Eduardo's Arc

Chapter 110 of 115

The nursery was ready, but the pregnancy was not safe. Eduardo knew it the morning Kiersten gripped the tea table and went pale. Doctors had told her for years she could not carry a child. Now she carried one, and the same doctors had warned of risk. Her body was not built for this. Eduardo did not know where to find the kind of care she might need. He only knew he could not fix it with his hands. "I'm fine," Kiersten said, straightening. But her knuckles stayed white on the wood. "You're not." He crossed to her. "Tell me what's wrong." "Sharp pain. Low." She breathed slow. "It passed." "It'll come back." He pulled a chair out and eased her into it. His old self would have promised to handle it alone. He did not. "I don't know who to call. I've never known this." Kiersten looked at him. "Then ask." He went for the one person who had never turned him away. He drove to the pale house with the cross and found Mother Angel at her door, blonde curls catching the light, hands already open as if she had been expecting him. "Eduardo." Her voice was soft as water. "She's near her time of trouble." His throat tightened. "How did you know?" "I feel these things in my bones." She stepped onto the path. "A birth like hers needs more than hope. It needs a midwife who has seen the hard ones, and prayer for what hands can't reach." "I don't know any midwife." "I do." She touched his arm. "There's a woman two valleys over who brings through births the doctors call impossible. I'll send for her today. She'll come and stay until Mellani is here." Relief buckled his knees. "I can't pay what that costs." "You won't pay it alone." Mother Angel smiled. "The town built your house. They'll carry this too. But you must do one thing yourself." "Anything." "Pray with me. Not for the outcome. For Kiersten to be held, whatever comes." Eduardo knelt on the stone path. He had prayed for his own forgiveness before. He had never prayed for someone else's safety and meant it more than his fear. He bowed his head. Mother Angel laid her hand on his hair and spoke over him, and something in his chest went quiet. When he rose, he knew the midwife would come. The care Kiersten needed had a face and a road now. The danger was still real. But it was no longer a thing he faced blind and alone. He drove home and told Kiersten. She listened, hand on her belly, and nodded once. "Good," she said. "You asked." That night the midwife sent word she would arrive within the week. Eduardo marked it in the record book by the door. Then he sat beside Kiersten and watched the lamp, ready now to wait for a danger he could finally meet.