“You bet,” she said.

Jack took his coffee cup with him back to the bedroom and pulled the rocker next to the bed.

Mel looked a little pale to him. The second baby was supposed to be easier and she sure came faster, but this one had been hard on her. Mel was weak and shaky when she roused to nurse during the night. In the cradle beside the bed, Emma started to fuss. She was going to need to be fed, but his wife wasn’t stirring yet. He wanted to pick up the baby, but it was better if Mel heard her—that snuffling from the baby helped with the breast milk. It was just amazing to him the way a woman’s body responded to all this, the way something like the baby’s cry could cause the milk to let down and drip like a faucet.

He reached out a hand to touch his wife’s brow and found her clammy. “Mel,” he said softly. Maybe there were too many blankets on her.

Emma made her demands known a little louder, but Mel still didn’t stir. “Mel,” he said more loudly, giving her shoulder a little shake. She didn’t wake. “Mel,” he said. Nothing.

Jack felt something squeeze his heart and hit his gut like a punch. He pulled back the covers and under his wife was a large, spreading pool of blood.

“Brie!” he screamed. “God! Brie!”

He picked up the phone and called John at home. Before the phone rang through Brie was in the doorway with David on her hip. She saw the blood, her sister-in-law motionless, and she ran to put David into the safety of his crib.

Susan Stone answered the phone.

“Susan, Mel’s hemorrhaging! She’s unconscious!”

“Oh, Jesus. Start massaging her uterus, like you saw John doing after delivery. Press down from the top, cup your other hand just above the pubic bone to support the uterus. Stay with me now.” Then without putting down the phone, he heard her pick up the other line and in just seconds she was asking for emergency airlift transport. “Jack,” she said, “give me your coordinates.”

A man who’d built his own house knew every detail, and he rattled off his latitude and longitude. Phone cradled between his ear and shoulder, he said, “Help me, Susan! Blood’s coming! What can I do?”

But she was repeating the location information into a second phone and responding to some questions. A moment later she was back on the line with Jack. “We’re so damn lucky,” she said. “John had an emergency and was airlifted to Redding a couple of hours ago—the helicopter is nearby, en route back to Eureka, and they’re diverting to you. Jack, are you massaging?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Does she have a pulse?”

He put his fingers to her neck. Blood from his fingertips left a garish streak on her neck. “Yeah, it’s weak. Soft.”

“You’ll have helicopter transport in less than five minutes. Are you alone?”

“Brie’s here,” he said, kneading Mel’s lower belly.

“She needs Pitocin. Methergine. Where’s Mel’s bag?”

“Here,” Jack said. “Right here.”

“Thank God. Show Brie how to massage. Jack, I need you to draw a syringe of Pitocin. Jack? You there?”

“Jesus,” he muttered. At that moment Brie ran into the room. “Brie. Massage her uterus like this,” he said, showing her. “Damn.” He tried to shake the fear out of his head. “I have to give her something,” he said. “Susan?” he said into the phone.

“I’ll walk you through it. Find the vial of Pitocin and a syringe. We’re going to give her Pitocin first. Her blood pressure has never been high, so we’ll follow with Methergine. She’s bleeding from the uterus and it needs to contract.”

“Susan,” Jack said into the phone as he watched Brie squeezing Mel’s lower abdomen. “Blood’s coming. Clots.”

“I know, Jack. Right now, get the drugs.”

He dug around in Mel’s bag and found what he was looking for. “Ready,” he said. With the phone cradled against his ear he followed her precise directions, drew the Pitocin into the syringe first. “I don’t know if I’ll find a vein.…”

“You’re going to inject in the muscle, Jack. Just roll her a bit to the side—”

“I know,” he said. “I know where. I’ve had plenty of shots.…”

“Pull back on the syringe to check for blood return,” Susan said. “Don’t waste time. The paramedics will have more of what we need. She’ll need a few doses.”

“Done,” he said.

“Now the Methergine,” she said, walking him through it. “Time is short here. Once the paramedics get there, they can open a line and Pit her. Keep this phone line open in case you need me—do what I told you, Jack.”

“I’m doing it,” he said.

“Check the uterus. Can you tell if it’s firming up a little?”

He brushed his sister’s hands out of the way and resumed the massage. “I don’t know. Maybe a little. Yeah, a little…But blood’s coming. More clots.”

“I know. Just keep massaging. You’re doing great.”

He moved away and, on instinct, Brie took over. Jack dug through Mel’s bag again, looking for more Pitocin or Methergine. “Susan, there isn’t any more.…We used everything she had!”

“They’ll be there any second. Just don’t stop massaging. While we’re waiting for the chopper why don’t you put the baby to the breast.”

Jack dropped the phone.

He plucked the wailing Emma out of the cradle and positioned her against the breast, slipping an arm under Mel’s shoulders to raise her a bit. He held them both. He squeezed and tickled Emma’s little cheek with the nipple, the way he’d seen his wife do it. “Come on, baby. Come on. We need you to—” Emma found the nipple and began to attempt to nurse. She wasn’t a hearty nurser yet and she was still upset from crying, but she did manage to get hold of the nipple, though not with great strength.

“Is it slowing? The bleeding?” he asked Brie.

“I don’t think so, no.”

“Mel,” he said. “Mel, baby, come on. Open your eyes for me, baby. Oh God, don’t do this, Mel.”

Her eyes fluttered open. She looked up at Jack and in a weak whisper she said, “Uh-oh.”

“Baby, you hang in there. The helicopter’s on its way and it’s close. You stay with me, Mel.” Then, “Come on, Emma. Come on.” But the baby was having trouble, probably because of the panic. Terrified, he slipped his arm out from under his wife, put the crying baby back in the cradle and, kneeling beside the bed, he began to massage her breasts in the way Mel would if she were pumping. He remembered then—remembered when David was born and he handed her the baby to nurse. Come on little guy, she had said. Bring out the placenta and stanch the bleeding. Then he leaned over her, put his mouth on her and drew gently, suckling, and the warm, sweet milk came into his mouth. And tears threatened to blind his eyes.

He felt her hand, weak and light, touching his head, threading fingers through his short hair. He nursed from her, and prayed it would help.

“It’s slowing,” Brie said. “It’s definitely slowing. But damn, Jack, there’s so much…”

He lifted his head from Mel’s breast and saw that her eyes were open just a bit and there was a faint, almost imperceptible smile on her lips. “You stay with me, Mel. Goddammit, you stay with me!” He suckled a bit more. To Brie he said, “Keep massaging her uterus.” Then he bolted from the house, leaping off the porch steps and racing to his truck. He opened the storage locker in the bed and pulled out a flare, ripping it open to burn and tossing it in the dirt driveway as a guide for the helicopter. He was back on his knees beside his wife, drawing on her breast again in less than thirty seconds.

Emma was crying, David was screaming and Mel was passed out again.

He put his lips on her forehead and prayed. God, I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything. Don’t take her from me!

He repeatedly checked Mel’s pulse, suckled and prayed. It was the longest two minutes of his life until he heard the sound of rotor blades. For a moment he was thrown back in time, almost an out-of-body experience—he was surrounded by dust and smoke as the choppers came into the rocky desert to pick up his wounded. His eyes glazed over, he was back there in Iraq, desperate to save his men.

He forced his mind through the maze of flashback. He said, “Don’t stop,” to Brie as he ran from the room to the porch just as the helicopter landed in the clearing in front of his house. He thought back to the last battle he’d fought—a battle he’d fight a thousand more times if it would save his wife. The medics had a saying—if we can get you to the chopper, you’re going to live.

He saw two medics jump out and run toward the house with a stretcher. “This way,” he yelled. “I’ve given her two doses of Pitocin and one of Methergine,” he yelled as he jogged back into the house with them on his heels. “I think the bleeding slowed a little, but it’s still heavy. Real heavy.”

They followed him into the master bedroom and immediately took over. An IV was started. He’d watched Mel do it a dozen times, but this was the fastest work he’d ever seen. They were shouting orders—Ringers, Pitocin, blood pressure seventy over forty, pulse one-sixty and thready, diaphoretic, respirations shallow. “Let’s boogie,” one of them said, throwing a towel between her legs as they lifted her quickly onto the stretcher, leaving behind a blood-soaked bed. “Load her and go, go, go!”

“Brie, get Doc out here with formula for the baby.” He grabbed Mel’s bag and followed them out, jogging behind them toward the helicopter. They were airborne in seconds.

Jack held Mel’s hand on one side of the stretcher while on the other side an inflight nurse monitored blood pressure and IV fluids. “We used all the drugs in her bag,” he said. “Two Pitocin, one Methergine,” he repeated to the nurse.

“Her bag?” the nurse asked.

“She’s a midwife. I left the syringes behind, but threw the empty vials in the bag. The OB’s wife, a nurse, talked me through it.”

The nurse relayed that to the pilot and after a minute the pilot shouted back that he’d been radioed a second order for Methergine and the nurse plucked the ampoule out of their supply, drew the syringe and pushed it into the IV. Another few minutes passed; Mel opened her eyes, looked at Jack and mouthed, “I love you, Jack.”

He put his lips by her ear. “Melinda, you are my life. You are my whole life, baby. You stay with me. John’s at the hospital, honey. We’re going to the hospital. You hang on. You’re going to be all right.”

Jack heard the pilot radio the hospital that they were inbound and relayed that there was an OR team and anesthesiologist standing by. The nurse pulled back the blanket to gently part Mel’s legs and look at the bleeding. “I think we’re gonna make it,” she said. Then she said softly, “Dear God, let us make it.”

If Jack weren’t so terrified, he’d be impressed by how fast the team could move. When they touched down, the nurse and EMTs on board had that gurney out of the chopper so fast they almost knocked Jack out of the way. Waiting for them were emergency nurses and a doctor. They ran into the hospital where someone was standing at the elevator, holding the door open. Jack stayed with them, but he was stopped as they flew into the surgery.

Jack stood outside the doors, staring. He had no idea what to do, but he wasn’t leaving her. He couldn’t even sit down. His heart was pounding, he was sweating, hyperventilating, dying inside. He’d faced his own death with more calm than this.

Five or ten minutes passed before a nurse came out to talk to him. “Mr. Sheridan, she has a uterine hemorrhage and has lost a lot of blood. Dr. Stone took her immediately into surgery to try to stop the bleeding. It’s possible he’ll have to do a hysterectomy. It’s going to be a while before we’ll have anything more to tell you.”