I clung to her voice, clawing to her, crawling to her, fighting mud and sludge and pain.
My eyes opened.
I was no longer in the field.
I was no longer dressed from the waist up.
I was no longer a farmer but a patient.
“Oh, thank God!” Della grabbed my hand, her fingernails digging in. “Ren. I thought…” She shook her head. “You wouldn’t wake up.”
The outside world had been replaced with the insides of a hospital.
An emergency room with traffic and trauma and triage.
My throat was raw and lungs seared.
I’d been in pain lately.
The backache.
The chest ache.
But I had things to do.
Life to conquer.
A future to pave.
Della bowed over me, pressing her forehead to my cheek. “Please, please don’t scare me like that again.”
My arm came up from where I lay on a narrow bed, hugging her head, kissing her hard. “I’m sorry, Ribbon.” I coughed, and she flinched.
Her eyes widened, then she buckled over me, digging her face into the crutch of my shoulder, her lips spread in a guttural scream.
My weakness?
My confusion?
None of it fucking mattered.
Jack-knifing upward, I tore at wires stuck to my chest and ripped an oxygen tube from my nose. “Della.”
“Hey, Mr. Wild. You need—”
“Stop!” I roared, clutching onto Della as she stumbled by my bedside. “What the hell is wrong with my wife?”
“She refused to leave,” a skinny nurse with mousy blonde hair snipped. “She’s in labour. Apart from physically manhandling her, we couldn’t do anything about it.”
“Goddammit.” I swung my legs off the narrow bed, dislodging yet more medical equipment. My lungs burned. Chest throbbed. Heart palpitated in an uneven rhythm.
But I didn’t care about any of it.
“Get back into bed, sir,” someone commanded.
I grimaced as my world flipped upside down. My feet found a ground that rocked. My mind found a world that sloshed and greyed. I swam in light-headedness, scooping Della into my arms, and laying her pregnant weight on the very same bed I’d just vacated.
“Sir, she needs to be in maternity.”
“She’s in pain, can’t you see? Help her instead of spouting bullshit!”
Della screamed as yet another contraction worked through her. Her legs spread wide and dirty shoes dug into sterilized white. “Oh, fuucckk. God, it hurts.” Her hand found mine, squeezing me to the point of metacarpals crunching.
“Someone get her something!” I yelled. “What the hell good are you, huh? Do your goddamn jobs and help her!”
My lungs wheezed, and a ribcage-splintering cough found me, bending me in half.
“Sir, you need to calm down.”
Coughing, coughing, always fucking coughing, my anger spilled like magma. When I could breathe, I roared, “And you need to fucking help her! Now!”
Della groaned, adding another layer to the mayhem.
“Sir—”
“What the hell is going on here?!” A doctor with a shaved head and goatee marched forward, waving his arms as if he could part the sea of medical staff like the messiah.
Grabbing a clipboard that hung on the end of the bed, he scanned the notes, then pointed in my face. “You. Seeing as you’re awake. Oncology. Now. You need some tests.” Spinning to face the skinny nurse loitering around Della, he ordered, “You, go get the midwife assigned to Mrs Wild.”
His eyes fell on another staff member. “You, go tell those people demanding answers that he’s woken up and she’s about to have a baby. We need silence, not anarchy.”
When his bossy gaze met mine again and found I hadn’t left Della’s side, he bared his teeth. “Get. Oncology. Now.”
“I’m not leaving.” I stepped closer to the bed, partly to touch Della’s face and partly because I needed to lean against something. Coughs rattled and wheezed, not appreciating I fought their desire to make me bend over again.
I refused to cough.
I wasn’t the one in need of treatment, Della was.
“My wife is having a baby. If someone doesn’t look after her—”
“Threats now?” The doctor rolled his eyes. “Leave before I have you committed.”
“I’m not leaving until I know my wife is okay.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” the doctor grumbled. “If you collapse, you’ll be strapped in the psych ward just to teach you a lesson.”
“I’m not going to collapse.” My needs faded every time in lieu of Della’s. I could be on death’s door and tell the devil to wait until I knew Della was safe.
My jaw locked together as I fought another wave of coughing. “So, are you going to do something?”
“You’re in a hospital, Mr Wild. Of course, we’re going to do something.”
Della moaned and writhed as another nurse dashed toward us. With efficient jerks, she pulled a curtain around us, cutting us off from the emergency room mania.
Once private, she pushed Della’s dress up her legs, pulled her underwear down, and laid a green cloth over her lap. With calm hands, she manhandled Della’s feet, placing them as close to the side of the bed as possible.