“Do you have any information on our daughter?”
The blonde shook her head. “Sorry. They whisked her straight upstairs to the NICU.”
“What’s that?”
“Natal intensive-care unit. It’s where they take preemies or any babies in need of special care. Sometimes our preemies don’t require it immediately, and they go in later, when problems start to crop up. But your little gal—well, she’s a twenty-five-weeker, and some of her vital organs may not be quite ready to rock and roll without some help.”
Quincy missed a step. His stomach burned as if he’d just swallowed ground glass. “I know you don’t have any solid facts, but you must know, general rule of thumb, what her chances are.”
The blonde jutted her chin at the elevator. “Hurry. Don’t want to miss our ride.”
Quincy allowed the nurse to squeeze into the car first. He found himself standing to the left of Ceara’s bed, toward the foot. The only comforting gesture he could offer his wife as the doors closed and the elevator slipped into gear was to gently squeeze her toes. Ceara’s swimming blue eyes sought out his face; then her gaze clung to his.
“It’s going to be okay,” Quincy said, injecting confidence into his voice that he was far from feeling. “You’ll see, honey. They have a special place up there for babies who come early, with all kinds of fabulous equipment and medicines. It’s called NICU, which stands for natal intensive-care unit.”
The petite blonde grinned at Ceara. “And, hey, private rooms for each baby, and specially trained nurses assigned to them. As hospital care goes, it’s the Ritz.”
“What is the Ritz?” Ceara asked tremulously.
The nurse laughed. “You’ve never heard of the Ritz?”
Quincy squeezed Ceara’s foot again. “In truth, there isn’t only one Ritz-Carlton.” To Ceara, he added, “They’re luxury hotels. Someday soon we’ll stay in one.”
The elevator stopped, Quincy exited first to get out of the way, and before he could even think about getting close to his wife to reassure her further, hospital staff in green scrubs moved in, taking Ceara up the hall and through two big swinging doors.
Ever since learning that Ceara was pregnant, Quincy had pictured himself being a totally hands-on dad during the last months, attending Lamaze classes, being with Ceara as her coach during delivery, and then staying with her in the birthing suite with their baby by her bed and his family coming in to visit. He’d been envisioning his child’s arrival much like it had been when Aliza was born, he guessed. The hospital had fabulous quarters for new mothers, with pullout beds for fathers, lots of comfortable furniture for visitors, and a family-friendly atmosphere.
Instead Quincy went to a small nurses’ station and was directed to a waiting room. He sat on a bench-back sofa that was about as inviting as cement, braced his forearms on his spread knees, and stared blankly at the mottled floor. He consoled himself with the thought that Ceara was receiving the best of care. That meant she’d be okay, right? Someone would surely come out soon to update him on her condition.
The minutes ticked by, and no one came to tell him anything. Not knowing . . . well, to him that was almost worse than hearing bad news. At least then he’d be able to face it—and somehow deal with it. He thought about contacting his family, but decided against it. Might as well wait until dawn. There was nothing they could do.
“Mr. Harrigan?”
At the sound of a female voice, Quincy jumped so violently that he nearly parted company with his boots. Dr. Stevenson walked into the room, her expression solemn, her blue eyes rimmed with red, probably from lack of sleep. Quincy shot to his feet.
“My wife—how’s she doing?”
“Holding her own, but she’s very weak. We’re keeping a close eye on her.”
“And our little girl—did she . . . Is she still alive?”
She patted his arm. “Let’s sit, shall we?”
Quincy didn’t want to sit, damn it. He wanted to hear about his baby and then more about his wife, and he took bad news better on his feet. But he obediently sat again. Stevenson rubbed her slender hands together.
“Your baby is hanging on—for now.”
“For now?”
The doctor nodded. “At twenty-five weeks, she’s very premature, Mr. Harrigan, so she’s extremely tiny. She weighs only one-point-four pounds, which is only slightly below the average weight for a fetus at that stage, not at all abnormal if she were still in the mother’s womb, but that’s very low for a birth weight.”
Quincy had seen his daughter and already knew how tiny she was. “Give it to me straight, Doc. Don’t beat around the bush.”
She sighed. “All right. For starters, she has retinopathy, which is believed to be caused by disorganized growth of the retinal blood vessels. In her case, I suspect it’s mild and may resolve itself, but her low birth weight may cause complications.”
“You mean she’ll be blind.”
Stevenson inclined her head. “Possibly. She also has respiratory distress syndrome, the most common single cause of death in preemies. I’m treating her little lungs with a medication called a surfactant, a substance normally present, but absent in her case. She also has pulmonary hypoplasia, which essentially means her lungs haven’t properly developed yet. She’s incubated and also intubated to assist her in breathing, but when you go in to see her, Mr. Harrigan, you will notice retractions of her chest wall, grunting when she tries to exhale, and cyanosis, which is a blue or purple tint to the mucous membranes and sometimes to the extremities, especially fingers and toes. The nail beds often turn bright blue or purple.”
Quincy felt as if a steel clamp had closed around his chest. “So, in short, she’s dying.”
Stevenson stared at her palms. When she met Quincy’s gaze again, her eyes had a haunted look. “She may make it, but it would be cruel of me to offer you too much hope. Her chances of survival are very slim, and if she does live, she may have both physical and mental abnormalities. There’s little point in my listing all those possibilities for you now. I think I’ve hit you with enough for the moment.”
Quincy nodded.
“If she makes it through these first twenty-four hours, we’ll have a longer talk then. All right?” Stevenson smiled faintly. “For now, I can assure you that everything that can possibly be done to save her is being done. She has been assigned her own nurse, so she’ll be closely monitored in case she grows worse. If that happens, you’ll be told immediately.”
Quincy felt himself nod again. His throat had closed off, and he didn’t think he could speak.
Stevenson stood up. “Because she’s at such a precarious stage, I’ll be remaining here in the hospital, hopefully able to sleep a little in a room not far from hers. The nurse will wake me immediately if I’m needed.”
She started for the hallway.
“Wait!” Quincy said. “Before you take off, can you tell me anything more about my wife?”
The doctor turned back. “As I said earlier, Ceara is very weak, but for the moment, she’s stable. Preliminary examination revealed no internal damage, so she should be able to have other children.” Leaning a shoulder against the doorjamb, she searched Quincy’s gaze. “What happened, Mr. Harrigan? When I examined Ceara and the baby a little over a week ago, the pregnancy was progressing normally. I saw nothing in the ultrasound to alarm me. Do you know what brought this on?”
Quincy had to swallow hard twice to use his voice. “I do know, but it’s a story you would never believe, so there’s not much point in telling you.”
Dr. Stevenson arched an eyebrow. “Try me.”
Quincy was too damned exhausted and mentally drained to think up a good lie, so he blurted out the truth. Stevenson returned to the sofa and sank onto one of the hard cushions as if her legs would no longer hold her up.
“Oh, my God.” Quincy expected her to call him a bald-faced liar. Instead, a thoughtful frown pleated her forehead. “That’s the most incredible story I’ve ever heard,
but now that you’ve told me, so many things make more sense.”
“You believe me?” Quincy blinked owlishly at her. Maybe he was still halfway out of it, but he’d expected her to summon the guys who wrestled people into straitjackets.
She rubbed her hands over her face and blinked. “I’m not sure, but . . . well, I’ve come to know Ceara during exams, and”—she fluttered a hand—“now all the little strange things she said and did . . . Oh, my God.” She laughed, but there was no real humor in the sound. “A druid from the sixteenth century. I feel like I’ve wandered into the middle of a time-travel book.”
“It’s not fiction,” Quincy replied. “Believe me or don’t, that’s your choice, but in a way, maybe it’s good I told you. Ceara’s weak because she expended so much energy to heal the deep cut on my wrist. I wish now that I’d brought her straight here, but after she came around, she swore she felt fine. She ate well when I brought her dinner. She mostly just seemed tired, so I thought she’d feel better after a good night’s sleep.” Quincy’s voice went thick. “The energy drain did something—made the baby come early. If I’d brought Ceara in, you may have been able to prevent the premature labor.”
Stevenson clasped Quincy’s arm. “Maybe, maybe not. Right now, even knowing what you just told me about Ceara, I can’t think of what I can do to restore her strength. She needs no blood. Her vitals are normal. There’s nothing I can put my finger on that might be causing her weakness. And babies are born prematurely every day, Mr. Harrigan. Most mothers rush straight in when they begin to feel contractions, and sometimes doctors can do something, but just as often they can’t.” Her fingers tightened on his sleeve. “You made decisions that almost anyone would have made. In your shoes, I think I would have made the same call.”
“Really? Don’t bullshit me, Doc, just to make me feel better.”
“Really,” Stevenson said firmly. “I would have encouraged her to rest.” Her gaze held Quincy’s. “The problem tonight wasn’t caused by bad decisions, Mr. Harrigan. If what you’ve told me is true, we’re dealing with—what?—something paranormal, supernatural? Definitely way out of normal range.” Her eyes grew distant with thought for a second. “Healing powers. You cut your wrist so badly it severed a main artery. Along the wrist arteries lie tendons and nerves that control the movements of the hands and fingers. Yet your cut is healed, and your hand is working perfectly fine. It’s incredible.”
Quincy flexed his fingers. “You saying that deep slash could have crippled my hand?”
“A surgeon may have been able to fix it,” she replied, “but severed nerves can be buggers. Sometimes they can be reattached and will heal over time, but just as often, the nerves never really mend. Chances are good that you wouldn’t ever have had full use of your hand again. Sometimes the fingers won’t work just right. Other times the fingers are fine, but the side-to-side movement of the hand at the wrist is gone.”
“Damn.” Quincy stared down at his upturned palm. He wished with all his heart that he were in surgery right now, even if it meant having impaired use of the damned thing for the rest of his life. “I don’t feel real good about the fact that my baby is dying because of me.”
Stevenson pushed to her feet again. “I’d like to discuss this further, but if I’m going to be any use at all to your daughter, I need to grab a few winks.”
Quincy forced a smile. “I hear ya, Doc. The more rested you are, the better for her.”
Stevenson once again paused at the doorway and turned. “You’ve shared an amazing story with me, Mr. Harrigan, and I know that when you did, you didn’t expect me to believe a word of it.”
“And yet I have the feeling you went for it.”
She lifted her thin shoulders in a shrug. “I’m a doctor. When I first started practicing I was an agnostic. I believed there might be a greater power, but I didn’t believe in God, or in the power of prayer, or in miracles.”
“And now?”
“I’ve seen prayers turn things around when I knew, as a physician, that a baby didn’t have a chance in hell. I’ve seen preemies whom I knew beyond any shadow of doubt were brain-damaged grow into normal, healthy, active, bright children. In short, I’ve seen miracles happen. I mean real miracles.” Her mouth curved in a slight smile. “But it isn’t always about miracles. Sometimes it’s only about failures and still finding a reason to go on. There’s an e-mail that circulates now and again about a cardiac surgeon about to operate on a young boy’s heart, and the boy repeatedly tells the doctor that when he cuts into his heart, he’ll find Jesus there.”
Quincy had seen that e-mail. “And after the surgery, the surgeon knows the boy is going to die, but when he’s asked what he found when he opened the heart, he says, ‘I found Jesus.’”
Her bloodshot eyes went bright with tears. “Some doctors have deep faith as they begin to practice and then lose it. I had none when I started out, but somewhere along the way, I found it. Not because I never lose my babies, because sometimes I do, and not because I’ve seen what appeared to be miracles, although that’s certainly part of it. It’s more about the amazing perfection of a newborn—how complicated their little bodies are, how one system depends upon another system, everything so intricately designed that high-tech computers begin to look like child’s play. I couldn’t continue in my profession without starting to believe that there’s someone up there a whole lot smarter than I am. Once you take that leap, you’re a goner, because faith in someone all-knowing is right around the corner.”
Quincy nodded. “I hear ya. Thanks, Doc. And while you get some rest, I’ve got some praying to do, myself.”
“I’ll pray for your baby as I drift off for a catnap.” She gave him a thumbs-up. “Let’s not give up on her just yet.”
“Have you told Ceara about our baby’s condition?”
Stevenson shook her head. “I’ve only said the baby is in NICU and putting up a good fight, and, of course, that we’re doing all we can. I don’t think Ceara is strong enough just yet to deal with anything more.”
“Can I see our baby?”
Stevenson jabbed her thumb toward the ceiling again. “Just go to the nurses’ station. They’ll help you. It’ll be scary when you see her. Be prepared for that.”
* * *
Quincy was allowed five minutes with Ceara. She was tearful and guilt-ridden, insisting that their baby’s plight was all her fault. Quincy hoped he said all the right words. Being careful of the gadgets attached to her, he bent over the bed to hold her gently in his arms. She sobbed. He fought to be calm and strong for her. And he sent up prayers that God would help both of them get through what was to come. Dr. Stevenson hadn’t come right out and said their baby would die, but Quincy knew their little girl was on a slick, downward slope and her chances were almost zilch.
When he went to the nurses’ station to ask about seeing his daughter, he encountered a tall, hefty, broad-shouldered nurse he immediately thought of as Sarge, though her nameplate read NANCY. She was a no-nonsense, stingy-with-smiles woman who handed him over to another gal who was equally solemn and authoritative. She led him into a room where he was ordered to scrub his hands and arms to the elbow with disinfectant soap. Then he had to don sterile scrubs over his street clothes and pull disposable blue slippers over his boots. After all that, he still had to pump disinfectant into his cupped palms outside the NICU room before he went in to see his baby girl.
A big heavyset nurse in pink scrub pants and a loose top patterned with bright balloons blocked his view of the incubator. She was such a massive woman that, bent over the unit, she covered it like a thick canopy of clouds. When she sensed Quincy’s presence, she turned and smiled. Quincy instantly liked her. She had kind eyes and a sincere smile.
“You must be Papa.”
Quincy nodded.
She beckoned him over. “Don’t panic. It’s always hard for parents to see their baby with all the tubes and IVs and life support. Just remember that all of it is needed to help her
win this battle.”
She inched aside, and Quincy got his second look at his daughter. His knees almost gave out, and for an awful second he feared he might faint. She was even tinier than he’d thought, the span of her shoulders and chest about a third the breadth of his palm. She was perfectly formed, but so small she couldn’t be real.
The nurse explained what this tube and that tube did, but Quincy barely registered the words. My baby girl. Seeing her so tiny and helpless, battling with her whole body to survive, was one of his most horrible moments. The nurse clapped a strong hand on his shoulder, gave it a hard squeeze.
“I’ll give you ten minutes alone with her. Then it’ll be time for me to check on her again.” She pointed to an opening in the side of the incubator dome. “It’s highly recommended that parents reach in and touch their babies, Mr. Harrigan. Just open the cover if you wish to do so. The human contact, especially contact with Mama or Daddy, is so very important. Your little girl needs to feel your love. And hearing your voice is important, too.” She smiled broadly. “She’s been hearing it all along while inside her mama’s womb. You are a familiar person in her little world. She’ll know it’s you, and that will comfort her.”
Quincy could barely see through a blur of tears. He didn’t try to hide them. His dad said any man who was afraid to cry sometimes wasn’t a real man.
The nurse pushed a nice recliner closer to the incubator. Quincy sat on the chair, no longer able to feel his legs, his gaze stuck on his impossibly tiny baby girl inside the incubator. Would she ever be strong enough for him to hold her against his chest? Oh, God. For that opportunity, he would gladly sacrifice his arm.
She wasn’t going to make it. He knew it, felt it in his bones. Modern medicine was a fabulous thing, but it had its limits, and his little girl needed much more than what it offered.
She needed a miracle, and Dr. Stevenson didn’t have one to pull out of her pocket.
Chapter Eighteen