Just Around the Corner

“Yeah.”

“And you’ve called the hospital?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Phyllis grabbed her keys, her purse, pulling out her cell phone. “You have call waiting, right?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Phyllis dialed the number quickly. “Pick up when it beeps,” she said.

Tory did. And as Phyllis sped the few short blocks to the pretty little house Ben and Tory had bought from Randi Parsons the previous spring, she kept Tory distracted. Kept her talking.

It was a long night. The drive into Phoenix seemed endless. Throughout the trip, she was helping Tory breathe through the pains that continued to come at regular seven minute intervals all the way from Shelter Valley to the hospital. It was an even longer day on Sunday. Tory dilated to eight centimeters and stopped. She needed to get to ten. And though she was no longer making progress, the contractions, instead of lessening, only heightened in intensity.

Phyllis had been trying to get hold of Ben most of the morning, first from the cell phone in her car and then using the phone in Tory’s room. But by midafternoon she’d still been unable to reach him. The phone line to the motel where Ben was staying was busy every time Phyllis got a chance to call, and by the time she’d realized the number was wrong—two figures were reversed—and got the right one, Ben had already checked out. He was presumably on his way home—a six-hour drive—but Tory said he’d been planning to take a detour and show Alex the Grand Canyon. She left a message for him at the house.

“He needs a cell phone,” Phyllis muttered under her breath. She was across the birthing room from Tory, perched on the edge of a rocking chair that was part of the living-room ensemble set up for family members awaiting the birth. Tory, sweaty and looking ragged, no sign of the eyeliner she always wore, was lying in bed with her eyes closed, but Phyllis knew her friend wasn’t asleep.

Why couldn’t this, at least, be easy for Tory? Phyllis wondered, hating her helplessness while she watched her friend suffer. The twenty-four-year-old woman had already had far more than her fair share of suffering.

“Phyllis?” Tory’s voice was cracked. Dry.

“Yeah, honey, I’m right here.” Tory’s coloring wasn’t good. She seemed too pale, with red blotches on her neck and the exposed upper part of her chest.

“Is something wrong with my baby?”

Tory’s eyes were still closed. Phyllis didn’t need to see them to picture the shadows that had been back in their depths for the past few hours. It had been months since Phyllis had seen those shadows.

“Everything looks fine, honey,” Phyllis said, repeating what the doctor had tentatively reported when Phyllis had followed her out of the room the last time she’d stopped by. The doctor and nurses were in there often, watching all the monitors hooked up to Tory. They were taking extra care, Phyllis knew that. Knew, too, that this could mean they expected a greater chance of something going wrong.

But that was natural, considering Tory was almost a month early.

“It doesn’t feel fine.”

Phyllis’s stomach tensed. “I know, Tor, but I think that’s pretty normal. Giving birth is hard work and you’re tired.”

Tory’s eyes opened, pinning Phyllis. “No, I mean it really doesn’t feel right.”

“How?” Phyllis asked, a sense of urgency filling her. Tory’s eyes had a strange look about them. Glazed. Like she was disconnecting from the reality around her.

“Something’s…breaking…down there.”

Pressing the nurse’s call button, Phyllis took Tory’s right hand—the one not connected to the intravenous drip—and rubbed it. “You hang in there, Tor,” she said, her voice firm. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

“You need something?” The nurse peeked around the door, took one look at Tory and suddenly all hell broke loose. There were nurses surrounding Tory’s bed, checking her blood pressure, taking note of monitor readings, checking Tory’s progress. Another minute passed and then Dr. Anderson, Tory’s obstetrician, arrived.

Phyllis, staying right by Tory’s side while they worked on her, relaxed slightly. Dr. Anderson had been Becca Parsons’s doctor and had brought Becca, a forty-two-year-old with a first pregnancy, through a high-risk birth with textbook ease.

“Phyllis?” Tory cried out at one point, flinching, though whether that was from what the doctor was doing or from another contraction, Phyllis couldn’t be sure. With all the people around the bed, Phyllis couldn’t see the monitor she’d been watching for hours. From it she’d been able to tell when the contractions were coming and how severe they were.

“I’m right here,” she told Tory, squeezing the younger woman’s fingers.

“It hurts,” Tory said.

Phyllis, glancing over at Dr. Anderson, tried to ascertain what was going on, but the doctor was too busy to give her any notice.

“Just hold on, sweetie,” Dr. Anderson said then. “You’re going to feel some pressure.”