Scattered Ashes (17 page)

“Okay, spit it out,” Nicole muttered, hating the way the silence between them suddenly felt so intense.  She wanted to open and enjoy Sarah’s gift, but that wasn’t possible, not with the tension between them.

“I just can’t believe he didn’t stay here with you, Nic.  I mean, you could have that baby any time, which means you deserve the father to be staying close, just in case.”  She nodded toward the bag.  “Aren’t you going to open that?”

“Yeah.”  Nicole pulled away the tissue paper and found a small, blue outfit with trains all over it, and she smiled brightly, trying to imagine her son in it.  It was perfect. 

“It’s beautiful,” Nicole finally managed.  “Thank you.”  She started to lean over and give her best friend a hug when the baby really kicked hard and her abdomen started tightening.

Sarah frowned and watched Nicole carefully.  “Hey, you okay over there?  You’re suddenly kind of pale.”

Nicole nodded slowly.  “Yeah.  Nick just kicked the crap out of me.”  Her hand nervously caressed her belly, not liking the way it felt so tight it hurt.  She couldn’t be going into labor, could she?

“You sure that’s it?” Sarah edged closer, one hand gripping the edge of the couch as though she were hanging on for dear life.

“Yeah, I’m fine.  I’ll be right back.”  She struggled to her feet, intending to get some water from the kitchen.  As she took her first step, however, she felt an immediate rush of heated liquid whoosh down her legs and spatter the floor.

Both of them stared at it, and Sarah finally said, “Um, Nic, I think your water just broke.”

For a second, Nicole couldn’t answer; she just kept staring at the puddle, trying to fathom how it had happened.  One moment she'd been grouchy because of being pregnant in the heat, and now she was staring at a wet floor, feeling more panicked by the minute.

“What was I thinking?” Nicole muttered, staggering back a step.  “I don’t know how to do this.”

Sarah slipped her arm around her friend.  “Can you even reach Michael?”

“I don’t know,” she muttered, grateful to feel Sarah close.  She didn’t think she could do this alone, and the idea of calling her mother wasn’t one she relished.  “He took an early flight out for an important meeting.”  Sweat glossed her face, and she felt light-headed.

“Yeah, well, no damned meeting is more important than being here to welcome your first child.  Where’s your phone?”

“In my purse.”  Nicole pointed weakly to the counter, and Sarah rifled through the contents it until she found it.  She thumbed Michael’s number, but the phone went straight to messaging.

“Michael, this is Sarah.  I’m with your wife—you know, the cute brunette who's very pregnant with your child?  Well, she’s about to be unpregnant and would like for you to get your butt over here!”  She snapped the phone shut.

Nicole started to get woozy, and her knees buckled slightly but Sarah caught her arm.  “Okay, I think it’s time we got you to the hospital.  Let’s go.  I’ll play the fanatical driver this time.”

“You’re always the fanatical driver.”  Nicole groaned and gritted her teeth, her steps getting shorter as the pain came.  “Damn, that hurts.”

“C’mon, let’s get you to the car.”  Sarah supported Nicole the whole way to the vehicle.  The walk seemed to take forever, but considering the grimace on Nicole’s face, Sarah wasn’t about to push her any harder despite the nerve-wracking idea of Nicole giving birth right then and there.  It didn’t happen like that in reality, did it?

Once Sarah had managed to get her best friend into the car and make sure she was belted in, she raced around to the driver’s side.  As she drove she kept peering at Nic.

“Didn’t you and Michael take a Lamaze class or something?” she asked, hating the way Sarah's heart rate had jacked up.

“He couldn’t, not with his work schedule.  He was out of town a lot,” Nicole managed as her body stiffened for another contraction.  “It’s not his fault.”

“Well, it’s not yours, either.”  Sarah turned back to the road and found herself mentally taking in landmarks just to feel as though they were getting somewhere.  She was desperate to reach the hospital.  It wasn’t so much that the thought of a new baby scared her as the thought of delivering said baby.  Sarah hated the sight of blood, and she was pretty sure there would be lots of it when delivering a newborn.

“It never takes this long to get the hospital,” Sarah muttered, suddenly stuck behind a tan minivan whose driver seemed more interested in sight-seeing than actually getting anywhere.

“That’s because you’re being forced to go the speed limit,” Nicole said, gripping the arm rests. 

“Nah--it’s this stupid van.”  She started waving one hand around.  “Hello, dipshit!  Pregnant woman on board about to explode here!”  She glared and shook her head.  “Unbelievable.”

“I don’t think I’m the one exploding,” Nicole gasped, running her hand over her belly.  “You look like you’re about to have a heart attack or something.”

Nicole suddenly groaned and leaned back.

Sarah looked at her friend in horror.  “Don’t you dare have that baby in my car!  I will never forgive you, Nic!  Never!”

“Then you’d better get me to the hospital because I don’t think the baby’s going to wait much longer.”   The words came out between sharp gasps, and Sarah cursed Michael for his sheer dumb luck at being absent.  This should have been his job.  Then again, Nicole had often commented on how frequently Michael was gone and how hard it had been, especially once she'd gotten pregnant. 

“All right.  Hang on.”  Sarah peered around the van and saw no oncoming traffic.  Instead of patiently following behind, she swerved into the other lane and veered past him in a no-passing lane.

“Sarah, what are you doing?” Nicole gasped.

“Getting you to the hospital because I’m not going to deliver your baby.  I’d suck at it, and you know it, and then there’s the whole traumatize-the-kid thing.  No thanks.”

Nicole clenched her eyes shut, waiting for the pain to pass, yet it seemed to take longer and longer for that to happen, which terrified her.  She had just thought she was ready to become a mom.  She’d been out of her mind. 

“Nic?  You okay?” Sarah asked, panic obvious in her tone as she looked at her.  From Sarah's peripheral vision, she could see the hospital ahead. 

“Like it or not, you might be delivering.  I need to push,” she grunts, gripping the arm rests with all her strength.

“No pushing!” Sarah yelled, laying her hand on the horn.  By some miracle, it worked.  The traffic moved, allowing Sarah to get to the entrance of the hospital and zoom through the parking lot to the emergency room entrance.  “You keep that baby in there, Nic.  We’re at the ER.”  Shoving the car into park, she got out and caught a hapless EMT by the arm, dragging him as she explained the crisis.

Three hours later, Nicole lay in a bed, cradling her son against one breast as Sarah lounged in a nearby chair.  Although Nicole was all smiles, Sarah looked worn out and half-dazed as her best friend cooed softly to a sleeping infant.

“Isn’t he beautiful?” Nicole asked, glancing up at Sarah.

“Beautiful, yeah,” she repeated, propping on elbow on the arm rest to support her head.

“Are you even listening to me?” Nicole asked, wanting to throw a pillow at Sarah.

“Of course I’m listening.  I’m just tired.”

Nicole snorted.  “Let me get this straight.  I go through the agony of giving birth, and you’re tired?  Really?”

Sarah forced herself to sit up straighter and shrugged.  “I got tired just watching you.”  A shudder ripped through her.  “And for the record, I’m not having any kids.  Watching you in labor cured me of that desire.”

“It wasn’t that bad,” Nicole argued.  “And just look what I got out of the deal.”

Sarah got to her feet.  “A mini-me who squirts poo and keeps you up all night.”  She patted Nicole’s shoulder.  “That’s what you got.”  She covered her mouth, trying to stifle a yawn.

Glancing at the clock on the wall, Nicole frowned.  “Has Michael called in yet?”  It was a long shot, she knew, but she really wanted to talk with him about everything that had happened.  It was important, she reasoned.  Surely if he had even checked his messages, he would know something had happened because Sarah never called him.  Never.  The two of them really didn’t get along all that well, so for her to have tried reaching him should have been enough.

“Well, since we’ve both been kind of preoccupied with other things, I don’t know.  Let me check.”  Sarah flipped open the phone and smiled.  “Yep, there’s a missed call and a message.” 

“Thank goodness,” Nicole whispered, smiling down at her son, who slept blissfully in her arms.

Sarah punched the button to listen to the voicemail, a smile on her face, too.  Strangely enough, however, just a few seconds after she'd punched the button, the smile slowly died.

“Well?” Nicole asked, shifting in bed.  “What did he have to say for himself?”

For a moment, Sarah said nothing.  She just kind of sat there wearing a stunned expression she couldn’t hide.

“An answer today would be nice,” Nicole snapped.  “What is with you?”

“That message wasn’t from Michael.  Michael hasn’t even bothered to call.”

Sarah’s smile dwindled to nothing, and she looked down.  “So I guess it was my mom who called?”

“No.”  Sarah pushed the hair from her face.

“Then who was it?” she asked in a voice louder than she’d intended.  It made the little one squirm in her arms, and she kind of rocked him, trying to get him back to sleep.

“Jordan.”  Sarah started pushing some buttons.

“Wait--what are you doing?”

“Deleting it—“

“No!  You aren’t.  Give me the phone.”  She held out her hand.

Sarah stood.  “Nothing good is going to come from that message, Nic.  We both know it.”  She handed her the phone.

Nicole nodded at the baby.  “Could you take him for a couple of minutes.  Please?”

“All right.  Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”  She reached down and gently extracted Nick from Nicole’s arms, instantly cooing at him to soothe the transition, then she sat in the rocker.  Even though she spoke to the baby, Sarah’s gaze drifted from the child to her best friend, worry in her eyes.

Nicole caught the concern.  She just didn’t understand it.  Yes, Sarah had always been concerned about her feelings for a guy she could never have.  But this?  This was something else, and that troubled Nicole.  It was like her best friend could see some storm on the horizon she herself could not, and Sarah was doing everything in her power to protect her best friend.  But what was she protecting her from?  That didn’t make sense.

She pushed buttons to get back to voicemail and propped the phone up next to her ear. 

“Hey, Nicole, I don’t know if you remember me, but it’s Jordan. Jordan Carroway.  We had that weekend P.E. class together several years back, and you stepped on a cactus.”  He paused for a moment.  “Anyhow, I guess I could really use someone to talk to.  Alyssa and I are getting a divorce, and it’s just been kind of unsettling around here, if you know what I mean.”  Another pause.  “Anyway, if you get a chance and want to call me, you’ve got my number.  Bye.”

Even after the message had reached the end, Nicole just sat there, her mouth open slightly, "catching flies," her father would have said.  Yeah, well, nobody, not even her father, could have prepared her for the way she felt about Jordan even now.  It hit like a bolt of lightning, and she gasped, her mind reeling.

Jordan was getting a divorce.

No matter how hard she tried to convince herself she wasn’t hearing things and that this really was true, his message was real even though it definitely felt like a poor example of a joke.  The humor was lost on her.