Scarlett Rose's Arc

Chapter 50 of 57

Monday morning Scarlett stood at the sink and felt a low pull across her back. It passed. She set down the mug and waited. Nothing came again. She was thirty-six weeks. The doctor had said any day. Clayton was out past the ridge moving cattle off the wet ground. His truck was gone. His radio was on the counter where he'd forgotten it. She called Rose first. Rose answered on the second ring, already in the car with the crib frame strapped down. "How far out are you?" "Ninety minutes. Why. Scarlett, why." "Twinge. Just one. He's in the back pasture and he left the radio." "Call Maya. Then call the clinic. I'm coming." Scarlett called Maya. Maya picked up in the truck, engine running. "I'm ten minutes from your gate. Cora asked me to swing by with the bassinet sheets. Are you having one?" "One. Small." "I'm coming. Sit down. Put the door on the latch." Scarlett sat at the table with the phone flat in front of her. She wrote out a plan on the back of a feed receipt. Maya at the house. Rose driving in. Clayton at the ridge with no radio. She circled that last line twice. Maya came through the door without knocking. Her braid was loose. She set a bag on the table and looked Scarlett over the way a vet looks at a mare. "Time between?" "Just the one so far." "Good. Where's your bag?" "Bedroom closet. Bottom shelf." Maya carried it to the porch. Then she went back for the cedar box on the shelf above the stove and set it beside the bag. "He'll want that," she said. Scarlett called the clinic. Dr. Wishborne came on the line herself. She asked three questions and told Scarlett to come in when the pains were seven minutes apart, sooner if her water broke. She said the maternity ward had a bed held under her name since Friday. "Who's driving you?" "Maya. My sister's ninety minutes out." "Good. Two hands on you at all times until he's back." Scarlett hung up. Maya was already writing a note for Clayton in block letters on the counter. Gone to clinic if you find this. Radio's here. Call Rose. Maya took the truck keys off the hook. "I'm not leaving you until she pulls in the drive. Then she doesn't leave you until he does. That's the deal." "Deal," Scarlett said. A second pull came, longer. She breathed through it with her hand on the table. Maya timed it on her watch and didn't say the number out loud. Rose called from the highway. Forty minutes. Scarlett looked at the radio on the counter and at the ridge through the window. Clayton didn't know yet. But someone was here, and someone else was coming, and the bed was held. She would not be alone when it started. She already wasn't.