Page 114 of Curveball

He looks down at her like she’s his everything. Why can’t I be like that?

She eventually turns to me. “Any news?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. June isn’t answering.” I swallow. “I’m terrified.”

“Me too. How much longer until we land?”

I look at my watch. “Probably another hour or so. I’ve been googling what she said. Excessive vomiting is a sign of pre-eclampsia, which can be caused by high blood pressure, which can be caused by stress. Do you think it’s my fault? That I caused this to happen to her?”

Arizona shrugs, not fully letting me off the hook. “Who knows why these things happen? There are a million causes, but at this point, the cause doesn’t matter. You need to put your selfish shit aside today. This is about Ripley and your baby, not you. I don’t know what we’re walking into, but you have a wife and maybe a daughter who need you to man the fuck up.”

“It’s…the baby’s a girl?”

She nods. “Yes, she’s known for months. If you bothered to call her, you’d know that.”

“June didn’t mention it.”

“That’s why you talk to your wife, not her mother.”

She’s right. Tears find my eyes. “If something happens to Ripley, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Don’t say that. Ripley is the strongest person I know.”

After what feelslike the longest flight in history, we land in the middle of the night. There’s a car waiting to take us to the hospital.

We rush through the hospital doors and up to the maternity floor. The waiting room is empty. There’s no sign of June.

I practically sprint to the front desk. A woman in purple scrubs looks at me and smiles. “How can I help you, sir?”

“My wife went into early labor.”

“What’s her name?”

“Ripley St. James.”

She presses a few buttons on the computer before looking up at me with a confused look on her face. “It says here that Ms. St. James is single and the father would not be here for the birth.”

“What do you want, a fucking DNA test? I’m a shitty husband. I want to see my fucking wife. Someone needs to tell me what’s going on with her.”

Arizona grabs my arm. “Relax.” She looks at thenurse. “I believe my name was on Ripley’s pre-approved list as her birthing partner. Arizona Abbott Lancaster.”

She turns to me. “I had planned to come out for the delivery and help her through it.”

I nod, thankful for my amazing sister. The nurse on the other hand…

She looks at the computer. “Yes.” She presses more buttons and her face falls. “Oh. Perhaps we should wait for a doctor. Let me page one.”

I’ve fucking had it. I grab her computer screen and turn it around. She fights back, but my eye catches the room number before the screen twists away from me, and I start running.

The woman is yelling after me, but I don’t care. I make my way down the hallway with Arizona and Layton following closely behind. I hear shouting, but it’s white noise. I just need to get to Ripley.

We finally reach the room number and enter in a frantic rush. I suck in a breath at what I see. Ripley’s eyes are closed. She’s hooked up to about a thousand steadily beeping machines. They’re attached practically everywhere on her body. There’s a tube coming out of her mouth. Her skin is white as a ghost. She looks so frail.

This is bad. Really bad.

Arizona immediately starts crying, nearly collapsing, but Layton catches her. He holds her in his arms and looks at me with fear and shock written all over his face.

I mouth, “Get her out of here.”