“All set?” Kelsey said.
“Just have to figure out how to lie down.” Maggie’s grin was tired.
“The log method, remember? We’ve got this.”
Together they found a way to support and lower her, then roll her as Kelsey slid the support pillow under her knees. The special mattress would help too. Maggie winced and frowned as she shifted herself minutely into place. At last her face relaxed.
“Better,” she said on a sigh. “Good. Yeah, this is good. Thanks.”
“Remember I’m just a room away.” Kelsey lifted the baby monitor from its place on the nightstand, within easy reach. “Just hit the page button and it’ll beep me awake.”
Yet she didn’t sleep when she retreated to her room. She lay under the comforter that had been chosen to look like her old one and stared into the dark, thoughts spinning. What if something went horribly wrong in the middle of the night, and Maggie stopped breathing?
Okay, that was ridiculous.
But what if the alarm for pain meds or the beeping baby monitor failed to wake her? Maybe she should stay awake all night, just in case, just the first night.
Hours later—must have been—she jolted up in bed, heart pounding. Something had jarred her awake. What was it?
“Kelsey…” came the voice from the monitor.
She sprang out of bed and dashed barefoot down the hall.
In the dim glow of the nightlight Maggie lay on her side on the floor, the monitor in her hand, tears sliding down her cheeks. Kelsey flipped on the bedside lamp’s lowest setting, and Maggie squinted against it.
“What happened? Are you hurt?”
“No,” Maggie said, but her voice quavered. “I reached for the monitor and knocked it onto the floor. So I tried to get up and get it, but my legs sort of just…sat down, and then I tipped and I can’t…”
“It’s okay. We’ll figure it out.”
“I just needed the bathroom, that’s all.”
“Did you hurt yourself when you went down?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Well then, let’s get you back up.”
They employed the log roll again, but from the floor Maggie had no leverage with which to get her legs beneath her. Kelsey got a shoulder under Maggie’s arm and tried to stand, but their weight was roughly equal. If she could have used a fireman’s carry or hefted her by her under-arms…if she didn’t need to watch out for any movement that would hurt Maggie, she might have done it. But with the needed care, from the floor, she simply couldn’t gain the balance and leg power to stand under both their weights.
For ten minutes, they tried.
“I’m sorry,” Maggie whispered when they flopped to the floor for the third time.
“It’s my fault. I should be able to figure this out.”
“No, Kels. It’s my fault for tipping over in the first place. I looked like an old woman.”
“If it’s not my fault, it’s not yours either.”
They laughed through their tears. Maggie blubbered, “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.” And then suddenly she did. “Trevor.”
“Oh no, not at two in the morning, Kelsey. Please.”
“He told me to call him any time.”
