“Fuck!’ I shout. But I’ve got the baby in my arms. And now she’s wailing because I’ve shouted. And they’re thirty feet away. My eyes go wild looking for the nearest person to hand Lilly off to when my mother is pulling a flailing Sienna away from Jada. It’s arms, hair, screams. A tangle of Sienna trying to swing for my mother, for Jada, or even Carly who is also right there. Roger moves fast, hauling Sienna away from my mother.
And Sienna’s hair is flying wildly as she kicks her feet, being pulled up off the ground by her father. She shouts, face contorted. “You and you next!” Sienna hisses at Carly and Jada. “Bitches fucking everything up in my life!”
I hand Lilly to Adele, who’s run out and I rush in that direction.
“Let me go! Let me go! She’s ruining everything! And you! You bitch, Audra. I hate you. You fixed nothing. Why did you lie to me? I hope you bleed out and die right here.”
“Sienna, fuck!” I get between Sienna and Jada and Carly. “Call the cops, Dirk. You got her, Rog?”
Sienna struggles in her father’s grip as he tries to settle her down.
“Princess, settle down. Give me the knife.”
Knife?
I see it now.
Roger tries to take it from her but Sienna struggles, shouting at her father for being here with the traitor Carmichaels, the enemies. The kitchen knife blade glints with bright red on the tip. My eyes slash to Jada, no blood that I can see. Carly. No blood either. They’re both freaked, but neither are bleeding.
Sienna struggles some more, grunting, crying.
She’s a mess. Her hair is everywhere. She looks nothing like the pampered and coiffed rich bitch we all know. There’s blood on her but I don’t know if it’s hers.
It’s mayhem, with Lilly crying in my sister’s arms as my sister grabs Braeden’s hand and tries to usher him toward the house and Braeden’s crying, too.
I hear Dirk on the phone with emergency services as my eyes wildly traverse everyone.
“You!” Sienna points at me. “and you,” she hisses at Aiden. “I hate you both.”
And then I hear Braeden.
“Grammy’s bleeding! Grammy’s bleeding!” Braeden shouts as Adele pulls him into the house.
Alice gasps, grabbing my father’s arm. All eyes must move to my mother, whose back is to me. My mother looks down at her stomach and slumps to the patio while the knife clatters. Roger lets go of Sienna to reach for my mother, who hasn’t said a word, whose cream-blouse I can now see is glowing crimson across the middle. Aiden grabs Sienna and wrestles her to the ground, holding her down.
Jada pulls out of my grip to reach for my mother, and then she and Carly are on their knees in front of my mother, whose middle is gushing blood. Alice is there, too, piling towels on my mother’s stomach. My mother’s eyes dart between me, my brother, my sister, and then Roger and she looks at us with fear in her eyes that I’ve never seen and will never forget for the rest of my life.
“It’s okay, Mom. Dirk has an ambulance is coming,” Aiden says. “Hang on!”
Sienna roars out a banshee-like scream.
“Shut the fuck up you goddamn bunny boiler,” I snap and Aiden growls in her face.
She laughs maniacally while my brother continues to pin her.
“We’ll put pressure on it, Mrs. Carmichael,” Alice says. “Try to relax. Q, Roger, help please.”
My father gets on his knees beside Roger and presses a towel to her middle. Alice puts her hands there, too. They all try to keep my mother talking, telling her to hang on while Dad’s, Alice’s, and Roger’s hands all hold the towels in place.
Jada and Carly have their arms around one another. I put my arms around them both.
“You two okay?”
I get nods and sniffles, and Jada wrapping both arms around me and hanging on. I feel both of them trembling.
Sirens.
The ambulance. Thank God.
***
Aiden contained Sienna until the cops arrived and arrested her.
Sienna was in hysterics under my brother, thrashing, calling him names, spouting insults at all of us as her father looked on in horror between his daughter and at my mother.
While she was carted away by the cops, she was out of her mind screaming threats at me, at Aiden, Carly, and Jada. That she’ll kill us. That she’ll pay to have us killed. That we should be looking over our shoulders always. That when my kid is born, she’s killing that too. She screamed at her father that she hopes Audra dies, hopes he dies.
She’s completely lost it.
***
We’re at the hospital while my mother is in surgery. And I’m fucking furious. I can’t sit, I can’t think, I can only pace.
I can’t stop looking over Jada to make sure she didn’t actually get hurt, too. Aiden and Carly are cuddled on a couch in the corner, Aiden looking pissed and Carly looking traumatized.