By the time I reached the hospital, Rosie had already been taken for an emergency delivery.
The waiting-room clock passed midnight.
Ben sat beside me with one knee bouncing uncontrollably.
The man I had known all my life looked terrified.
“She’s going to be all right,” I whispered, though I was speaking as much to myself as to him. “Rosie is strong.”
Ben pressed both hands over his face.
A sound escaped him that was somewhere between a prayer and a sob.
Then the double doors opened.
A doctor stepped into the waiting room.
Ben stood so quickly that his chair scraped across the floor.
The doctor’s expression told us the news was bad before he spoke.
“The babies have been delivered. They are premature, but both are stable.”
My breath caught.
“And Rosie?” Ben asked.
“She has lost a significant amount of blood. We are trying to control the bleeding, but she is deteriorating. We are doing everything we can.”
Ben swayed.
The doctor lowered his voice.
“You should prepare yourselves.”
Then he disappeared behind the doors.
I placed my hand against Ben’s back.
“My best friend,” I whispered. “Look at me.”
He did not move.
“Rosie chose you because you make her feel safe. She needs you to believe she can come back.”
“My promise,” he whispered.
“What promise?”
He turned toward me.
There was something in his expression I had never seen before.
Fear, guilt, and surrender all at once.
“I need to talk to you.”
“Now?”
“Away from here.”
He led me down the corridor to a quiet alcove near the stairwell.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead.
Ben looked toward the delivery doors before facing me.
“Before they took Rosie back, she made me promise something.”
“What?”
“She said, ‘If I don’t wake up, tell Cathy everything.’”
A chill moved through me.
“Tell me what?”
Ben reached inside his jacket.
