Chapter 6 - The Race Against the Clock
Her words sent a shockwave of cold dread through my entire being. I can't see the light.
The warning from the triage nurse roared in my ears: seizures, placental abruption, vision loss. The preeclampsia had progressed to full-blown eclampsia. Her brain was swelling under catastrophic blood pressure. If I waited for an ambulance to navigate thirty miles of blocked, icy coastal backroads during a county-wide blackout, both Emma and our daughter would die in this freezing motel room.
""I've got you, Emma. I've got you, I swear to God,"" I sobbed, pulling the thick motel blankets around her and lifting her entire body into my arms.
She felt impossibly light, yet heavy with the life struggling inside her. She let out a soft, agonized whimper, her hand weakly clutching the lapel of my coat as her head fell back against my shoulder.
""Julian..."" she mumbled, drifting between consciousness and delirium. ""The baby... she isn't kicking anymore... she stopped moving this morning...""
Those words almost caused my heart to stop beating entirely.
""She's going to be okay, Emma. You're both going to be okay. Keep your eyes on me. Stay awake, please!""
I carried her out of Room 14 into the howling blizzard. The freezing wind whipped across her face, causing her to gasp for air. I carried her across the icy lot, kicked my car door wider, and gently lowered her into the reclining passenger seat. I bundled her in my own heavy wool coat, tucked her legs in, and slammed the door shut.
I jumped into the driver's seat, threw the gear into reverse, and tore out of the Driftwood Motel lot, spraying gray slush twenty feet into the air.
My phone had zero reception on the coastal ridge. The cellular towers had been knocked offline by the snapped high-voltage lines. I couldn't call 911. My navigation system was displaying a dead offline map.
I remembered passing a green highway marker three miles south: County Health Clinic - 4 Miles Inland.
It wasn't a major surgical hospital, but it was a medical facility. They had doctors. They had oxygen.
I slammed my foot on the accelerator. The car fishtailed violently across a patch of black ice, but I wrestled the steering wheel back into alignment, ignoring the screaming tachometer. I reached across the center console, grabbing Emma’s burning, trembling hand with my right palm, squeezing it with desperate intensity.
""Talk to me, Em. Please talk to me,"" I pleaded, staring through the wiper-cleared crescent of the windshield. ""Tell me about the nursery. Tell me what color you wanted to paint the rocking chair.""
Emma groaned, her head rolling toward me against the headrest. Her eyes were rolled back slightly, her breathing coming in rapid, shallow pants. ""You... you were supposed to stay with Rachel..."" she whispered, a stray tear cutting through the flushed heat of her cheek. ""I didn't... I didn't want to make you choose between your past... and a broken future...""
""There is no future without you, Emma!"" I sobbed, my voice cracking in raw, unadulterated anguish. ""Rachel was nothing! It was my stupid, pathetic ego! I thought I had to fix everything for everyone because I failed on that investment deal! I thought money was the only way I could keep you safe! I was an idiot, Em! A blind, selfish coward!""
Suddenly, Emma’s hand stiffened in mine.
Her fingers locked with unnatural, rigid force. Her entire body arched violently against the seatbelt, her jaw clenching as a deep, guttural sound escaped her throat. Her eyes fixed onto the ceiling of the car, completely unseeing.
She was having a seizure.
""NO! EMMA! NO!"" I screamed, tears blinding my vision as I navigated a sharp curve in the road. ""HANG ON! HANG ON TO ME!""
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Up ahead, through the curtain of falling snow, a small red cross illuminated the roof of a low brick building.
The inland clinic.
