This is a fictional story. All names, places, and viruses are used fictitiously. Resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, past or present, are intentional.
If you haven’t read from the beginning, please start at Chapter 1 here.
***
Due Date: 71 days away
When Liz told me the following afternoon, I still wasn’t ready for it. My responses spilled out without me even knowing what I was saying. All I heard was her voice.
“Can you pick me up?”
I said something.
“They’ll give you gloves and a mask.”
I said something.
“I don’t know. I don’t know, Ben. I don’t know. They said they couldn’t keep me any longer.”
The next thing I knew, I unchained the gate, opened it, pulled out, closed the gate again, and chained it back up, all off reflex. I could have walked or ran to the hospital faster. It was only a few blocks away. But the SUV was more for my protection than transportation. And for Liz.
I met security at the main entrance of the hospital, the same area where I’d been separated from her. They wheeled her out in a wheelchair, both men suited up in crazy hazmat gear. When I got out of the car, Liz tried to stand but struggled to pull herself up by herself.
Instinctively, I tried to help her up.
“Sir!”
They didn’t want to touch me, but they didn’t want me to touch her either.
“How am I supposed to keep from getting sick? We’re about to get into the car together. Let me take her.”
“Sir, please.”
The other reached into a bag he’d brought with him. Sure enough, a mask and a pair of gloves.
I couldn’t believe they were serious.
I took both, stashing the gloves in my pocket and slipping the gloves on. My homemade mask would have to work for now.
He handed me the bag.
They wanted Liz to get into the back of the car, keep her as far away from me as they could. But that’s where the kids would ride if we needed to go somewhere. She’d already ridden shotgun anyway, and I didn’t do anything to disinfect the seat.
She rode next to me. Our gloves held hands.
Back at the castle, we wanted to hug her and kiss her and love her. Instead, we put together a sleeping arrangement on the opposite end of the hallway, quarantining her from the rest of the family.
“We can’t go home yet,” I told her. The barricades would keep us from getting back in. We needed to stay safe inside in case we needed to get back to the hospital. Ken had died in the hospital. There was no way were taking any chances trying to battle this at home without being able to get back to the emergency room. They might have kicked her out now, but there’s no way they’d keep us out if she really needed the help.
Like if she went into labor.
Not that that’s what we thought would happen. At all.
She wasn’t even 30 weeks yet.
And yet.
After we’d fallen asleep, I heard her calling. We’d left Facetime open, my phone propped up in front of my head and hers on the other side. But that’s not how I heard her. I heard her calling through the hallway.
“Ben, Ben!” The second louder than the first. “Ben!”
I rushed into her room, no gloves or mask on.
Liz was standing just inside the door.
“I think my water broke.”
I wasn’t ready for that.
