***
“THE FUCK?” DANNY’S shoulders tightened as he looked at his pager.
He hopped over the counter and ran to the payphones in the back corner of Red Bar. When he reached the phone, the pager beeped again. While the first page was from a number he didn’t recognize, the second was a 9-1-1 notification. His heart seized and pounded at the same time. Dropping too many coins in the pay slot, Danny punched in the metal numbers that had appeared on the tiny screen of his pager.
“Danny?”
“Who the fuck is this?” he screamed at the female who answered.
“D-Danny, it’s Sheila.”
The sound of her voice sent ice through his blood.
“There was an accident. I’m with Julie…they’re taking her. Y-you need to come, Danny. She needs you.”
“An accident? Is she okay?” he roared. “Who’s they? Who the fuck is with my wife, Sheila?” The phone quivered, the room quaked, and red film covered everything Danny saw.
He heard voices through the phone a split second before a strange man spoke into his ear. “Mr. Marcus, Ted here with the emergency team. How far along is your wife?”
“Twenty-eight weeks tomorrow,” Danny answered firmly.
“We’re taking her to Sinai Hospital, sir—”
Danny interrupted, “Is she okay?”
“Danny, it’s Sheila again. I’m going to follow the ambulance. Please meet me there as soon as you can—”
“Leaving now.” Danny slammed down the phone and ran across the hall to his manager’s office. “My wife had an accident. I’m leaving.”
His boss leveled him with a glare. “You’re in the middle of a shift, Marcus.”
Danny swallowed hard. “My wife and unborn daughter had an accident. Don’t give a fuck about the shift, man. Dock me. Hell, fire me. I’m out.”
And he left.
The nonexistent traffic allowed for Danny’s speeding to shave nearly ten minutes off the normally half-hour drive to the hospital. Rain drops, while no longer fierce, splashed his windshield like fat tears of sadness, but just as he refused to assume the worst and let his own tears fall, the wipers cleared away the wetness, leaving fresh glass and new hope.
###
“JULIE MARCUS,” DANNY barked at the meek-looking woman behind the counter in the emergency room.
“I’m sorry, sir, what is your name?”
Pulling in a deep breath, Danny answered. “Name’s Daniel Marcus. My wife, Julie Marcus, was brought in via ambulance probably half an hour ago. I wanna see her now.” His voice raised, making it clear his words were more of a command than a request.
“Please hold.” The woman cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder, punched in a few numbers, and mumbled something into the receiver.
“Danny?”
He turned to see Sheila standing a couple of feet away by the metal waiting room chairs. She was a mess—makeup streaked down her cheeks, wet hair plastered to her head and face, and was that blood on her clothes?
“Is that blood on your clothes?” Danny gasped. “Sheila, is that Julie’s blood on your fucking clothes?”
She nodded as fresh tears streamed down her face.
Acid burned in Danny’s gut. He returned his attention to the woman behind the desk. “Where is my wife, goddamnit?”
The woman returned the phone to the cradle and spoke in a disturbingly soft voice. “Mr. Marcus, someone is coming out to speak with you right now. Please wait right over there.” She pointed at the metal seats where Sheila still stood.
“I want to see my wife!” he shouted, startling the already leery woman, before staring at Sheila, who was wearing Julie’s blood. Tears filled his eyes. I will not assume the worst. She’s going to be okay.
He barely had the chance to walk the few feet over to his wife’s employer before Julie’s obstetrician briskly walked toward him.
“Mr. Marcus?”
Danny nodded. Words, just like air, forced their way out. “Dr. Burke, how is she? Can I see her? How’s our baby?” The questions spewed out like lava from a volcano.
“How about if you follow me?” the doctor suggested before walking into a privacy room.
He closed the door once Danny had entered. Both remained standing as the older woman kept her eyes trained on him. Knowledge and compassion shone in her eyes—two things Danny had appreciated in the past, two things he dreaded in the present.
“By the time Julie got here, she was unconscious, blood was coming from her vagina, and her uterus was contracting due to labor. We did an ultrasound and learned that Julie had what’s known as a placental abruption. It’s when the placenta separates from the wall of the uterus, depriving the fetus of blood and oxygen. In Julie’s case, the separation was due to abdominal trauma, and it was severe.” Dr. Burke swallowed hard. “And…”
The doctor’s pause felt like a dull knife being lodged into his gut.
“And…?” He refused to believe the truth until the words had been spoken.
“I’m sorry, Danny. I’m sorry, but Julie lost the baby. It died before we had a chance to intervene.” The doctor’s words had no time to penetrate before she unloaded even more. “Julie delivered the baby, but she was also suffering from vaginal bleeding because her uterus wouldn’t clamp down, a term we call atony. She’s been receiving transfusions and is being prepped for surgery now.”
“Surgery?” Danny croaked as Dr. Burke opened the door to the small room.
“We need to stop the bleeding, and we will,” she said, “but it may be a few hours until I see you again. We have a great team taking care of your wife. I’m going to go scrub in, and I’ll see you soon.”
With those words, she fled the privacy room, pushed the square button that automatically opened a door marked Medical Personnel Only, and disappeared through it.
“Take care of my wife,” Danny screamed at the closing door. “Please, please,” his voice cracked, “take care of my wife…”
“Umm, Danny?”
His name being called grabbed his attention; the woman attached to the voice captured his rage. Heat flashed through Danny’s body as his hands clenched into fists. While he still saw Sheila as a woman—and therefore, he would never lay so much as a finger on her—his pain felt like a grenade and the pin had been pulled. “What in the motherfuck happened to her?”
Had Danny not been so lost in his own grief, he would have seen that Sheila was drowning in her own.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“That’s not good enough!” he screamed. “She paged me right before midnight. She fucking paged me. She was goddamn fine then. So how’s it possible that now, not two hours later, my daughter’s dead?” Sheila gasped, but Danny continued to rant. “They’re in there trying to stop my wife from bleeding to death. How, Sheila? Tell me how the fuck that happened?” His throat tightened when the last word passed his lips. The tears that he had held back since receiving Sheila’s call finally fell. Their daughter was gone. His Julie was bleeding…“I…I can’t…I can’t lose her.” His voice broke as the sadness left his throat and emptied his soul.
“Please, come sit down with me.” Sheila gestured toward the privacy room, but Danny refused, explaining that he wanted to be in the main waiting room in case anyone needed him.
Once he’d checked in with the admissions desk, giving them Julie’s insurance information and medical background, he shuffled to the waiting room, claimed a chair, and let his mind wander.
“What happened?” he asked calmly when Sheila handed him a cup of vending machine coffee and sat next to him.
The woman looked lost. “I’ve been trying to piece it together since we found her—”
“We?” Danny interrupted.
“Yeah. The place was slammed tonight. I can’t remember it being like that on a Wednesday night, ever,” she explained. “We both worked our asses off, and before you freak out on me, Danny, I know. I know she shouldn’t have been working so hard, okay? But have you ever tried to tell Julie not to do something she wanted to do?”