Storm Watch 02.28 – Masterpiece

            Tina was doing her breathing and Alice was shaking like a leaf as she watched the EMT do his work.  He was putting an IV into Tina‘s hand and she had her eyes closed and was making the oddest sounds with her mouth.  She sounded like a train, laboring to get up hill, with a bad engine.  Alice was at a loss she waved her hands around and said in a shrill voice.

            “Breath, yeah that’s it Tina, you have to breath…”  Alice offered, not at all flustered, merely scared beyond all words.  Tina was concentrating and for some reason, Alice thought she’d never look more beautiful.  She was glowing with that glow that mother’s had and Alice wondered how she’d let herself miss this, Tina being all pregnant and *****.

            “I know what I have to do Alice!  I am the one that is having the babies!”  Alice sat back, her eyes wide as Tina let out a primal scream as another contraction hit her.  Pregnant women were a pissy ***** lot of women, Alice thought to herself.  “Alice?”  Tina asked as she knew it was lull time, and Alice leaned closer, and Tina stared at her hard.  She grabbed Alice‘s shirt, pulling her roughly closer to her, and she sneered at her in a feral way that had Alice thinking about jumping out of the ambulance as it was still moving.

            “You have to promise me, that you are going to be around to help me out with these babies.  I am going to need your wit and your shoulder to lean on to get through this…  Eighteen years Alice do you understand that?  It’s a life time commitment.  You have to be there for everything, the birthday’s, the scrapped knees, the graduation days, the first dates.”  Alice‘s eyes were clear suddenly she put a hand on Tina‘s stomach, feeling the new life that was there, fighting to get out.  Kicking and ready for the big bad world that they all lived in, jaded and oblivious to so many things, but these babies, they were going to need protection, and teaching.

            “Ok, yeah, I swear Tee.  I can be there for everything, and then some.”  Alice promised and Tina seemed relieved, and she leaned back on the stretched.  She felt her eyes rolling around in her head and she moaned.