The Hardest Part
(a 'He looked at the clock and sighed..' challenge)
By
He looked at the clock and sighed. Across the waiting room the lanky, dark paramedic glanced over at him, said something to the pretty blonde nurse and then filled a Styrofoam cup with coffee.
Gage, Mark remembered. The man's name was Gage and the other one, the one still in the room with Julia, was DeSoto.
Gage came over and pressed the cup of coffee into Mark's hand. "Here, man. Drink some of this. Just take deep breaths. You all right? You gonna be all right?"
Mark nodded, though he wasn't really too sure himself. His hands were shaking. He could smell the fireman's scent, a faint and not unpleasant odor compounded of smoke, sweat, antiseptic, a lingering trace of cologne and the perfumes from the detergent his uniform had been washed in. And that other scent. Gage had washed up at the hospital, but the other smell lingered, sharp and raw, under the other scents. It was blood, mostly, Mark supposed.
He'd never known there could be so much blood.
"How do you do it?" he asked the firefighter. "Doesn't it affect you at all? Did it ever?"
"Nah, not really," Gage said easily. "I grew up on a ranch, though. I was helping with stuff like this as soon as I was old enough to walk. Not with people, of course, but with horses, cows, sheep, dogs, cats. And then I joined the department as a rescue man when I was eighteen and joined the paramedics back when the program first started, so I've seen quite a lot."
Mark looked at the clock again. "Why is it taking so long? Shouldn't they move her upstairs?"
"No, now, just hang on a bit. It's been less than ten minutes since we got here. And I don't think there's gonna be time to take her upstairs."
"Well, where's your partner? Shouldn't he have come out by now?"
"He's still in there helping out. He promised your wife he'd stay with her until it was all over."
"Until it's all over," Mark echoed in a hollow voice.
The door to treatment room three opened then and the other fireman came out. He was smiling faintly and his blue eyes were warm. He crossed over to them and the blood smell came with him, clinging to his clothes. Mark swallowed hard and the room spun. Both paramedics reached for him. Gage took the coffee out of his hand and DeSoto pushed his head down.
"Take it easy! Just relax and try to breathe."
His stomach settled a little and his vision cleared. Mark focused on the second paramedic. DeSoto had a mark on his left wrist -- the distinct outline of a woman's hand with the finger's clearly visible. The mark was white ringed in red and would surely bruise, but DeSoto didn't seem to notice it.
"You feeling better?" he asked. "You're not going to faint on me, are you?"
"No, I'm sorry. I'm all right. Is it over?"
"Yeah, it's over. Your wife had twins, two boys. Congratulations, Dad."
Mark sat up, feeling stronger. Heck, he had to be stronger. He was the dad now. "Twins. Wow. You know, the doctor thought he heard two heartbeats but he just wasn't sure. Twins. And boys. Are they okay? Is Julia okay?"
"Yeah, they're great. You can go in and see them now if you want to."
"If I want to? You bet I want to!"
He got up and went into the treatment room, trailed by the two paramedics. Julia was sitting up in the bed with a baby boy in the crook of each arm.
"Do you have names picked out?" DeSoto asked.
"We sure do," Mark said proudly. He leaned down to kiss his wife. "Which is which, honey?"
She indicated first the baby on her right and then the one on her left. "This is Roy and this is Johnny," she said.
The firefighters stared at them and the doctor, a young black man named Morton, choked back a laugh. "You're naming them Roy and Johnny?" he asked.
The young couple looked up from examining the babies. "Yeah," Julia said. "After our fathers and our brothers. This is Roy Kevin, after Mark's dad and brother, and this is John Randolph, after my dad and brother. Why? Don't you like their names?" She sounded hurt.
"Yeah, they're great names," DeSoto grinned.
"Yeah, only, maybe you should consider John Roderick instead of John Randolph?" Gage offered. His partner smacked him on the arm and he turned an innocent look on him. "It was just a suggestion."
"Johnny is the younger baby?" DeSoto asked. "The one who got stuck, that we had to use the forceps for?"
"Yeah."
"It figures. You might want to keep an eye on him. He's apt to be a bit accident-prone. It goes with the name."
Gage snorted and rolled his eyes. The nurse, writing on a clipboard, smiled. "It'll be okay," she said. "He'll have Roy around to keep him out of trouble."
"That's what Roys do," DeSoto agreed cheerfully. The radio in his hand beeped for attention and the two firefighters made a hasty departure.
The doctor excused himself for a minute and the nurse left to arrange a room up in maternity for Julia and her sons. When they were alone the new parents exchanged a quizzical look. "What do you suppose that was all about?" Mark asked.
"Beats me," Julia said. "Maybe I can get the nurse to explain it later."
"Anyway, the important thing is that you and the boys are okay. I'll tell you, though, sweetheart, the waiting is the hardest part!"
Julia narrowed her eyes and gave her husband an evil look. "Yeah, right," she said. "That's what you think!"
The end.