’d find out sooner or later. He would get to the bottom of it, by spending more time with her and prodding her until she finally came out with the whole story.
“Why not?” he said at last, when he realized they were waiting for him to make up his mind.
They made plans to meet at the beach the next morning. Donna and Pete said good-night, and Sam asked for the check.
“Just out of curiosity, am I being set up to do the New Hope thing?” he asked.
She smiled. “I swear it was a coincidence. It’s just that it’s clamming season. If you don’t want to go, don’t.”
“I’ll go,” he said, just as his beeper went off. He stared at it for a long moment as if he’d forgotten what to do. It had only been a little more than a week and already he was out of the loop.
“Who in the hell could that be?” he asked, showing Hayley the number of the caller on the screen.
Hayley’s eyes widened. “It’s Mattie.”
Sam took his cell phone from his pocket and called her number.
“Sam, that horrible old man called the office and left a message,” Mattie said. “Harris, is his name, the one who didn’t want you to lay a hand on his precious daughter, Shawnee.”
“Yeah, I remember them,” he said.
“Well it seems she’s in labor, yelling and screaming in pain. He’s worried. He’s changed his attitude about you, I can tell you. He’s begging you to come out there. Shall I tell him you’re too busy?” she asked.
“Out where?” he asked.
“By the dump on the Old Mill Road.”
“The dump,” Sam repeated. “I know where that is.” Hadn’t he spent hours pawing through the garbage looking for one thing or another? Something he could use or something he could sell. “We’ll be there in an hour.”
“We? Is Hayley with you?” Mattie asked, surprise and disapproval in her voice. “Where are you two? I tried the house. Nobody answered.”
“We’re having dinner in Newport,” he said. Not that it was any of her business.
“Humph. I thought—never mind.”
“You can call them back and tell them we’re on our way,” he said.
“Both of you?” Mattie asked.
“I’ll need help. Unless you’d like to come along, Mattie. I’ll swing by for you.”
“No, sir,” she said indignantly. “You wouldn’t catch me down that road at this time of night. Not with that trash. Besides I don’t do babies. Doc Bancroft always—”
“I know. Doc Bancroft always grabbed his little black bag and rode off into the sunset, solo, delivering perfect babies who were all named after him. But I’m a surgeon. I don’t do babies, either. Except tonight I do. And I need all the help I can get. That’s why I’m taking Hayley. And my computer and some equipment. Tell them we’ll be there as soon as we can, would you?”
“If you say so, but you’re under no obligation to these people, you know. They weren’t Doc Bancroft’s patients.”
“Who is their doctor?” he asked.
“Hah. Far as I can tell, that girl has never seen anybody. That old man wouldn’t trust anyone, even if there had been a doctor in town.”
Sam paid the check while he kept the phone wedged between his chin and his shoulder. Mattie continued to expound in his ear, as he and Hayley left the restaurant, about how these people didn’t deserve his help after what they’d said about him.
When she finally hung up they were on the road speeding back to New Hope.
“I hope you don’t mind coming along,” Sam said. “I delivered one baby years ago. If everything is normal I shouldn’t have a problem. If not—” He didn’t want to think about all the things that could go wrong. He’d seen slides, he’d read about placenta previa, fetal distress, prolonged labor….
“Of course not. Only I don’t know how helpful I can be. I don’t know what to do.”
“That makes two of us,” he said grimly. He swung by the office, grabbed his computer and chose a CD Rom that gave details of dozens of obstetrical procedures, while Hayley packed all the supplies and instruments he indicated he might need.
“Place is probably filthy,” he muttered as they got back into his car. “I didn’t know anyone lived out there.”
“I didn’t, either.” Hayley didn’t want to admit she’d never been to the dump. It would only reinforce Sam’s impression of her as a pampered rich girl who never ventured out of her neighborhood. In fact, her parents would be horrified if they knew she was on her way to the shack near the dump. They said it was a dirty, dangerous area. They would be even more horrified if they knew she was going to deliver a baby with Sam Prentice. They’d be horrified if they knew she was on her way anywhere with Sam Prentice.
She was afraid of what they’d find. A wild-eyed old man who didn’t want them there, a frightened young woman in pain, who was going to deliver a baby in a dirty shack.
Why was it was so easy for some people? They got pregnant and nine months later they went into labor and delivered a baby. Not that she envied the poor woman and her crazy father. She only felt a twinge of regret for what had happened to herself. Wishing things had been different for her…. But if things had been different she wouldn’t be there with Sam on her way to deliver a baby. She wondered who the father was, where he was and how the girl ended up giving birth alone.
“Are you paying attention?” Sam asked, turning on his bright headlights to shine on the dark, empty highway. “Are you watching for the turnoff?”
“Oh, yes…sure. I think it must be up here.”
Sam turned abruptly onto an old dirt road, bumping and scraping his high-performance car over potholes. Hayley pressed her hand to her face as a putrid smell filled the air. Finally he came to a screeching halt in front of a tumbledown wooden shack with lights burning behind bare, uncurtained windows.
“Could this be it?” he asked, opening his door and stepping out into the fetid air.
Hayley didn’t answer. She didn’t know. But she got out, too, and swallowed hard as she surveyed the shack. Instead of helping Sam unload the car, she stood staring at the smoke that poured from the chimney, hearing muted screams from the direction of the shack and wishing she hadn’t come. She wouldn’t be able to help. She was a wimp. A spoiled rich girl. Oh, she thought she’d changed, but faced with a serious problem, a life-and-death situation, she was a bundle of shaking nerves. Just like that night only a few years ago. When she’d been the one in trouble. She’d been scared, cold, anxious and alone. Tonight she wasn’t alone. But nonetheless she was going to be no help at all. She didn’t have what it took. The backbone, the courage or the confidence.
“Let’s go,” Sam said urgently, shoving an instrument case into her hands and nudging her none too gently toward the front door.
“No, I…I can’t,” she said, dragging her heels. “I’m no good at this.”
“How do you know?” he asked, continuing to guide her toward the house. “Have you delivered a baby before?”
She stumbled on a root, bumped into Sam and blinked back the tears that blinded her. “Yes. No. Of course not.”
“Then you can do it. I know you. You can do anything you put your mind to.” He set his computer and a leather bag on the front porch that had cobwebs hanging from the door frame, put his arm around her and squeezed her shoulders.
She might not have confidence in herse
lf, but he had confidence in her. It made her feel as if she could not only deliver a baby, but perform brain surgery and climb mountains, too, as long as he was there.
She took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m all right now,” she whispered.
Sam banged on the door with his fist.
“What the hell?” came a raspy voice above the screams. “What is it now?”
“It’s the doctor,” Sam yelled. “I’m coming in.” He charged through the door, with Hayley behind him, where they found the old man standing in the middle of the living room waving a whisky bottle in his hand.
“Get the hell out of here,” he yelled drunkenly. “I don’t want you. I want the real doctor, not you.”
Seven
“Where is she?” Sam demanded, ignoring the man’s protests and the whisky bottle he brandished menacingly.
The man jerked a thumb in the direction of the screams and a moment later she and Sam were in a bedroom facing the sight of the teenage girl, writhing on an unmade bed in a tangle of sheets.
Hayley stood staring at the woman, closed her eyes for a second and rocked back and forth on her heels. Though she’d never fainted in her life, she felt as if she would now. She didn’t want to see the girl’s bloated body, didn’t want to hear her ear-splitting screams. She wanted to run out of the house, but Sam was there. Sam was counting on her. Sam was sitting on the edge of the bed, one hand pressing on the girl’s abdomen, the other on her forehead.
“Okay, Shawnee, calm down. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m a doctor and I’m going to deliver your baby for you,” he said.
The girl’s screams subsided slightly, and Sam looked over at Hayley. “Don’t just stand there, turn on my computer,” he said. “And find the kitchen. Boil water. Then get back here.”
Her fingers fumbled as she slid his laptop out of its case and flipped the switches.
“Find the CD labeled OB and boot it up.”
“What about the water?” she asked.
“Didn’t you start the water yet?” he asked irritably. “Then get out the alcohol. I have to sterilize everything.”
“I…I—” She didn’t know what to do next. Clearly he was accustomed to having his orders obeyed by a highly trained staff, but she didn’t know what to do first—find the CD, get out the alcohol or boil water. Sam had turned back to his patient as if Hayley wasn’t there. Confident that she’d do what he’d told her. As his professional staff did.
“Take a deep breath,” he ordered the woman. “Another…another.”
While he was talking to Shawnee in a low, soothing voice, Hayley knew that if she were delivering a baby, if she were in any kind of trouble, she’d want Sam there. Sure he was irritable, but he was also so strong and capable, so sure and so calm. As if he did this every day, even though she knew he’d never done it before, never delivered a baby outside a hospital, with no one to help him except a totally inexperienced person. If only he’d been there the night she’d needed a doctor…someone…anyone. But she’d been alone and terrified. This was no time to dwell on the past, this was the time to show him she was up to the job.
Leaving Sam to take the girl’s temperature and her vital signs, Hayley went down the hall to the kitchen, carefully skirting the old man in the living room. She put a pot of water on the stove, then hurried back to find Sam on the floor on his knees, his stethoscope pressed just above the woman’s navel.
“You’re doing fine,” he said to Shawnee with surprising gentleness, then he got up and took Hayley’s arm and pulled her into the hall. He grabbed her hands tightly in his and pulled her toward him until his face was so close she could see the worry lines between his eyebrows and into the depths of his dark eyes.
“We’ve got a little problem,” he said under his breath.
Her eyes widened in alarm.
“We’ve got a breech presentation. He’s coming out butt first,” he said. “And he’s coming fast.”
She licked her dry lips. “Is that bad?”
“Could be. If we were in a hospital I’d do a C-section. Not me, but someone would. Someone who’s done it a hundred times. But we’re not in a hospital. We’re going to have to wing it here. First I’m going into the kitchen to scrub, and you’re going to find the instructions from the OB CD on breech deliveries, and I’m going to do my damnedest to follow them. Main thing is to keep calm.”
“I will,” she promised.
“I don’t mean you. Of course you will. I mean the girl. Keep her calm. Don’t let her know she’s in trouble. Here’s my watch to time her contractions. I’ll be right back.”
Hayley wanted to scream, Don’t leave me alone with her. What if something happens? What if…what if…
Gingerly, very carefully, Hayley perched on the edge of the bed and looked into the girl’s face for the first time. She saw pure terror in the eyes staring up at her, heard her gasp for breath. Oh, Lord, what if the baby came out now.
“I’m Hayley, Shawnee,” Hayley said, her voice little more than a whisper. “I’m here to help you.” The information from the books she’d devoured on birth and babies years ago when she’d thought…she’d hoped…was stored somewhere in the back of her mind. Obviously this poor girl had had no instructions whatsoever. Or any prenatal care, either.
What was it she was supposed to do? Oh, yes. Take deep breaths. Pant. Time the contractions. Suck on ice. Massage the belly. “Don’t be afraid,” Hayley said. “Doctor Prentice is here to deliver your baby. He’s very good. Just relax. Does it hurt very much?”
Shawnee wearily closed her eyes between contractions without answering. What a stupid thing to say. Of course it hurt.
“Take a deep breath,” Hayley said, and was encouraged to see the girl do it. Hayley timed the next few contractions with the stopwatch while talking the girl through them. They were coming faster and faster. Where was Sam? When he came back in the room she jumped up from the bed.
“Contractions every two minutes, lasting thirty seconds. Does that help?” she asked.
“Good girl,” he said, taking her place at the bedside and doing a quick examination. “Cervix dilated five centimeters. Now tell me what instructions you find under breech deliveries.”
Hayley took a seat in the straight-back wooden chair with the computer in her lap and scrolled rapidly through the topics, her fingers icy cold and shaking.
“Well?” he prompted.
“I’m looking, I’m looking,” she said. “Here we are. Some physicians feel all breech deliveries should undergo cesarean section because the doctor cannot know if the mother’s pelvis will be able to accommodate the bulkiest part of the baby’s body.”’
“Fine,” he muttered. “Go on, get to the good part.”
“Okay, here’s something. ‘Attempt to shift baby’s position by manipulating the uterus manually. A process called an external version. Or do an ultrasound scan to determine if the baby is small enough to pass through the pelvis.”
“Too late for that. Too late for anything. Here he comes. Get over here right away,” he said urgently. “You’re going to catch this baby.”
“Me? No, I can’t. I…I…” But she took a deep breath and knelt on the floor. If Sam thought she could do it, then she could. So when the slippery, squirmy baby came out buttocks first, after what seemed an agonizingly long wait, punctuated by the mother’s screams of pain, she was there to catch it while Sam reached into his bag for some clamps. After clamping the umbilical cord in two places, he cut it between the clamps. He took the baby, did a quick exam, then handed it to the mother.
“It’s a girl,” Hayley said reverently.
“She’s okay, isn’t she?” she asked shyly.
“She’s perfect,” he told her with a smile. He looked at Hayley, and their glances locked and held for a long moment. Together they’d brought this baby into the world. They’d participated in a miracle. It wasn’t their baby. But in a way it was their baby. Because if they hadn’t been there…if Sam hadn’t come bac
k to New Hope… Her heart swelled and she blinked back the tears that threatened to spill from her eyes. She almost thought Sam’s eyes were wet, too. But that couldn’t be. He was a doctor. He couldn’t cry every time he saved a life or brought a new one into the world.
Hayley cleared her throat and broke eye contact with him. “The instructions say to put an ID bracelet on the baby,” she noted.
“I’m fresh out of ID bracelets,” he said. “In this case I don’t think there’ll be any confusion. We’ll let her mother bond with her and then clean everybody up,” Sam told Hayley, gathering his instruments methodically as if he did it every day.
And he said he didn’t know anything about childbirth. Hayley slowly got up off the floor. Her legs were stiff; she was shaking all over. She felt as if she’d just had a baby herself. But she hadn’t and wasn’t likely to. She gazed down at the mother and the tiny baby sprawled across her chest, and she was filled with longing for what she couldn’t have. Her heart contracted as waves of unbecoming envy washed over her.
The rest of the night was a blur in her mind. With the hot water from the stove, and the disinfectant from Sam’s black bag, she and Sam cleaned up the baby, the mother and themselves. They found a linen closet and changed the sheets on the mother’s bed. When they finally left, the baby was nursing hungrily, and the old man had passed out on the living room couch, snoring loudly, his bottle on the floor beside him.
“I’m sending an ambulance to get the two of them tomorrow,” he told Hayley as she got into his car next to him. “The baby needs to be checked out by a pediatrician in Portland.”
She nodded and laid her head back against the headrest. She was cold, tired and couldn’t shake the mild depression and letdown that followed the excitement of the birth.
“Sorry I yelled at you,” he said. “Are you okay?” he asked, turning the heater on and glancing at her as he drove back up the rutted road.
“Just a little postpartum depression,” she said lightly as a tear dribbled down her cheek. She turned her face toward the window, but she felt his gaze linger, sensed his surprise, perhaps disappointment at her lack of fortitude. After all, to him it was just another procedure, another day at the office. But to her… “And a little envy,” she added
