A Child Shall Lead Them. Carole Page Gift
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an odd reluctance to go—but Marnie had insisted, so what else was she to do? She leaned over, caressed Marnie’s face and kissed her cheek. She drew back, startled. Marnie’s skin felt strangely clammy, her forehead feverish. Her face was pallid, her eyes glazed. “Are you okay, Marnie?”
“Never better,” Marnie mumbled thickly, her eyelids heavy.
“I love you,” Bree whispered. Gently she squeezed Marnie’s hand, then crossed the room to the door.
“Tell Charity…her mommy loves her,” Marnie murmured with a weary smile. Her voice was faint, her breathing labored. “Tell her…”
Dr. Packard broke in. “Marnie, I need another push. I’m delivering the placenta. That’s a girl. We’re almost done.”
Brianna lingered by the door, watching, as Marnie laid her head back and closed her eyes. She was trembling so fiercely that her teeth chattered. “I don’t feel well,” she whispered. “My chest hurts. And I’m so cold.”
“Her pulse is rapid,” warned the nurse.
Dr. Packard’s voice erupted in a strangled bark. “Confound it! She’s hemorrhaging!” He sprang into action, kneading Marnie’s abdomen as another nurse joined them. “Massage the uterus! Come on! Vigorously! Don’t stop!”
“It’s not helping, Doctor.”
“Try bimanual compression!” Dr. Packard muttered something under his breath about the placenta separating prematurely. His voice was urgent, shrill. “She’ll need a transfusion!”
“Doctor, she’s going into shock.”
“Get a cardiologist in here! We need help!”
“Doctor, what’s wrong?” Brianna broke away from the door and crossed the room to Marnie. “Is she okay?”
Dr. Packard looked at Brianna as if he had forgotten she was there. His face ignited with vexation. “Get her out of here! Now!”
Before Brianna could protest, an attendant—a tall young man in green scrubs—swiftly ushered her out the door and pointed the way to the critical care nursery.
Bree held her ground, her gaze riveted on the closed double doors of the delivery room. “What about Marnie? Will she be all right?”
“They’re doing all they can.” The attendant looked as shaken as she. “Go look after the baby,” he said miserably, as if he already knew the news would be bad. “That’s what she wanted, isn’t it?”
Brianna nodded, her thoughts reeling. “I’ve got to call my father. He needs to be here.” They were all going to need him…his presence, his comfort, his prayers.
The baby was in trouble. Marnie was in trouble. And Brianna couldn’t imagine losing either one of them.
Chapter Five
“I’m sorry, Miss Rowlands. We did everything we could.” Dr. Packard’s small dark eyes glistened starkly in his lean, blanched face as one corner of his mouth twitched. He was still wearing his surgical greens, but he seemed slighter—his frame more diminutive, his manner less commanding—than Brianna had perceived him during surgery an hour ago. It struck her suddenly that he was as shocked and unnerved as she.
“Marnie’s…dead?” Bree repeated numbly, as if she might somehow prompt a different response. It couldn’t be! Baby Charity was hardly more than an hour old, and already she had lost her mommy. Bree swayed, the air sucked from her lungs, the fluorescent lights glaring against her rising tears. How could her dear Marnie, the girl she had nurtured and laughed with and loved as a sister, be gone so swiftly, so senselessly?
“We’ll need to contact her next-of-kin,” Dr. Packard was saying. “I understand she was living in your home. Perhaps the call would be less painful coming from you or Reverend Rowlands. Would he consider making a personal call on the family?”
Brianna nodded stiffly. “Yes. I just phoned my father. He’s on his way over.”
But how could she tell the doctor that she had no idea how to contact Marnie’s relatives? Marnie had refused to confide any pertinent information about her family’s whereabouts. Bree wasn’t even sure Smith was Marnie’s real last name.
Bree should have made it a point to learn more. She would have to go home now and search Marnie’s room for clues to her family background—a driver’s license or an address book, perhaps. Surely there would be a clue among Marnie’s things.
Within the hour Brianna’s father arrived, talked briefly with the doctor, then drove Bree home. Neither of them spoke until her father pulled into the driveway. He stopped the car, swiveled in his seat and gave her his most benevolent smile.
“Honey, I’ll go with you to break the news to Marnie’s parents. I don’t want you facing them alone.”
Fresh tears flooded her eyes. “Thanks, Daddy, but first we’ve got to find them.”
Once inside the house, Bree went directly to Marnie’s room and began her search, riffling through her closet and drawers. A wave of nausea attacked as she touched Marnie’s familiar garments, her toiletries and cosmetics, her personal possessions. There wasn’t much to go on. Marnie had arrived with virtually nothing and had accumulated few belongings during her two-month stay. A Bible, a few books and favorite CDs. And, of course, the dog-eared photograph of her handsome brother, Eric, smiling that special smile of his. Brianna winced. Wherever Eric was, he had no idea he had just lost his sister.
As Bree blinked back a fresh stream of tears, she noticed Marnie’s backpack lying beside the bureau. Marnie had forgotten it in their haste to get to the hospital last night. Tentatively Brianna picked it up and opened it—the simple brown canvas bag that still had the feel of Marnie about it. Amid the tissues and toiletries, Bree found a wallet and opened it with awkward fingers, fighting a twinge of guilt. She had worked so hard to build Marnie’s trust, and now she was trespassing, invading Marnie’s private world. What if Marnie walked in and caught her? She would feel wounded, betrayed. But no, Marnie couldn’t walk in. Marnie was…gone.
That was the grim reality that would take ages to accept.
Seizing Marnie’s driver’s license, Brianna anxiously scanned the name and address. Just as she had suspected, Marnie’s last name wasn’t Smith. The license read Marnie Wingate and listed a Solana Beach address. Bree flipped through the wallet, looking for additional clues. There were several creased photographs…smiling strangers…people who must have known and loved Marnie…friends…relatives. A distinguished older couple, surely Marnie’s parents. Also, several more photos of her brother (even better looking than in the faded snapshot). And one exceptional color portrait of Marnie and Eric when they were children: he stood as tall as a little soldier, the proud older brother with his arm protectively around his baby sister.
If only he could have protected her this time!
And there was a business card. It read: Eric Wingate, Attorney-at-Law, and also listed a Solana Beach address. She turned the card over in her hand, then gazed again at Eric’s photographs spread over the bureau. So this is the man with whom I’ve felt such a strong emotional connection these past few weeks—the man I’ve fallen in love with in my fantasies!
I’ve got to see Eric first, Bree decided. I’ll break the news to him, and then together we’ll tell his parents.
Brianna quickly showered, applied a touch of makeup and changed into a sedate pantsuit, a pale charcoal gray, as bleak as the news she was delivering. She ran a brush through her long straight hair, then twisted it into an austere chignon. She was the bearer of bad news and might as well look the part.
On her way out the door, her father stopped her and enquired where she was going at a time like this. She told him, and shook her head when he again offered to drive her. “No, Daddy, I’ve got to do this myself. Marnie was my friend. Her family deserves to hear the news from me, not from some anonymous