Chapter 6 - THE SHATTERED MIRROR
“You son of a bitch,” Claire hissed, her knuckles white around the handle of the poker. Her face was pale, hair disheveled, and her eyes were bloodshot from crying and terror. “How did you get up here?”
“Where is she?” I gasped, clutching the doorframe to keep from collapsing. Snow fell from my clothes in thick clumps onto the hardwood floor. “Claire, where is Emma? Is she breathing? Tell me she’s breathing!”
“Get out!” Claire lunged forward, the blunt tip of the iron poker stopping inches from my chest. “You don't get to come here! You don't get to stand on this threshold after what you did!”
“I know about her heart!” I screamed, ripping open my coat and pulling out the crushed, snow-dampened envelope. “I found the cardiology reports! I know she has peripartum cardiomyopathy! I know she’s in heart failure! Claire, please—for the love of God, tell me she’s alive!”
Claire froze. The iron poker lowered an inch. Her eyes flicked down to the medical records in my trembling hands, then back to my face. The absolute, unhinged terror in my expression seemed to finally pierce through the wall of her hatred.
“She’s not here, Julian,” Claire whispered.
The world seemed to spin violently. “What? But the smoke... the truck...”
“I came up here to get the emergency medical generator Emma stored in the shed two months ago,” Claire said, her voice shaking violently as a sob broke through her chest. “She went into acute labor at three this morning. Her water broke while we were driving up the access road. Her lips were turning blue, Julian! She was gasping for air!”
“Where is she?!” I grabbed Claire’s shoulders, my fingernails digging through her flannel shirt. “Where did you take her?!”
“Pine Ridge Community Clinic!” Claire cried, tears spilling over her eyelashes. “It’s a tiny four-bed emergency clinic down in the valley, near the south pass. It was the only place we could reach before the roads were closed! But they don't have a pediatric cardiac unit! They don't have the surgical equipment for a high-risk delivery!”
“Why didn't you call an air ambulance? A helicopter?”
“In a blizzard with sixty-mile-per-hour gusts?!” Claire screamed, shoving my hands off her shoulders. “Nothing is flying! The state police couldn't even get an armored plow through the north pass! The clinic doctor told me her pulmonary edema is worsening. Fluid is filling her lungs because her heart can’t pump the blood. If they don't perform a Caesarean section within the next three hours, both of them are going to suffocate!”
The sheer horror of the image paralyzed me.
Emma. My sweet, beautiful Emma, drowning in her own fluids while our baby girl fought for oxygen in a frozen, under-equipped rural clinic.
“Can the truck make it down the south pass?” I demanded, pointing out the window at the red Ford.
“The south pass is clear of fallen trees, but the snow is three feet deep,” Claire said, wiping her face frantically. “I only came back up to get her medical history file from the cabin safe because the clinic doctor didn't have her baseline cardiology readings. I was terrified she’d die on the table because they gave her the wrong anesthetic!”
“I have the records,” I said, thrusting the thick dossier into her hands. “Every single page. Her baseline ejection fractions, her allergy list, Dr. Morrison’s emergency surgical protocols. Everything is here.”
Claire looked down at the dossier, her mouth trembling. For the first time, the murderous hostility in her eyes cracked, revealing the terrified sister beneath.
“Julian... she was protecting you,” Claire whispered, her voice breaking. “Even when she was in the back of my truck, clutching her belly and turning gray from lack of oxygen, she looked at me and said, *‘Don’t let Julian blame himself. He’s carrying too much already.’* That is the woman you walked away from to hold Rachel’s hand.”
A sob tore through my chest, burning hotter than the freezing air outside.
“I’m going to save them,” I vowed, looking Claire dead in the eyes. “If it kills me, Claire, I am going to get those records to that doctor, and I am going to be there when my daughter is born. Let’s go.”
Without another word, Claire grabbed her coat and her keys.
May you like
We ran out into the tempest together, diving into the cab of the massive Ford truck. The diesel engine roared to life with an angry, shuddering growl. Claire slammed it into gear, the tire chains clanking violently against the frozen gravel, and we plunged down the mountain toward the Pine Ridge Clinic.
***
