Chapter 3 - The Hallway
The pregnancy went wrong in a hundred small ways.
At thirty-four weeks, an ambulance took her to St. Bridget's.
The doctors didn't give us much to hold on to.
The clock on the waiting room wall pushed past midnight.
I stared at the double doors they'd rolled her through, trying to force them open with my mind, trying to will a nurse out with good news.
Nate sat next to me, one knee jackhammering up and down.
"She's going to be fine," I said, mostly to myself. "Sadie's tougher than all of us."
Nate pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes.
The sound that came out of him was half sob, half prayer.
Then the doors swung open and a doctor came through.
Nate was on his feet before I could blink.
The look on the doctor's face told me everything before he opened his mouth.
"She's lost a great deal of blood. The babies are stable, but your wife is crashing. We're doing everything possible. I need you both to prepare yourselves."
He turned and vanished back through the doors.
Nate just stood there, rocking a little on his heels, like a man on the deck of a boat.
I put my hand flat against his back.
My best friend. My brother.
"Nate. Look at me. Sadie married you because you make her feel safe. She needs that from you right now — go find it."
"My promise," he said under his breath.
Before I could ask what he meant, he turned and faced me full on.
There was something in his eyes I couldn't read.
"I need to talk to you," he said. "Not here."
He walked me down the corridor to a little dead-end nook by the stairwell.
"Sadie made me promise her something," he said. "Right before they wheeled her back. She said, 'If I don't wake up, you tell my sister all of it.'"
"All of what?"
He reached into his jacket.
"It's time for you to understand why I really married her."
I put a hand on the wall to keep myself upright.
"Don't you dare. Don't wreck four years of watching my sister smile because of you."
"You think I want to be standing in this hallway saying this while she's in there fighting for her life?"
Every awful thought I'd ever shoved down came roaring back at once.
He'd done it for money.
He'd married her because I was the one he couldn't have, and she was as close as he could get to me.
Nate pulled a folded sheet of paper out of his jacket and held it toward me.
May you like
"I made a promise and I'm keeping it. Just — it's much worse than you think," he said. "You'd better sit down."
I took it with hands that wouldn't stop shaking.
