Chapter 10 - Thirty-Six Weeks
The drive to the hospital took eleven minutes.
It felt like an hour.
Nathan called ahead while Emma breathed through contractions.
He never once told her to calm down.
He never said everything would be fine.
He simply stayed present.
At the emergency entrance, nurses rushed Emma upstairs.
Nathan stopped at the doors.
“Can I come?”
Emma looked at him.
Fear erased every complicated thought.
“Yes.”
He followed.
The doctor confirmed what Emma already knew.
Her water had broken.
Thirty-six weeks.
Early, but not dangerously early in most cases.
Still, the baby’s heart rate needed monitoring.
Emma changed into a hospital gown.
Nathan stood beside the window.
When another contraction came, she gripped the rail.
Nathan offered his hand.
Emma took it.
Hours passed.
Eleanor caught the earliest available flight from New York.
Rachel began traveling home from Denmark.
Nathan stayed.
At four in the morning, Emma woke between contractions and found him sitting in a chair beside her bed.
His head was bowed.
The blue scarf lay folded across his knees.
Emma stared.
“You brought it?”
Nathan looked up.
“It’s stupid.”
“No.”
She reached toward it.
Nathan handed it over.
The fabric was worn thin.
Twenty years earlier, Emma had met him outside a Boston café.
Nathan had been twenty-three, broke, ambitious, and wearing that terrible blue scarf.
She had told him it was ugly.
He had bought her coffee anyway.
“You used to own two shirts,” Emma whispered.
“Three.”
“One was stolen from your roommate.”
Nathan smiled.
“He never proved that.”
Emma laughed.
Then another contraction hit.
She squeezed his hand until his fingers went numb.
By sunrise, labor had progressed.
The doctor entered.
“We’re getting close.”
Nathan’s face went pale.
Emma almost teased him.
Then the monitor changed.
A nurse stepped forward.
The baby’s heart rate dropped.
The room transformed instantly.
More staff entered.
Emma’s fear became physical.
“What’s happening?”
“Turn onto your side.”
Nathan moved out of the way.
Oxygen.
Adjustments.
Commands.
The heartbeat recovered.
Then dropped again.
The doctor looked at Emma.
“We may need to deliver now.”
Emma grabbed Nathan’s wrist.
He leaned close.
“I’m here.”
For once, those words were not a promise about tomorrow.
They were simply true.
The doctor made the decision.
Emergency cesarean.
Nathan was taken aside to change.
As the doors opened, Emma suddenly called his name.
He turned.
She had tears in her eyes.
“Don’t let them take her somewhere without one of us.”
Nathan’s face broke.
“I won’t.”
Emma nodded.
Then the doors closed between them.
May you like
For the longest three minutes of Nathan Whitmore’s life, he had no company to command, no board to persuade, and no deal to negotiate.
He could only stand in a sterile hallway and pray that the two people he loved most would come back through those doors.
