“Thirty-four weeks.”
“Okay, good, good,” Maya said. She put on her stethoscope, checking Courtney’s heartbeat. As expected, it was high. She moved her hand down to Courtney’s stomach, feeling for blood—and movement. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I was walking down the sidewalk when I heard people screaming. I turned around, and a car was coming right at me. I dove out of the way—landed on my side, but I still hit my stomach. God, please, tell me my baby is all right.”
Maya looked in the woman’s ears and then checked pupil dilation, to make sure she didn’t have a concussion.
“Is my baby going to be all right?”
“Everything’s going to be fine,” Maya said, wanting her words to be true, but she needed to get the pregnant woman into her rig immediately.
She stood and signaled to a nearby police officer who ran over.
“We need to get this woman to the St. Thomas ER right away,” Maya said, her voice soft enough that the woman wouldn’t hear. “Get a stretcher over here immediately while I stay by her side.”
The cop ran off, waving to a nearby paramedic who had an empty rig. Maya made eye contact with Reno, who was helping an elderly man clutching his left leg. She was sure he could see the concern in her eyes. She then returned her attention to the pregnant woman, kneeling next to her again.
“What’s happening?” Courtney asked. “Am I okay? Is my baby all right?”
Maya gave her a short but bright smile. “You and your baby are going to be fine. We’re preparing to take you to St. Thomas. I’m going to get you some oxygen, and then we’re going to put you on a stretcher. Just a precaution, all right?”
The crying woman nodded. Maya placed an oxygen mask over her face, nodding at the pregnant woman to encourage her to draw the pure air from the tank. The other paramedics arrived after another moment, and Maya held Courtney’s hand as they loaded her onto the gurney. With Reno still treating folks at the scene, she’d have to trust other paramedics to get the pregnant woman to the ER.
The woman’s eyes shot from one paramedic to the other, her hands caressing the bulge of her stomach the entire time as the workers placed her into the back of the rig. Maya watched them until the door shut. For as long as she’d been doing this, these moments never got easier.
Reno called out to break into her focus on the woman then, and Maya took off running toward him as sirens ripped through the city streets of Nashville.
Maya pulled into St. Thomas forty-five minutes after they’d arrived on the scene of the accident. Reno sat in the back with a man who’d been grazed by the vehicle. When the man had landed, he’d dislocated his shoulder. Reno and Maya had decided to bring him to the hospital themselves to make sure that was all that was wrong with him, as well as to clean up his cuts and bruises. These days, even the slightest bump to the head could leave someone concussed, and an untreated brain injury could cause problems for months, if not years.
They signed him in at the ER entrance, and then Maya walked to the front desk. An attendant named Jean sat behind the counter.
“Hey, Jean. Do you know where they took the pregnant woman that was brought in here from the accident on Broadway?”
“They’ve got her in Room 7.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey,” Jean said. “What happened down there? I heard a car ran into some people on the sidewalk.”
Maya nodded. “It was an elderly woman. Apparently, she thought she was having a heart attack, panicked, and lost control. She ran up onto the sidewalk on the corner of 3rd and Broad. Hit a bunch of pedestrians.”
“My God.”
“Yeah. I was helping the pregnant woman, so I’m going to go check on her.”
Reno was standing behind Maya when she turned around.
“You want me to come down there with you?” he asked.
Maya shook her head. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Shift’s over. You did your 12 hours. Now go on and head home. I know you’re exhausted.”
“All right. Well, shoot me a text and let me know how she is, all right?”
“Can do.”
Maya was almost to the double doors when Reno called after her. “You did good out there today, Talbot.”
A smile was her only reply. Then she headed through the doors.
When she arrived at the central corridor of the ER wing, Maya flashed her ID card at the electronic pad and the doors swung open to let her inside. She walked down the hallway toward Room 7. She looked through the window, and her eyes went wide.
A nurse held a newborn baby in her arms—the umbilical cord still attached and covered in blood. Courtney lay motionless on the operating table.
A doctor left the room even as Maya peered through the window, removing the gloves from her hands. Maya waved her down.
“Is she all right?”
“She’s going to be fine. The baby is premature, but he seems to be in good health. They’re transferring him to NICU. Are you family?”
“No. I’m the paramedic who was on the scene.”
“You saved that child’s life. The umbilical cord had wrapped around his neck. If we hadn’t operated right away, he might not have made it.”
“I was just doing my job.” The cliché burned her ears, but it was all Maya could think to say. She sighed and then choked back a sob. They’d made it in time, and she’d had the instinct to get Courtney into a rig despite her otherwise “minor” injuries.
“You’re a hero. Accept it.”
Maya smiled, and the doctor returned the gesture before she walked away.
After glancing into the open door of Room 7, Maya realized the premature baby would make it. And his mom would wake up to meet him.
She yawned and felt the ache in her lower back. She’d long ago accepted pains like this in exchange for saving lives. It was that sense of satisfaction that kept her coming back for each next shift.
But, for now, she wanted to get home to her kids.
2
When Maya walked through the front door of her quiet house, the kids were doing something they shouldn’t have been or else they were on screens—maybe both, but in any case, she couldn’t hear them. After the day she’d had, though, she was just thankful not to have to break up an argument about who got to sit on the “good” end of the couch. Their German shepherd, Page, got up off the rug in the middle of the living room and sauntered over to Maya as she came in, the dog’s tail wagging.
Smiling, Maya kneeled. “Hey, girl.” She rubbed the dog’s ears and watched her tail wag even faster.
Maya put her keys and her backpack next to the door and walked into the living room. She still had on the bottom half of her uniform, but had taken off the top and was sporting the white ribbed tank top she always wore underneath. She headed for the kitchen.
“Hey, Mom.”
Maya jumped, and then followed the voice. Her son, Aiden, was lying on the sofa reading a comic book.
When he’d been younger, Maya had worried about Aiden’s introverted tendencies. Around the age of nine, he’d discovered electric guitar and punk rock—Green Day becoming his favorite band. Now that he was 12 years old, Maya felt as though she was constantly taking Aiden to have his shaggy, brown hair cut so she could see his crystal blue eyes. Maya worried also that he seemed to be a bit chunky for the average tween, but Maya tried not to blame that on the boy’s love for DC Comics and science fiction novels.
“You scared the mess out of me.”
“Sorry.”
Maya rubbed his head. “You kids are so quiet.”
“Would you rather us fight every time you come home?”