Chamberlain, Diane - The Shadow Wife
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- Название:The Shadow Wife
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- Год:неизвестен
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“You slept right through the hard part,” Rebecca said to her. “It’s time to push.”
What?
“What time is it?” she asked. There was an intense pressure low in her belly. “I thought I had an epidural.”
“It’s a little after six in the morning,” Liam said.
“You did have an epi,” Rebecca said. “It’s probably worn off by now, but it’s time to push, Joelle.”
Somehow, she’d slept through five centimeters’ worth of dilating. She felt the pressure again, and the urge to push was tremendous.
“I want to push!” she yelled, and several people laughed.
“Good!” Rebecca said. “We’ve been begging you to for the last ten minutes.”
She could feel everything as the baby slipped through the birth canal. It felt good, actually, the pushing, but she feared the whole process seemed so simple because her baby was very, very small.
“I’ve got her,” Rebecca said, instantly swiveling to hand the baby over to the neonatologist.
“Is she okay?” Joelle strained to see, but the neonatologist’s back was to her as he worked on her baby girl at the side of the room. She heard a whimper. “Was that the baby?”
“Want me to go see?” Liam asked her, and she nodded.
She watched Liam’s battered face as he talked to the neonatologist. He was asking questions, then looking down at the table where her baby lay. Much as she tried to read his face, his expression remained impassive.
In a moment, though, he was back at her side. “She’s tiny, Jo, but she looks good,” he said. “She weighs three pounds, and the doc seemed impressed by that. She’s not crying exactly, but she’s making noises—”
“I could hear them,” she said, still trying to look through the neonatologist’s back to see her baby.
“Her Apgars were six and eight,” Liam said. “He said that was good, considering.”
The neonatologist wheeled the incubator toward her. “Quick peek for Mom,” he said. “Then we’re off to the NICU.”
It was hard to see through the plastic. The baby was just a tiny little doll with arms and legs no bigger than twigs, and before Joelle had even had a chance to make out her daughter’s features, the incubator was whisked away.
“I want to get up,” she said, raising herself up on her elbows. She wanted to follow the incubator to the nursery.
Rebecca laughed again. “Soon, Joelle, for heaven’s sake. Let me finish up here.”
Less than an hour later, Liam pushed her down the corridor to the neonatal nursery in a wheelchair. She could have walked, but her nurse insisted on the chair, and she wasn’t about to argue. She didn’t care how she got there, as long as it was quickly. She left the chair in the hallway, though, wanting to walk into the nursery on her own steam.
The NICU was familiar territory to her, and she showed Liam how to scrub up at the sink and then dressed both of them in yellow paper gowns. Inside, Patty, one of the nurses she knew well, guided them over to the incubator, and Joelle sat down in the chair at the side of the plastic box.
“She’s bigger than I expected,” she said, smiling at the tiny infant, who had a ventilator tube coming from her mouth and too many leads to count taped to her little body.
“Bigger?” Liam asked in surprise.
“I’ve seen a lot of babies smaller than her in here,” she said.
Patty brought a chair for Liam, setting it on the opposite side of the incubator, then she came around to Joelle’s side and rested a hand on her shoulder.
“She looks good, Joelle,” she said. “You know the next couple of days will be critical, but you have every reason to hope for the best.”
Joelle smiled up at her, then returned her attention to her baby as the nurse walked away.
“Can we touch her?” Liam asked.
“I was just about to.” She reached through one of the portals on her side of the incubator, and Liam reached through his. Joelle smoothed her fingertips over her daughter’s tiny arm. It was like touching feathers. She watched Liam touch the little hand and the baby wrapped her tiny, perfect fingers around his fingertip.
“Have you thought of a name?” Liam asked. His voice sounded thick.
She didn’t answer right away. She had, actually, but it had been a fantasy name, one she could never use because it meant combining her name with Liam’s, and although he had been with her all night and all morning, she didn’t yet trust this change in him.
“You have, haven’t you?” He looked at her quizzically, and she knew her hesitancy had given her away.
“Yes, but I don’t think you’ll like it.”
“What is it?”
“Joli,” she said, looking across the incubator at him, and he broke into a grin.
“I was going to suggest that,” he said.
“Really?” She laughed.
“Did I hear you just name her?” Patty had been working behind Joelle, and now she moved closer to the incubator, pulling the little name card from the plastic holder in the front of the box and withdrawing a marker from her pocket.
Joelle grimaced at Liam. She hadn’t realized the nurse had been close enough to hear.
“We’re naming her Joli,” Liam said firmly. “J-O-L-I. It’s a combination of our names.”
Patty cocked her head at him quizzically. “Are you…?” Her eyes were wide, and she didn’t finish her sentence.
“That’s right,” Liam said with a smile. “I’m this baby’s father.”
40
C ARLYNN RESTED HER HEAD AGAINST Q UINN’S SHOULDER. T HEYwere in their bed at the mansion, and the night was so clear that she could see the stars through the window from where she lay. She’d returned from the hospital a couple of hours ago, exhausted after spending much of the evening visiting Joelle and her new baby. So far, things looked good for that little one. Carlynn had touched her through the portals of the incubator, but only to stroke her twiglike arm. She told Joelle that her touch was no more mystical than her own. And she told her much, much more.
“You’ve wanted to tell her everything from the start, haven’t you?” Quinn asked her now.
“Yes, and I’m not sure why,” Carlynn said. “I remember my sister saying she felt drawn to Joelle when she was an infant, and I felt drawn to her, too.” She tapped her fingers against Quinn’s bare chest. “Are you worried that I told her?” she asked.
Quinn chuckled, and she loved how the sound resonated through his body beneath her ear. “I’m an old man,” he said. “You know I stopped worrying years ago. Just don’t tell Alan that you told her.” He hesitated. “Did you tell her about Mary, too?”
“I had to,” Carlynn said. “When I told her the truth about us, she said she felt sorry for Alan, so I just had to tell her that Alan has had a wonderful soul mate and lover for the past fifteen years. I think that shocked her more than anything.” Carlynn smiled at the memory of Joelle’s response.
“I thought Mary was a housekeeper, ” Joelle had said, stunned. “And I thought Quinn was a gardener. ”
They were quiet for a moment. Carlynn watched the light of a plane move slowly across the dark sky until it disappeared behind the frame of the window. She had never felt so tired, and she knew her exhaustion marked a change in her body. She had so few nights left to sleep next to her husband.
“Do you regret our ruse?” Quinn surprised her with the question, and she lifted her head to look at him.
“In more than twenty years, you’ve never asked me that,” she said.
“I think I was afraid of the answer,” Quinn said, stroking her arm with his hand. “I knew you felt coerced in the beginning. Alan and I were operating out of grief and madness, I think, and you had no real choice but to go along with it.”
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