Jodi Compton - Hailey's War

“What’s up?” I said. “Did she have the baby?”

She said, “They’re still getting the baby out.”

Serena wasn’t a sentimental person, but getting the baby out was not the way she would refer to a mother giving birth. Getting the baby out meant something was wrong.

“What’s going on?”

“Nidia must have had an undiagnosed heart condition,” Serena said. “A weak heart. It gave out during labor.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

“She’s dead.”

“She can’t be dead , Serena.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s true,” Serena told me. “They’ve got to get the baby out now, because I guess there’s no oxygenated blood without the mother breathing, and… I thought you should know.”

People in TV and the movies were always breaking bad news to people by saying, You’d better sit down , but as soon as Serena told me this, I thought, I’ve got to stand up . So I did. My legs were a little shaky, and once I was up, I didn’t know what to do.

I said, “Do you know what practically the last thing I said to her was? ‘Things are going to be okay.’ What a fucking idiot.”

“No,” Serena said flatly. “Of all the things you could have looked out for, this wasn’t one of them. You did everything you could for her, prima.” She paused. “That probably doesn’t help, right now.”

Nidia’s baby was a healthy boy. I wish I could say that he gave a lusty, life- affirming cry just as the first rays of morning light slanted through the hospital windows and Serena and Payaso and the rest crowded around to marvel at his little fingers and his little toes, and it was a great life-in-the-midst-of-death moment. Maybe some of that even happened; I don’t know. I was outside, where the fresh, cold air and the light was almost assaultive after the stale recycled air of the hospital. It had snowed during the night, and most of it was still fresh. I walked over to the quadrangle of lawn and I sat on my heels to touch it.

The first time I saw snow, we’d been based in Illinois. Like this one, that snowfall had come in the night. I had been afraid to touch it until my father did. In that memory, I can’t see the features of his face, just his big bare hands, picking up the snow, showing me how it melted as he rubbed it between his fingers.

Like he’d done, I got my fingertips wet from the snow, then painted that wetness onto my eyelids. My eyes felt dry and bloodshot from poor sleep, and I felt the relief as the water sank in and stung my eyes, then ran down onto my cheeks like the tears.

Since I’d first heard her name, Nidia to me had been a series of imperfect motivations. I’d driven her to Mexico for some cash and maybe drugs, plus for a break from my daily life in San Francisco. Then I’d tried to find out whether she was alive or dead, because I’d needed to understand what happened in the tunnel and why. Finally, I’d taken on the job of rescuing and guarding her to prove to myself that, given the chance, I could have been a good officer.

Nothing I’d done had been because I’d known who Nidia was or cared about her, and now it was too late to try. Somewhere inside that religious, distant person had been a real girl who’d loved a real man, and later had a sexual indiscretion with another one, a man with whom she’d known there was no future. I’d never known that Nidia. Serena and I had both held her at arm’s length for fear that her victimhood was some kind of catching illness.

Should that matter to a soldier? Wouldn’t such personal feelings simply be an encumbrance? If so, why did I feel guilty for not having them?

I straightened up and went back into the hospital. We had things to think about, Serena and I.

But when I got to the neonatal unit, Cheyenne was sitting in the waiting room, her eyes reddened. Payaso was stretched out along several hard plastic chairs like I had been, sleeping with his head pillowed on a rolled-up sweatshirt. Iceman was doing the same, but sitting up with his head tipped to the side.

No Serena.

I turned to Cheyenne. “Where’s Warchild?”

She frowned. “We thought she was with you.”

I walked the corridors, looked into other waiting rooms, checked the women’s restrooms. No luck. But by then I had an idea about where she might have gone.

It wasn’t difficult to find the morgue. No one was around to stop me, to ask to see my ID. There was a sign above the double doors that read AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY, but Warchild wasn’t one to let the rules stop her.

The morgue wasn’t that different from the rest of the hospital. It had the same vaguely synthetic smell of recycled, conditioned air, the same sound-absorbent flooring. Only the sound of the climate-control system was different here, louder. It was here that I found Serena, sitting with Nidia’s body. She was crying.

Serena, Warchild , crying for the little vic she’d claimed to disdain. This was a private moment. I decided to slip out the way I’d come in.

Except then my cell phone rang. Serena looked up. When she saw me, she knew who was calling. I did, too. Costa. Our deadline had arrived.

Serena watched with wet eyes, both of us silent, as the phone rang a second, then a third time. Once more and it would go into voice mail. We couldn’t afford that, no matter how ill-equipped I was to deal with the situation at the moment.

I connected the call. “Hello?”

“Good morning, Miss Cain,” Costa said. “I’ve conferred with my client. We’ve come up with an arrangement for you to bring Miss Hernandez to us.”

He went on about how Nidia had been well cared for physically and medically before, and how that would continue. Then he started to tell me about the meeting place they wanted me to bring her to. I cut him off.

“That’s not going to happen,” I said. “She’s staying with us until the child is born. That’s nonnegotiable. We’ll be in touch afterward about a hand-off.”

“What makes you think any of this is negotiable?”

“You want the baby,” I said. “That’s your only reason for doing any of this.”

“For someone in your bargaining position, you strike me as almost arrogant,” he said.

“My position’s pretty good. I’ve got what you want and you’re the one calling me to get it.”

“You know, when I said yesterday that no one understood what was motivating you, that wasn’t entirely true,” he said. “I think I understand the root of your reckless behavior. Miss Cain, I know the reason why you had to leave West Point.”

I hung up on him.

“Did you hang up?” Serena said .

“We were getting nowhere.”

“What did he say to you, at the end?”

“Nothing.”

“He said something.”

“He was just messing with me. He thinks he’s smart.” I put the cell phone away and walked to Serena’s side. The sheet covering Nidia was pulled back to reveal her face and shoulders. Her eyes were closed, but she didn’t look asleep. She looked diminished, lifeless.

Serena said, “You stalled him.”

“That was the plan.”

“I know, but things have changed,” she said. “You could’ve told him what happened. You could’ve arranged to hand off the kid and get yourself off the hook.”

“I know.”

“So you’re still doing this?” Serena said. This meaning the war with Skouras, protecting Nidia’s baby even without Nidia alive to know about it.

She had prayed for me, Nidia, even though she’d believed me to be dead. As far as I knew, no one had ever prayed for me alive. I owed her something.