A Vineyard Lullaby (The Vineyard Sunset Series Book 7)

by Katie Winters

  “What happened? Are they okay?” Amanda rasped. The panic in her voice was clear as day.

  “We’re still waiting to hear,” Christine murmured. Slowly, she lifted a quarter from her change purse and pushed it into the old coffee machine. She didn’t have a second one, but Zach did, and he slipped that in after hers. They watched, stunned, as the coffee began to trickle into a little plastic cup. It felt so surreal that the world could end in such a way, and there could still be bad coffee made in machines at the hospital.

  Christine explained to Amanda and Susan what had happened. Amanda asked a whole host of questions, which proved that she’d done a lot more research about childbirth than probably Audrey even had. This was just her way.

  “Can we see her yet?” Amanda demanded.

  “I think they’ll keep her here for a few days, but she really needs her rest,” Christine said. “She was so strong in there.”

  Even as she said it, she could feel what she actually meant echoing back the words: she was strong, but maybe not strong enough—maybe not strong enough.

  How awful.

  Amanda turned toward her mother and placed her head heavily on Susan’s shoulder. Susan bit hard on her lower lip as she comforted her daughter. If they all fell apart, they wouldn’t be able to pick one another back up. Susan, as usual, had to be the strongest.

  Lola appeared in the doorway of the waiting room a few minutes after that. Christine peered up at her from the top of her stale coffee. They’d been through war together, she and Lola and Audrey, and now, as she looked at Lola, she felt a strange kinship. Her eyes were even more bloodshot than Amanda’s, and she staggered toward Christine with her arms outstretched. Christine wrapped her up and felt a guttural scream curve up from the base of Lola’s belly and through her throat. She stifled it slightly in Christine’s shoulder as Christine hung onto her. The pain was enormous.

  A few minutes later, Lola took a few deep breaths, wiped her tears away and finally let go of Christine. “Audrey is sleeping,” Lola whispered. She dropped back in a chair and covered her eyes with the tops of her sleeves. “My baby is sleeping. And her baby, well. They want to talk to us in a little while, Christine. Can you come with me? Please?”

  Christine had never heard her younger sister sound so meek before. Always, Lola had been the brash, powerful, wild one. Now, if a wind had cut through the hospital doors, she might have fallen to her knees.

  About an hour later, Christine and Lola held hands as they walked through the glowing white hallways to meet with Audrey’s doctor. Christine wanted to comment on how strange time was in a hospital. All the nurses and doctors and patients operated like they had no idea it was around one in the morning. Everything was busy and excitable; nurses joked together at their nursing stations, and doctors ate their snacks where they could. There was no stopping sickness; there was no stopping deliveries; there was no stopping God’s plan. Still, as Christine walked like a zombie toward this meeting, she wished she could press rewind and return to a long-ago day in the sun, with Audrey newly pregnant and just the possibility of all this stretched out before them.

  Why hadn’t they considered any of these turn of events? Were they too optimistic? Too idealistic? Too naive?

  One of the few times Susan had ever visited Christine in New York City, Christine had gotten one of her ovaries removed. It had been a time of horror and loneliness in her life. Her body had decided it no longer wanted to operate alongside her but against her, and during the weeks before her procedure, she had drank much more than she ever had before. She’d been so conscious of the escape. Every glass of wine poured meant a few minutes away from the reality that she would never be a mother on her own.

  Now, she might never be a mother, period.

  In the doctor’s office, Lola and Christine continued to grip hands as they learned about the fate of Audrey’s baby.

  “As you know, the baby was not breathing immediately after delivery,” the doctor started to explain. He folded his hands beneath his chin.

  Christine wondered how many meetings he had to have like this per day. How much bad news did he shell out a week? Did he have a particular script he liked to use? Probably, they taught everyone that at medical school: how to let people down the easy way.

  “We have him in the NICU to receive oxygen and for continual observation,” the doctor continued. “And our diagnosis is Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome.”

  Christine felt the words wrap around her throat and suffocate her. She turned her eyes toward Lola, who was just as pale as snow.

  “What is that?” Lola whispered.

  “Essentially, this occurs when fluid fills up the air sacs in the baby’s lungs. When there’s too much fluid in the lungs, there is either too little oxygen or too much carbon dioxide in the bloodstream.”

  Christine squeezed Lola’s hand harder as her knees clacked together. A heavy silence fell over them and Christine could feel the tears stream down her cheeks.

  “What happens now?” Christine finally asked, looking up at the doctor. “And is Audrey okay?”

  The doctor nodded. “Audrey just needs to be monitored for a day or two. What happened with her hemorrhaging is quite common, and she’s young, which means her body is strong and able to handle all this.”

  “And the baby?” Lola demanded. Her voice was edged with fear.

  “ARDS normally gets worse before it gets better,” the doctor said somberly. “The next three or four days will tell the tale. It will give us a lot more information about the next few weeks.”

  “Weeks?” Christine demanded.

  The doctor didn’t seem phased at all by Christine and Lola’s panic. Again, Christine wanted to rip him to shreds and demand if he cared at all. This wasn’t just another patient. This was Audrey’s baby. This was Lola’s grandbaby. This was the baby she had pledged to protect.

  “What is the standard timeline for all this?” Lola finally whispered.

  The doctor arched a salt and pepper eyebrow. “Normally, the disease gets worse for about three or four days. We have the baby connected to a nasal continuous positive airway pressure machine or NCPAP machine for short.”

  Christine wanted to tell him that she couldn’t keep up with all this ridiculous lingo and to talk in lay terms, but she kept her lips sealed shut.

  “And we will monitor his oxygen levels and carbon dioxide levels over the next few days before we plan out the next steps,” the doctor said.

  They both shook the doctor’s hand and thanked him for all he had done so far before they headed back out into the hallway. They continued to walk hand-in-hand, each dealing with their own waves of dread.

  Lola and Christine stood outside Audrey’s room several minutes later. Neither of them had been able to speak since they’d left the doctor’s office. The diagnosis seemed like something that happened to other people, not to the Sheridan girls.

  Maybe normally, had the circumstances been different, they might have said something like: We can get through this. We can get through anything.

  But there was something much more sinister about this. About a baby they’d only just met being hooked up to a machine in the NICU.

  Another silent minute passed and then another.

  Until suddenly, Lola blurted out, “Wait a minute. Did he say the baby was a he?”

  Christine’s heart thudded strangely. “No, he couldn’t have.”

  Lola turned to her quickly and grabbed her forearm. “I’m pretty sure he did.”

  Christine furrowed her brow. This, too, felt like something from another dimension. Audrey had been so sure. They’d all been so sure.

  But then again, they’d also been sure they’d have a safe birth. In another world, they were already back at the Sheridan house, with their new baby Sheridan girl fast asleep in her crib, and Audrey was asleep in her bed, and they were overstuffed with dessert and wine and love, all of them, together, in the forever-warmth of that house.

  “I’ll go si
t with her for a while,” Lola finally said. She brought a strand of hair behind her ear.

  For the first time ever, Lola Sheridan looked her age.

  Christine had never seen that before.

  “I’m going to go check on Zach,” Christine said.

  They hugged a final time before they parted ways. Just before Lola pressed her hand against the door, she turned and said, “Tell Tommy my phone is dead. I’ll come out and say hello to him in a while, okay?”

  Christine nodded and then walked off.

  A few hours later, she and Zach found themselves in front of the glass at the NICU. Zach hadn’t been very talkative, but both had agreed they wanted to say hello to the baby, a real hello before they left the hospital to get any kind of rest. They stood like ghosts in front of several very sick babies, all connected to machines. Toward the far right, a baby’s crib read, “SHERIDAN,” and beneath it, “UNNAMED, MALE.”

  Zach’s voice cracked as he spoke for the first time in over an hour.

  “Audrey is going to be so pissed.”

  Christine’s heart burst into a million pieces. “Why?”

  “Because she had a baby boy. All she ever wanted was a girl.”

  He tried to laugh at his joke. But the joke fell flat almost immediately, and his face contorted as he let out a horrible sob. All they’d really wanted, beyond anything, was a healthy baby. Nothing else had ever mattered.

  Chapter Six

  Zach and Christine pulled up outside their house at around six in the morning. Christine blinked into the strange grey haze outside the window. It had been over twenty-four hours since she had rushed to the hospital to meet Amanda and Audrey and Lola and Susan — over twenty-four hours since the immensity of her hope had lifted.

  “How can one day feel like an entire year?” she asked Zach as he turned off the engine.

  Zach didn’t have an answer. He stepped outside the car, moved around to the passenger side, and helped Christine into the chilly air. This was the final day of February— February 28. When Christine stepped forward on wobbly legs, she whispered, “The baby’s birthday is February 27. Isn’t that a beautiful day to be born?”

  She was talking nonsense, now. Zach cast her a confused look as they entered the house.

  “You should get some sleep,” he told her. He helped her out of her winter coat and slung it over the chair nearest the foyer. This wasn’t the time to bother with front closet hangers. This wasn’t the time for propriety or organization.

  “Are you going to open the bistro today?” Christine asked. This was maybe a question she would have asked any other day.

  Zach grumbled and placed his hand across his forehead. “I don’t know if I’m good to do anything today.”

  Christine wandered back into the kitchen. Zach called after her that she really should sleep, at least for a while. Christine somehow dreaded sleep. She feared that something would happen to Audrey and the baby while she slept on. Besides, she also dreaded that horrible feeling — the moment you wake up in bliss and then have to remember the trauma you just went through. It had happened to her countless times, especially when she’d been a particularly heavy drinker.

  For a while, her life had been on an awful constant loop: she’d go through a horrible breakup or she’d get fired or she’d get into a horrible fight with a friend, then she’d drink through the pain, pass out and then awake to another day. All of it was even worse than the one before because she was hungover and even more self-hating.

  No. It was better to stay awake until she had more information.

  Zach disappeared for a while. Christine stood on uneasy legs in the kitchen. On the refrigerator, there was a little calendar Audrey had gotten them for Christmas, which told them the week-by-week growth of the baby. The current calendar read: Month 8.5. Too early. Not one of them had been emotionally ready. And the baby? He hadn’t been physically ready.

  Without thinking, Christine began to stir up cookie dough, just a traditional chocolate chip. Tears dripped down her cheeks as she continued. Just after she cracked the eggs, she poured herself a thick glass of merlot and sipped it. More morning light streamed in through the kitchen windows. She hadn’t drank this early in years. It softened her racing, hard-edged thoughts. It made her limbs feel like jelly.

  When she slotted the first tray of cookies into the preheated oven, she took another sip and wandered down the hallway. The house was eerily quiet. Normally, either Christine or Zach played music from one of the speaker systems. It was like they were in mourning.

  Christine expected to find Zach in the bed they shared, but the room was dark and the bed was empty, the sheets all mussed from their quick get-away the previous early morning. She took another sip, turned back down the hallway, and then caught sight of Zach. She could see just the tip of his toes along the floor in the nursery.

  She opened the door a bit more to allow a full view. Zach sat in the antique rocking chair, which they had bought at a garage sale the previous autumn. His head was bent forward, and he held a glass of whiskey in his right hand. He shifted the rocking chair back and forth with the soft tips of his toes. Christine hardly recognized his face. His sorrow made him look like a stranger.

  “Hey.”

  Zach lifted his chin just the slightest bit. His youthful good looks had faded and were replaced with stress and anxiety.

  “Hey,” he returned.

  “I put some cookies in the oven.”

  “Breakfast of champions,” he replied.

  Christine leaned heavily against the door jamb. “I just had to do something with my hands. We don’t have to eat them.”

  Zach shook his head. A strange silence formed between them. Even an hour before, Christine might have stepped toward him and placed her hand on his shoulder and whispered that everything would be all right. Now, she felt she couldn’t move any closer.

  It was clear that Zach’s mind was heavy with the baby he’d already lost.

  This was a world Christine knew nothing about. This potential loss was strange and horrible but also fresh.

  Probably, Zach’s old wounds had been ripped open with the latest events.

  She could practically see the trauma coming off him in waves.

  “Can I get you anything?” she finally asked. Her voice cracked. How differently she’d imagined the day of the baby’s birth! She had imagined herself and Audrey and Zach taking turns holding the baby and whispering excitedly and pinching themselves with disbelief at their own happiness.

  Zach shook his head somberly. “Nope.” He popped the “p” like an annoyed teenager. He wanted to be left alone.

  Christine nodded before returning to the kitchen. She finished off her glass of wine and poured herself another. She removed the tray of cookies at precisely the right time. They were gooey, a soft golden color. She placed her teeth along the edge of one as the melted chocolate splayed out across her tongue.

  She felt useless—utterly useless.

  About an hour later, after two glasses of wine and a half-eaten cookie, Christine decided she couldn’t stick around at home another moment longer. Zach’s silence was deafening; the house shifted and quaked against the late February wind; and her sisters remained at the hospital, where she needed to be, too. As she didn’t want to face Zach again, she penned a little note and stuck it on the fridge. After a pause, she removed the baby calendar from the fridge and stuck it in the trash, under an empty package of flour.

  Christine called a taxi. She stood in her driveway as soft snow billowed around her and stuck to her dark hair. She remembered her fear that once the baby was her responsibility, she would forget to dye her hair and end up like one of those frazzled mothers who didn’t have time to take care of their appearance. Now, she was willing to trade her dark brunette hair for the wellness of that baby.

  A “beautiful” Sheridan sister? What did it matter to her, what she looked like? All she wanted was her family’s safety.

  The taxi dropped her off.
Christine walked her now-familiar zombie walk into the waiting room. There, she found that powerful and gorgeous Italian sailor, Tommy Gasbarro, all bent over, his face in his hands. Something about this man, defeated and so tired, broke Christine’s heart even more. She placed the tupperware of chocolate chip cookies in the plastic chair beside him and said his name softly.

  Tommy whipped a hand to the left and blinked up at her. After a pause, he dropped both hands and tried to smile. His lips failed him.

  “Is Lola still in the room with Audrey?” Christine asked.

  Tommy nodded. “She comes out from time to time to tell me to head back home. I can’t bring myself to go, though.” He paused and lifted the chocolate chip cookie container. “I hope you got some sleep? You weren’t gone very long.”

  Christine shrugged. “It’s basically impossible to sleep right now.”

  Christine turned to find Amanda and Susan coming out of the double-wide doors. Susan held a coffee and walked with her shoulders hunched, something Christine had never seen Susan Sheridan do in her entire life. Beside her, Amanda spoke in hushed, panicked tones. She held a croissant, one of the sad ones that the hospital cafeteria sold. To Christine, that was sacrilege: a stale, sad croissant, eaten on the saddest morning of the year.

  “Christine. I can’t believe you came back already,” Susan said, just before she swallowed her up in a hug.

  “Is there any news?” Christine asked.

  Amanda shook her head. “Audrey should be awake in a little while. Aunt Lola really needs rest. I think she’s delirious.”

  “None of us have gotten any sleep,” Susan added. “Scott is threatening to kidnap me and take me back home.”

  With a jolt, Christine was reminded of something. “Where’s Dad in all of this?”

  “I had Aunt Kerry come pick him up that very first morning,” Susan said. “There was no way it was healthy for him to be up here. He was tired and confused. He keeps calling me, though. He loves Audrey so much.”

  Amanda swiped her sleeve beneath her right eye. Even through her failed engagement and marriage, Christine hadn’t seen her like this. She looked inconsolable.