Guilty Secrets

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He hurried to comply. He was limping, Nell noted with the clarity of crisis, clumsier than she’d ever seen him. But he did as she asked, fumbling with the table’s controls to adjust its angle.

With one arm around the girl, Nell yanked on the side rail of the bed. Joe saw what she was doing and raised the rail on the other side.

“No doctor,” he said. “Her husband is a business student at Illinois Circle campus. They don’t have insurance.”

Nell was lowering the girl onto her side when her abdomen—her whole body—went rigid. Her nails dug into Nell’s supporting arm.

Two minutes, Nell noted with a glance at her watch. She expelled a worried breath. “Where is her husband?”

“He works nights stocking shelves at the Jewel around the corner. Laila was on her way to find him when—”

“Call him,” Nell ordered. As soon as the contraction ended, she dashed to the sink to scrub. “There’s a phone book under the front desk. And call an ambulance. I have to do an exam.”

Joe escaped as she pulled on latex gloves.

With murmurs and gestures, Nell coaxed the laboring woman onto her back with her knees bent and spread apart. Blood and fluid soaked her skirt. Nell lifted the wet material out of the way as Laila moaned and writhed. Her vaginal opening bulged.

Nell caught her breath. Okay, baby was on the way. Head first, which was good. And fast. Not so good.

She flipped the skirt back down as Joe hobbled into the room.

“I called 911,” he announced. “They’re sending an ambulance. And I left a message with the father’s supervisor.”

Laila wailed, an indistinguishable stream of words.

“It’s all right, sweetie.” Nell stroked her leg, calculating the distance to the supply cart. She needed blankets. Towels. A suction bulb. Cord and scissors.

Joe’s face was white. “I have to leave.”

Nell glared at him. “Forget it. I need you here to talk her through this.”

“You don’t get it. I can’t stay. I’m male. She’s Muslim. I can’t see her like this.”

“So don’t look,” Nell snapped. “I have things to do down here. Get up there and talk to her.”

He did as she commanded, bending over the head of the bed, his voice low and questioning. The young mother-to-be was crying, shaking her head. Joe tried again, his deep voice patient and almost unspeakably gentle.

Nell blinked. Who would have guessed shark-mouth Reilly the reporter could sound like that?

Joe looked up. “Can you put up some kind of drape?”

Relief flooded Nell. “Absolutely. In the drawer there.” She indicated the supply cart. “Get them all. We’re going to need them to absorb—” She caught an armload. “Good. Thanks.”

She covered Laila with a blanket and draped her from the waist down with a paper sheet, tenting it over her bent knees. Folding a towel, Nell bunched it under the young woman’s right hip.

Laila’s back arched. The baby’s matted head reappeared briefly at her opening. Laila grunted, twisting with strain.

Nell placed her hands above and below the vaginal opening, applying gentle pressure to keep the baby from coming too fast.

“With the next contraction, tell her to take a nice deep breath and hold it.”

Joe relayed her instructions, holding his own breath to demonstrate.

Laila nodded, her gaze never leaving his face. She spoke in urgent Farsi.

“She wants to push,” Joe told Nell. His eyes were panicked, his voice perfectly calm.

“She can push during the contractions,” Nell said. “Exhale and push for a count of ten. Then another breath, exhale and push, for another count of ten. As long as the contraction lasts. Got it?”

“Breathe, push, exhale, count,” Joe repeated. “Got it.”

But they didn’t. The next contraction was bad. Before Joe finished his explanation, it hit Laila like a train, leaving them all gasping and shaken.

There wasn’t time to recover before another contraction struck. But Joe kept talking, and doe-eyed Laila exhaled and pushed like a champ.

“Almost there,” Nell reported reassuringly. “Almost. She’s doing great. Tell her just a few more…Ah.”