e shouted, totally frantic. "I don't know what to do."
Torn between needing to stay and find out what had happened to Eva and needing to help Tristy and Fighter, I gnashed my teeth. I could hear him wailing through the phone.
"Did you check his diaper?"
"I just fucking changed it."
With a sigh, I ran my hand over my hair. "And you fed him?"
She growled at me. "Yes! I'm not a fucking moron."
A bit my tongue to keep from responding to that. "Tris, I can't come home right now. Someone got hurt; I'm at the hospital. Why don't you actually trying taking him out of his swing and holding him."
She called me a dirty name but stopped talking for a moment because, as I suspect, he'd been in his swing and she was finally pulling him out. His screams almost immediately tempered.
"Isn't it crazy how well that works," I murmured into the phone, my voice acidic.
"You don't have to be a dick about it," she grumbled before adding, "He's still kind of fussy."
"Okay, fine. Put the phone to his ear."
"What?"
"Let him hear my voice."
"That's stupid."
"Will you just shut up and try it? It’s soothed him before."
"Fine." A second later, I heard heavy breathing and a scuffle against the speaker before he cooed. I smiled. "Hey, kiddo. I hear you're giving your mom a hard time. Think you could try calming down for her until I can get home? I swear, I'll rock you in the chair twice as long as I usually do when I get back."
"Fuck, it's actually working," I heard Tristy's voice in the background. "Keep talking."
So I started singing to him. Halfway through "Kryptonite" by 3 Doors Down, I saw Noel rush around the corner. When he spotted me, he started waving wildly.
They must've gotten word on Eva and the baby.
"I gotta go," I said, cutting into my own song.
"It's okay," Tris said. "He's fallen asleep."
"Good." I hung up on her and sprinted around the corner to follow Noel.
" . . . and there was significant enough trauma to the uterus to cause a placental abruption," a doctor was telling Reese and Mason, who must've showed up while I was trying not to freak the hell out. He wrapped his arms around Reese and pulled her close as the doctor kept talking.
I had no clue what a placental abruption was, but it didn't sound good. Instantly nauseous, I slumped back onto the bench I'd sat on before to rest my elbows on my knees and bury my face into my hands.
I'd promised her the baby would be okay. I'd described Skylar to her and given her my word of honor, but—
"We had to do an emergency cesarean section. The good news was the placenta was low in the uterus when it abrupted. That's why there was so much external blood loss, but it cut down on the internal bleeding and everything was successful when the baby was delivered."
I lifted my face in surprise just as Reese yelped, "You mean, the baby's alive?"
With a slow nod, the doctor confirmed it. "She's up in NICU, but you'll have to consult her pediatrician for the infant's update."
Reese slumped down next to me, tears glistening in her eyes. "Oh, God. Oh, thank God." Then she blurted out a happy laugh. "They both made it. They both—wait. They both made it? Right? Eva's okay, too?"
The air in my lungs stalled when the doctor hesitated. I gulped and wanted to vomit all over the floor. No, this couldn't be happening. I'd just met her. After all this time of waiting for her, I meet her two times and she dies? No. No way in hell.