“She’s in premature labor.”
“Oh, no,” he said. “She’s only…what…thirty weeks?”
“Stop talking, Liam,” Bart said. “I think that’s what I heard. Thirty weeks. It’s going to be rough if she has that baby now.”
It was happening again: another pregnancy, another child of his, being born into tragedy. And he cared—he truly did—about that baby. But just then, he cared far more what happened to Joelle.
“Is Joelle okay, though?” he asked again. “I mean…besides the labor?”
“She has a couple of cracked ribs, I think,” Bart said, leaning back from his work. “And if you keep talking, Liam, this will take all day.”
After Bart had finished stitching his jaw, Liam threw away the bloody shirt and pants he’d had on and borrowed a pair of blue scrubs to wear for the rest of the day. He left the E.R. and headed toward the Women’s Wing, but stopped off in the men’s room to see what had been done to his face. His image in the mirror shocked him. The cut on his chin was bandaged, as was his splinted aching finger, but there were bruises on his face that he could not remember receiving. He’d told the police he’d done all the hitting, yet that was obviously not the case, and he imagined the cops probably had a good laugh at his expense after they’d finished questioning him. Suddenly, he was very tired. He leaned against the tiled wall in the restroom and closed his eyes.
Joelle had to be terrified, he thought. She knew too much about what could go wrong with a pregnancy. Just like Mara did.
He felt a little sick to his stomach as he walked out of the men’s room and down the corridor. He would visit Joelle as her fellow social worker, her friend, the guy who’d also been involved in the altercation that caused her injury. No one would think anything of it.
He found Serena Marquez at the nurses’ station in the Women’s Wing.
“How’s Joelle?” he asked.
“Oh my God,” Serena said, when she saw him. “I heard you beat up the guy that kicked Joelle. It looks like it was the other way around.”
“How’s Joelle?” he repeated, not in any mood for banter.
“Rebecca’s trying to stop her labor,” Serena said.
“Can she?” he asked. “I mean, how is it going?”
“Don’t know yet,” Serena said. “But her membranes have ruptured, so that’s not great.”
“Can I see her?” he asked.
Serena looked at the clock. “Give her about twenty minutes or so,” she said. “Rebecca’s examining her. She’s starting her on some betamethasone and antibiotics.”
“What’s the beta…whatever for?”
“To mature the baby’s lungs in case her labor can’t be stopped. Without it—and even with it—a thirty-weeker could have some pretty serious problems.” She picked up a chart and started to leave the nurses’ station. “She’s in room twenty,” she said over her shoulder.
He sat down at the counter and reached for the phone. Pulling the phone book from the shelf under the counter, he looked up the number for the Shire Mind and Body Center and dialed it. A young-sounding woman answered the phone.
“Hello,” he said. “I need to get in touch with Carlynn Shire and I don’t have her home number. Can you tell me how I can reach her? It’s urgent.”
“What is this regarding?” the woman asked.
“It’s about a friend of hers. Joelle D’Angelo. She’s in labor, and I wanted to see if Carlynn could come over here, to Silas Memorial, to be with her.”
“I’ll get that message to her.”
“Right away?” he asked.
“I’ll call her, and if she’s there, she’ll get it. If not, I can’t say when.”
“Try to find her, please. And ask her to call me. Liam Sommers.” He gave her the hospital number. “Have her ask the operator to page me.”
His pager buzzed exactly twenty minutes later, when he was getting up his courage to walk down the hall to room twenty. He picked up the phone.
“It’s Carlynn, Liam,” she said. “I received your message and got a ride to the hospital. I’m in the lobby. Is Joelle all right?”
“I’ll be right over,” he said. “We can talk there.”
She was sitting in the lobby near the windows, balancing her hands on the top of her cane. He sat down in the chair next to hers.
“Thanks for coming,” he said.
“What happened?” she asked. “And what on earth happened to you?”
“Joelle was interviewing a battered woman in the emergency room, and the woman’s boyfriend broke into the room and kicked her in the stomach.”
Carlynn’s hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no,” she said. “Is she all right?”
He shook his head. “She has some cracked ribs and she’s in premature labor,” he said.
