Chapter 2 - The Hospital Corridor
"What do you mean, locked?" Caleb roared, his hands hovering over me, terrified to touch me for fear of causing more pain. He dropped to his knees on the chapel runner, pulling my soaked frame against his chest. "Mara, what are you talking about?"
"The bridal restroom..." I choked out, my teeth chattering uncontrollably as the shock began to set in. "I told her... my water broke. She took my phone... she turned the key..."
Caleb’s head snapped up. He looked down the long center aisle toward the altar where Eleanor now stood. She had stepped out of her pew, her posture perfectly erect, her face a mask of mild, disappointed condescension.
"Caleb, don't be ridiculous," Eleanor called out, her voice carrying easily over the hushed, whispering crowd. Guests were leaning out of their pews, pulling out phones, whispering behind their gloved hands. "She was hyperventilating. I told her to sit down and rest until the ceremony finished so she wouldn't cause a scene. I certainly did not lock her anywhere."
"You lying sociopath!" a voice shouted from the third row.
It was my sister, Clara. She had arrived late due to traffic and was sitting near the back. She shoved past an elderly couple, dropping beside Caleb and me, immediately pulling off her velvet shawl to wrap around my shaking shoulders.
"I heard the lock click from the hallway when I was looking for the coat room!" Clara screamed, her face flushed with fury as she looked up at Eleanor. "I thought it was a venue manager! You locked my sister in a room while she was in labor?!"
"Call an ambulance!" Caleb yelled at the stunned wedding planner standing near the doors. "NOW!"
"The ambulance is already on its way, Mr. Vale," the venue manager stammered, holding a radio. "They were dispatched three minutes ago when the emergency alarm was tripped in the West Wing restroom."
"Caleb," Lucinda’s voice shrilled from the altar. She stepped forward, gathering her heavy lace train in her hands, her face contorted in anger. "Are you serious right now? You're letting her ruin my entrance? She couldn't even wait thirty minutes?!"
Caleb looked at his sister, then at his mother. A profound, terrifying shift occurred in his eyes—a breaking of a spell that had held him captive his entire life.
"Shut up, Lucinda," Caleb said. The words were not loud, but they were flat, cold, and heavy enough to drop the temperature in the room by ten degrees.
Lucinda gasped, taking a step back as if he had struck her.
The double doors of the chapel burst open again. Two paramedics in navy uniforms rushed in carrying a motorized gurney and an emergency trauma kit.
"Clear the aisle!" the lead paramedic shouted, dropping to his knees beside me. "Ma'am, stay still. What's your name?"
"Mara..." I whispered, my hand squeezing Caleb's hand so hard his knuckles turned white. "Mara Ellery... thirty-eight weeks..."
"Vitals are spiked," the second paramedic called out, attaching a monitor to my finger. "Blood pressure is 170 over 110. We have severe maternal distress. We need to move her now!"
They lifted me onto the gurney. The movement triggered another contraction so intense that my vision went black for several seconds. When my eyes refocused, I was being wheeled rapidly down the center aisle, past two hundred staring, horrified faces.
Eleanor stood near the front pew. As the gurney swept past her, she didn't look at me. She looked at Caleb, who was jogging beside the gurney, holding my hand.
"Caleb," Eleanor commanded, stepping directly into his path. "You are the head usher. You have duties to this family. You can join her at the hospital after the reception."
Caleb stopped. He looked at his mother.
Slowly, deliberately, he reached up to his lapel, unpinned the white silk rose of the head usher, and dropped it onto the floor at Eleanor’s feet.
"If anything happens to my wife or my child," Caleb said, his voice trembling with a rage so dense it made Eleanor flinch for the first time all evening, "you are dead to me. Do you hear me, Eleanor? You don't exist."
He turned and ran out the doors after the gurney, leaving Eleanor Vale standing alone in the center of her ruined showcase, surrounded by two hundred people who finally saw her for exactly what she was.
The siren screamed through the rainy Virginia night as the ambulance tore down Route 6 toward Richmond Memorial Hospital.
Inside the back of the rig, the paramedic was monitoring my vitals while Caleb sat on the small bench beside my head, his face buried in his hands, his body shaking with silent sobs.
"I'm sorry," Caleb kept repeating, pressing his warm lips against my sweaty forehead. "I'm so sorry, Mara. I should have been there. I should have checked on you. I knew how she was..."
"It's not... your fault..." I gasped, fighting through another wave of contraction pain. "She... she took my phone..."
"We're ten minutes out!" the paramedic shouted to the driver. "Call ahead to labor and delivery! Tell them we have an emergency crash C-section prep! Maternal blood pressure is skyrocketing!"
When the ambulance slammed to a halt in the trauma bay, the doors flew open to reveal a team of six doctors and nurses waiting with a high-speed gurney.
"Mara Ellery!" the lead obstetrician, Dr. Aris, called out, taking the chart from the paramedic as they rolled me through the automatic double doors. "Mara, can you hear me?"
"Yes..." I sobbed.
"Your pressure is dangerously high, and the baby's fetal heart rate is showing late decelerations," Dr. Aris said briskly, her voice filled with sharp, terrifying efficiency. "We don't have time for a natural delivery. The stress on the baby is too high. We are taking you straight to Operating Room 3 for an emergency Cesarean."
"Caleb..." I reached out frantically.
"I'm right here!" Caleb cried, stepping into a yellow surgical gown a nurse thrust into his hands. "I'm coming with you!"
"Not yet, dad," the head nurse said, stepping between him and the double doors of the surgical wing. "We need to knock her out under general anesthesia due to the elevated pressure. You have to wait in the surgical lounge."
"No! Let me in!" Caleb pleaded.
"Caleb, let them do their job!" I screamed as they pushed my gurney through the double doors, the bright fluorescent lights of the surgical corridor flashing overhead like strobe lights.
May you like
The last thing I remember was the cold air of the operating room, the smell of antiseptic, the rubber mask being pressed over my nose and mouth, and the voice of Dr. Aris shouting: "Start the clock! We have four minutes to get this baby out!"
Then the world dissolved into total, heavy darkness.
