“I can’t sit on your lap.”
“Fine, we can push the seat back and you can stand between my knees. But no pedals. I’m in charge of those. Help me up, Corbin.” He gave her a hand. “I want to take a nap. In a real bed.” She reached for her sarong and knotted it under her belly. “Owen? Last chance.”
Owen shook his head miserably.
“Another time.” Claire kissed the top of his head.
“We can go for one last swim,” I told him. “You and me.”
—
When we got out of the water to help Salix pack up, Corbin came running across the sand. “Maeve! Maeve! Help!”
The lifeguard hopped down from his perch, shielding his eyes from the sun. “What’s the matter?”
“The baby!” Corbin shouted.
“What?”
“The baby!” Corbin skidded to a stop. “Mom’s having the baby right now!”
The lifeguard jogged over. “What’s going on?”
“My mom is having a baby in the parking lot,” Corbin said.
“I’ll get the first-aid kit,” the lifeguard said, very quietly. “And the sat phone.”
“You can call 911 on that?” I screamed as he jogged away. He turned back for a moment and gave me a thumbs-up.
“Claire cannot have the baby here.” I shook my head. “Not in a parking lot.” No. This was not happening. Not happening. Not happening!
“It is happening!” Corbin hollered. “She said so!”
Had I said that out loud? What do we do? We stood in a loose circle, every single one of us with our hands dangling at our sides. Every single one of us wide-eyed and staring at each other. It was not happening. Get her to the hospital. How long did we all stand around, dumbfounded, while Claire was all by herself at the van?
“We have to go.” No one moved. “We have to get her to the hospital!”
“She can’t have a baby in the van!” Owen wailed. “She’s supposed to be at home.”
“She hates hospitals,” Corbin said.
“It doesn’t matter. She’s going.” I pushed Owen toward our jumble of beach stuff. “Owen, just throw everything into the wagon. Salix, you help Owen. Corbin, you come with me.”
Salix stood by the table, not moving.
“Salix!”
“Yes?” She glanced around, blinking. “Yes. Got it. We’ll meet you at the van.”
Think, Maeve. Don’t feel. Just get her to the hospital. That’s all you have to worry about. The ambulance will come and they’ll take her. She’ll be fine. The baby will be fine.
I grabbed Corbin’s hand and we ran across the beach and down the trail. The lifeguard followed behind, bellowing about how he’d only had five minutes on emergency childbirth in his advanced first aid course.
That was more than I’d had.
—
I found Claire leaning into the back of the van, swaying and moaning. She shrugged me off when I touched her.
“Claire? What’s happening?”
“Baby.”
“No.” No, no, no, no. There had to be a way to stop this. Not yet, baby. Not right here. Not now. Not with me. Not without Dad. Not without the midwives, or a doctor, or a paramedic. Or a firefighter! Even a police officer. Where was the ambulance? Where was everybody?
“You can’t have the baby here, Claire,” I said. “I’ll help you into the backseat. Owen and Salix will be here in a minute. We’ll drive you to the hospital in Squamish if the ambulance isn’t here by then.”
“No.”
“No?”
“This baby is coming now.”
The lifeguard set his first-aid kit down beside the van and stood back, arms folded. “Shit.”
“Baby.” Claire rocked her hips. “Mmm. Hmm. Baby.”
“Okay, hold on. We have to get you to the hospital. Hey!” The lifeguard pretended not to hear. “Hey! Help me get her into the van.” I took her arms, but Claire shook me off again.
“Don’t! Don’t touch me.” She braced herself against the van and groaned, this time a low, primal rumble. “Not going. Staying here.”
None of the many first-aid classes I had taken had covered what to do when a woman was in labor, not for even five minutes in between splints and burns.
Think about the childbirth books. Stages of labor. Fetal stations. Think about everything that I read about when I thought Dad would be a no-show. What did the midwife say last week?
Baby is nice and low, Claire. Baby is all set.
Trust the mother if she says it’s too late to get to the hospital. Make the mother as comfortable as possible. If a birth is happening quickly, that usually means all is well, unless the baby is preterm—
“Is it too early?” The baby was due in three weeks, right? “Are we in trouble? Is the baby in trouble?”
Push away the worst thoughts. Push away the worst ones. Push them away.
Claire shook her head.
“But three weeks is too early!”
“Now. Now, now, now, now.”
“Okay. Okay.” I spun in a circle, stunned. I’d read too much and not enough. I could not do this. But I had to. It was happening with or without me, and I wasn’t about to abandon Claire.
The lifeguard sat on the curb now, staring at Claire, his face pale.
Finally, something stuck out. When the urge to push begins, birth is imminent.
“Are you feeling pushy?”
“Yes.” Claire looked up and focused on me with clear, wide eyes. “This baby is coming right now, Maeve.”
“I’m sure the ambulance is almost here. Just hold on. Okay? The hospital is only ten minutes away.”
“Now. Here.”
“You can’t make it to the hospital? Really? Just try. Please? Just wait?”
“No.” Claire groaned again. “The first-aid kit—”
“The lifeguard brought his.”
Claire shook her head. “Find ours.”
“You put it back in?”
She nodded.
I leaned past Claire and dug around in the back. A sleeping bag, a soccer ball, several pieces of Lego, a set of tire chains. And the first-aid kit. I swept everything else out of the back.
“Corbin, spread out the sleeping bag.”
I could hear the rumble of the wagon approaching, and Salix’s voice. “We’re here!”
“Bring me the towels!”
The lifeguard kept staring.
“Do something!” I shouted at him. “Find out what’s taking so long! We need an ambulance now.”
“No ambulance,” Claire growled. She sucked in a huge breath and let out a loud, low bellow. My stomach twisted into a hard knot. Knots. What if there’s one in the cord? Or if it’s wrapped around the baby’s neck? What if it rips? What if something goes wrong? What if this baby ends up dead?
The Glover family is devastated to announce that their baby died at birth, after being born in the back of a filthy van—
Stop it, stop it, stop it! Do this one thing. Don’t think of anything else but this one thing. And then the next one thing. One thing at a time. Feel it. Fear it. Get it done.
“Yes, ambulance!” I helped her into the back of the van. Claire rolled onto her knees, wrestled off her bikini bottom, and started rocking back and forth.
“What can I do?” Salix said.
“I don’t know!” I covered my face with my hands. “I don’t know. I just don’t know.”