“I will tell them. I promise. Please stay calm.” Erin kept her voice steady, unwilling to feel at this moment in time. If the mom crashed here, there was no baby. Emotion could not enter right now. She needed clarity, focus, and to keep Tiffany calm enough her heart rate didn’t go wild again.
There was a bump as the ambulance crossed into the MetroGen ambulance bay. They sped Tiffany into to Trauma 1 and the waiting arms of the ER attendings and resident.
Today’s attending was a younger guy named Yates. The name was familiar—Kyra Yates was the paramedic who ran the Veteran’s Day nursing home evac.
Erin recited their limited success with vagal maneuvers. Then she said, “Her cardiologist is Perkins, not Leyman.”
Yates snorted, “No surprise there. Get me Perkins and an OB monitor.”
The nurse taking vitals rechecked her blood pressure cuff. “Dr. Yates, the auto cuff isn’t finding her BP.”
“I need two IVs and start drawing labs. CBC, CMP, and CBG as a start. Type and cross her,” Yates started giving orders.
Tiffany’s heart rate jumped back up to 300. Her color faded, and she waved weakly at Erin, gasping, “The baby.”
“Save the baby,” Erin announced. “She wants to save the baby, not her, if you have to.”
The attending shook his head, “Saving her is saving the baby.”
“Her husband is dead. It’s his. She wants you to save her daughter,” Erin used more force this time.
“We’ll do everything we can.” Yates nodded. “We can take it from here.”
In that second, Erin understood Noah and his ability mask his true thoughts inside. Yates had adopted the same blank face, the one everyone used when there was only bad news. His demeanor told Erin that Tiffany was circling the drain.
But she couldn’t ask. It was not her role here, and she wasn’t Carver. There was nothing Erin could do; the ER was taking over.
“Tiffany, this is where we leave you. Good luck.” Erin smoothed Tiffany’s tangled brown hair. Then she stooped and kissed the crown of Tiffany’s hair. “Stay strong.”
“I’ll try.”
“Save the baby,” Erin repeated again for good measure, hoping someone, somewhere could do something. Anything.
It was a very quiet drive back to 13.
Chapter 41
Han: At my house. Stop by?
Erin succumbed to the temptation to blot out this crappy day with Noah for Christmas Eve. Tomorrow, she and Theo would be back at it on Medic 13. Children would open new bikes, skateboards, and hoverboards for the first time and crash for a broken bone bonanza.
Besides, that eleventh hour conversation with Kwon bothered her. Cordova, minimally, was the captain of 15, but Noah would have said something if 15 were closing.
Even more, after her Christmas shift, Erin was scheduled to have most of the following week off. They had been offered the option of working Christmas week or New Years. She’d imagined splitting her time between Noah and her team, except there might not be a team anymore.
A group text popped up. It was Carver saying ‘hi.’ He was working in Battalion 9 since his wife had been discharged from inpatient psychiatry.
A flurry of ‘Merry Christmas Eve’ texts followed. Aiden sent a picture, and Erin’s jaw dropped. Aiden, Vanessa, Luna, and Soto at church together? Kevin responded with a photo of himself with his parents at a different church. Theo sent a picture of a bottle of Scotch stuck in a rollerblade next to a half-eaten box of Oreos. It said ‘training for tomorrow and the Firefighter Ball. Who’s with me?’
Erin started to respond and then stopped herself. With all her team and relationship stuff, she’d forgotten about the annual Firefighter Ball at the Renaissance Hotel. Dinner, drinks, end of the year awards, and plenty of drunk dancing, she was told.
Last year, she covered the night with Theo as the newbies. This year, she’d be off, but then she’d have to come up with an excuse about where Han was… again.
Noah was dozing on his couch when she used her key, a mess of papers spread out in front of him on the coffee table. The TV playedStar Trek V: The Final Frontier. Definitely Christmas Eve material.
She hung up her coat on the hook that had become hers. Noah sat up and turned off the TV. “Erin?”
“Hey, Merry Christmas Eve!” she said in her best cheery tone. Time to be happy.
