“What’s that?” she asked, spotting the syringe in the nurse’s hand.
“This will help with the pain so you can rest.” She injected a clear solution into the port and smiled. “Just another minute, Mom, then I need to take the baby to be checked thoroughly by the staff pediatrician.”
Already the drug she’d been given made Elise woozy. She frowned. She hadn’t asked for pain medicine. She wanted to be alert, savoring every detail of the experience. “I don’t want to sleep. I want to be with my baby, to bond …”
She heard her speech slur slightly as her eyelids drooped.
“We’ll bring her to your room later to breastfeed.” The nurse scooped Grace from Elise’s arms, and Elise felt a pang in her heart.
“Not yet. Give me … just another … minute.” But Elise could barely keep her eyes open. She forced herself to stay awake long enough to watch the nurse whisk Grace through the door to the next room. As she disappeared from Elise’s line of sight, her daughter gave a mewling cry.
Gracie …
Elise fought off the fog of sleep and blinked her surroundings into focus. The patient room at the small-town hospital was not lavishly furnished but was comfortable and painted a cheerful pale yellow. With a sigh she thought of the state-of-the-art hospital in Lagniappe, Louisiana, where she’d planned to give birth.
With her due date still three weeks away, she’d believed she’d be fine driving to the weekend crafts fair in the rural community forty-five minutes from her home. If she began having contractions, she could easily get back to Lagniappe. Or so she’d thought. But the best laid plans …
Her water had broken while she paid for an antique rocking chair, and the contractions had come hard and fast. Within ten miles, she’d been doubled over in pain and had pulled to the side of the road to call 911.
The local ambulance had arrived quickly—thank God—and she’d been rushed to Pine Mill Community Hospital in time for the delivery.
The window was dark now, telling her night had fallen, and she searched her walls for a clock. How long had she slept? A simple white clock over the door read eleven forty-five. Elise rubbed her eyes and worked to clear the cobwebs of drug-induced sleep to do the simple calculation. Grace had been born at 3:30 p.m., so … more than eight hours had passed. She groaned and found the call button on the bed rail.
Enough of sleep. She wanted to hold her daughter. Nurse her daughter. Memorize every inch of her daughter’s face and hands and toes …
“Can I help you?” came the response to her page.
“I’m awake now, and I want to see my baby. Can someone bring her to me?”
Her request met silence then a hesitant, “Um, I’ll … have the doctor come talk to you.”
The doctor? Elise tensed, butterflies kicking to life in her gut. She didn’t like the uneasy hesitation in the nurse’s voice.
“Is there a problem? Is my baby okay?”
“Dr. Arrimand will be in to see you in a moment, ma’am,” a different, more authoritative voice said.
“But what about my daughter? I want to see her.” No response. “Hello? Hello? I want my baby brought to me!”
Again silence answered her. She buzzed the nurses’ station, but her page was ignored. Irritation and concern spiked her pulse. Elise threw back her covers and swung her feet to the floor.
If they wouldn’t bring Grace to her, she’d go get her from the nursery herself. She was Grace’s mother, and they had no right to keep her from her. If something was wrong, she deserved answers … now!
Her head spun as she pushed off the bed, and her body throbbed from the rigors of the delivery. Elise grabbed the bed railing to keep from falling. Black spots danced in front of her eyes, and she waited impatiently for her equilibrium to return. When the room stopped shifting around her, she tried again to make her way to the door.
“Oh, Ms. Norris! You shouldn’t try to walk alone yet!” a nurse fussed as she bustled into the room with a blood-pressure cuff in her hands. She took Elise’s elbow and steered her back to the bed.
Elise tried to shrug away from the nurse’s grip. “I want to see my daughter!”
With a strength that overpowered Elise’s post-delivery condition, the nurse guided her back to the bed. “Dr. Arrimand has been called. He’s on his way, and he’ll explain everything.”
The cryptic response rang warning bells in her head. A bubble of panic formed in her chest. “What does he have to explain? What’s wrong with Grace?”
“The doctor will—”
“No! Tell me now! What happened? Where’s my baby?” Tremors of dread shook her.
At that moment, the dark haired doctor, now wearing a white lab coat instead of scrubs, stepped into her room and helped the nurse maneuver Elise back to the bed.
Elise drilled the doctor with a hard, frantic stare. “Where’s my daughter? Why won’t anyone talk to me?”
Dr. Arrimand took a step back from the side of the bed and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Ms. Norris, but while you were asleep, your daughter’s heart …” He paused, pressing his mouth in a grim line, then sighed heavily. “… Stopped beating.”
A chill washed through Elise, and she was sure her heart had stopped, as well. “Wh—what?”
“We did everything we could to resuscitate her, but … we couldn’t save her.”
The room tilted. Blood whooshed in her ears. Shock rendered her mute and unable to move.
This couldn’t be happening. She had to be hallucinating from the drugs they’d given her. Surely she’d heard him wrong. They had the wrong person.
“I’m very sorry,” the doctor muttered, eyeing her with pity.
No. Her baby was not dead.
No, no, no, no, noooo!
The denials in her head became a keening wail. Agony and horror rose in a suffocating wave, filling her chest, squeezing her throat.
Questions pounded her brain. What made her heart stop? Why couldn’t they save her? Why had they waited to tell her? Where was Grace now?
But her heart ached too much to voice them. Shock and grief made all but gasping sobs and tormented moans beyond her reach.
In the blink of an eye, her dream come true had turned into every parent’s worst nightmare. Her baby was dead.
Chapter 1
Fourteen months later
Elise shuffled into the church fellowship hall and cast a wary gaze around the assembled group. The rich aroma of freshly brewed coffee scented the air, lending a warmth and welcome to what she expected to be a most uncomfortable environment—sharing her grief with strangers.
One of the women seated in the circle of chairs spotted her standing in the doorway and called to her. “Hello. Are you looking for the grief-support meeting?”
Elise took a reinforcing breath and nodded.
The woman stood and waved her closer. “Please, come join us.” As Elise approached the circle of chairs, several of the men stood, as well, greeting her with smiles and nods of welcome, and the woman who’d spoken first took her hand and patted it. “My name’s Joleen Causey. I’m the group facilitator. Welcome.”
“Thanks. I’m Elise Norris.” She gave Joleen an awkward smile, and when the facilitator motioned to a seat next to her, Elise sat on the folding metal chair. As the others introduced themselves in an onslaught of names