On the walk back to the main house, the cramps started. They were sharp, low, and knifed across her abdomen, folding her in half so suddenly that Emily gasped. She froze, mind blank, then forced herself upright and hurried as fast as she could back to the inn, up the stairs.
Daniel,she thought.I need Daniel.
She walked back into the kitchen, movements deliberate, one hand pressed against her stomach as if she could hold everything together by sheer will. Daniel was at the stove, eating something out of a Tupperware container. The radio was playing quietly, someone’s story about running marathons at seventy. He didn’t notice her at first, but when he turned, his whole body went taut. His eyes flicked from her face, to her hand.
“Em?” he said, voice careful.
She shook her head, tears already prickling behind her eyes, and tried to speak. “It’s—I feel like there might be blood. Not much. But—” The rest stuck in her throat.
He moved fast, closing the distance between them, his hands warm and steady on her elbow. “Sit,” he said, steering her toward the couch.
She sank into the cushions, her hand still pressed to her abdomen, the other wiping at her cheek with a paper towel that he handed her. Daniel crouched beside her, both hands on her knees. His voice was steady but the veins in his neck were raised, his words coming through tight teeth. “How much blood, Em? Was it bright? Is there pain?”
She nodded, voice small. “I don’t know. I haven’t looked. Cramps, low. It just started.”
He exhaled, then nodded. “Okay. I’m calling the OB. Don’t move.”
He was gone, and she heard him on the line. She caught snatches: “...spotting... pain level… how far along? …right, yes, on our way.” He was back in less than a minute, grabbing his keys from the tray on the table.
“Let’s go. OB wants you at the hospital now. I texted Cassie and Roy. Roy’s coming to the house now, and Cassie’s on her way from town.”
Roy was there in minutes.
On the walk to the car, Emily shivered, the cramps biting deeper with each step, but Daniel guided her. In the car, he adjusted the seat, then started the engine. He drove faster than usual, one eye on her and one on the darkening streets, knuckles white on the wheel.
Emily pressed her cheek to the glass and watched the lights of the town smear past—the pizza place, the shuttered gift shop, the gas station. Every bump in the road jolted her pelvis, the pain now blooming outward from her hip bones, hot and insistent.
Daniel kept glancing over, his voice softer than before. “Let me know if it gets worse. Or if you need to stop.”
She shook her head. “Just get us there.”
The hospital looked different at night—brighter, washed out, the emergency entrance glowing under a harsh row of lights. Daniel pulled up under the canopy, left the engine running, and jogged around to her side. When he opened her door, she felt another wave of cramping and bit her lip to keep from making a sound.
He half-lifted her from the seat, cradling her shoulders and bracing her under the knees. “Okay, okay, I’ve got you,” he said, as if she might slip away if he didn’t. She let herself lean into him, her legs shaky, vision tunneling as they crossed to the doors.
Inside, everything was noise—shouts, phones, the echo of the intercom. Daniel pressed the button for triage and explained, with a calm she envied, “My wife is twelve weeks pregnant, she’s spotting and having severe cramping, she needs to be seen.” The nurse took one look at Emily and motioned them to a narrow vinyl bench.
Daniel helped her sit, then knelt again, both hands holding hers. “They’ll be here in a sec,” he said, voice strangled. “It’s going to be okay, Em. I promise.”
She squeezed his fingers so hard it must have hurt.
A nurse in navy scrubs came at a fast walk. She was maybe forty, hair cropped short, an aura of brisk efficiency. She crouched to Emily’s eye level. “Morey?”
Emily nodded. “Your OB called ahead. How long since the bleeding started?”
“Fifteen minutes,” Emily said, her voice thin.
“How bad is the pain?”
“Cramps, like a period but sharper.”
The nurse nodded, then slipped a blood pressure cuff around Emily’s arm and clicked it into place. “We’re going to get you back as soon as possible.”
It was minutes before the wheelchair came out, and they rolled her into a curtained alcove. Daniel tried to follow but was stopped at the threshold by a tech. “We’ll call you in as soon as she’s changed and settled,” she said. “Give us five.”
He nodded, but his eyes didn’t leave Emily. “I’ll be right here,” he called.
Inside the alcove, the air was freezing, and the walls were the pale, ill color of old eggshells. The tech handed her a paper gown, some mesh underwear. “You can change in here.” Emily nodded and did as she was told, hands shaking as she pulled the gown around her.
