Ring the Alarm

Exhausted but elated, Adrienne looked around her tiny hospital room and grinned to herself at the sight of the little pink bundle asleep in the corner. But as quick as it had come, the joy inside of her dissipated and gave way to an almost overwhelming mixture of anger, grief and shock when she thought about the events from the previous twenty four hours.

---

"No---you need to get out of here before I give you more than a busted lip. I don't care how pregnant I am; I'll kick your sorry ass all the way out of the house and down the street if I have to---if that's what it takes to get you away from me! You make me SICK and I want you to leave!"

Trying not to make eye contact with him, she closed her eyes and sighed in disgust as Billie dropped to his knees and clamped his arms around her legs. It was as she was trying to kick her way free that she felt a sharp, stabbing pain in her stomach. Worried, she froze and clutched her baby bump protectively.

Then it came again. And this time the pain was so bad that it made Adrienne drop to the floor and scream in agony. Billie's face was the last thing she saw as she fell back into the darkness.

She didn't know how much time had passed when she came round again. The only thing that was clear to her was that she didn't want to be any where near Billie.

"Get him out!" she screamed at the doctors, as they tried to pin her to her cot.

"Mrs Armstrong please keep STILL," the surgeon shouted at her. "I don't think you realise how much danger you and the baby are in right now. We need you to relax so we can operate!"

"Don't call me Mrs Armstrong-I'm Miss Nesser! I want nothing to do with HIM or that name ever again!"

"Adrienne---please---do what the doctor tells you---" Billie was battling to try and take hold of her hand, but his close proximity to her only infuriated her more. Slowly, he backed out of the room. "Ok---I'll go Adie, I'll go. Just please, please try and be calm---"

"Fuck you Billie Joe! If anything happens to me or the baby then it's all your fault!"

Her incensed screams reverberated down the hospital corridors as doctors made their move to anaesthetise her. And for the second time that evening, the image of Billie's sad face was the last thing she saw as the suffocating blackness surrounded her.

This time when she woke, she was alone; save for a tiny incubator beside her bed. Gingerly, she pushed herself up to a sitting position and peered in to look at her baby.
---

"Hey you," she whispered, her throat hoarse from reasons she couldn't quite remember. She shook her head to clear the haze that had gathered there and moved so she could reach her hand inside the incubator. "So I got myself a little boy huh? Well aren't you just the most beautiful thing in the whole world---"

Her index finger gently stroked her son's delicate palm, and as his fingers flexed, she felt more proud in that moment, than she had ever done about anything before. A gentle knock at the door interrupted her private reverie.

"I'm sorry to disturb you Mrs Armstrong," the nurse whispered as she picked up Adrienne's flow chart. "It's just you've been out for a good few hours so I need to do a few checks."

"Adrienne---call me Adrienne---" she mumbled as the mention of 'Armstrong' flooded her brain with the memories she wasn't able to recall just moments earlier.

"Sure thing---Adrienne," the nurse replied hesitantly as she caught how thick her patient's voice had suddenly become. "Poor soul, I can only imagine how exhausting this last day has been for you. We were all worried that you both weren't going to make it at one point---your blood pressure was so high that it was a miracle that you didn't give yourself a heart attack!"

The nurse rambled on as she took Adrienne's said blood pressure and checked her pulse. Adrienne could hardly pay attention though as thoughts of Billie now swarmed her mind. But she couldn't allow herself to get worked up again, not now. Not with her precious son asleep just next to her.

"Where is Mr Armstrong?" she asked the nurse. She could see that the question was unexpected as her eyebrows lifted in surprise.

"Why? Would you like to see him?"

"Is he still here? That's all I want to know."

"He's never left the hospital. He's been sat in the same seat outside your room since you came out of theatre."

Adrienne took a deep breath to steady her nerves and clear her head. "Can you send him in when you leave please?"

Again, the nurse looked shocked at Adrienne's question. "Are you sure that's a good idea? You're still pretty delicate and so is your son."

"I'm not about to go all psycho again if that's what you mean. I just want a quiet minute or two with my baby's father."

Adrienne was careful not to call Billie her husband. She wanted as much distance from him as possible.

"But if I buzz for you, I want you to remove him from my room. And the hospital. Is that clear?"

"Adrienne---I don't think we can make him leave the hospital---"

"He's a threat to my health and you know it. I want him gone when I say so."

"I'm not promising anything---but I'll see what I can do."

The nurse made her final checks, made notes on Adrienne and the baby's flip chart, and then left. Through the window in the door Adrienne saw Billie rise from his seat. She saw him nod at what the nurse told him and then take a deep breath as if to steady himself as he opened the door.

As he made his way over to the bed, Adrienne never took her eyes away from the baby. Her concern for him was the only thing that kept her rooted to the bed rather than to go clawing at Billie's throat.

"Hey," he whispered, his voice near. "How you doing?"

Hesitantly, she withdrew her eyes from her son and turned to silently stare at her perpetrator. Her glassy gaze was reflected back at her in the dark sorrow of Billie's eyes.

"I'm so---" he began before Adrienne cut him off by reaching out and grabbing his jaw.

"No more apologies," she hissed. "My son and I don't need your pathetic whining."

"Don't you mean OUR son?" he muffled around her hold.

"No Billie. I don't. You automatically lost any right to call him your son when you decided to shove your dick up pastures new!" She could feel her temper boiling in her stomach so had to check herself and glance over at the incubator to remind her why she had to keep calm. "I'm done arguing with you Billie," she began again after a moment. "And I'm done with you."

"But I didn't DO anything Adrienne---I've told you that---"

"How DARE you stand there and lie to my face. And lie to your son?! I can't believe that after everything that we've already been through today, that you still can't be man enough and admit you've done wrong!"

"I have admitted I've done wrong Adrienne! I've already said that I shouldn't have turned to her for help. But whatever you think the emails say, then you've got the wrong end of the stick---"

"Your audacity disgusts me. But like I say, I'm done arguing with you. I asked you to come in to give you the chance to say goodbye to your son---"

"You---you're not serious? Adie?"

"This is the most serious I've ever been. I just feel like I can't be around you now---you've hurt me too much. You put the life of our son in danger and I want you leave so you can't hurt us any more."

She was surprised as he nodded solemnly and headed over to the incubator. But she felt no remorse for him when he bent his head and sobbed heavily as he stroked his son's head. "I love you," he choked and then turned back to Adie. "And I love you more than you think, or know Adrienne. Is there nothing I can do to show that to you?"

"No. It's too late. The biggest favour you can do for us now is just to leave us alone."

As Billie leant in to kiss her goodbye, she pressed her hand to his chest and pushed him away. "Just go."

She didn't see him leave as she closed her eyes and settled back into her pillow; she sighed, frustrated, as she heard the door reopen. Expecting it to be Billie she turned and glared at the entrance.

"Sorry for interrupting again Adrienne," to her relief it was the nurse. "Your hus---umm, Mr Armstrong left this outside---" she held out Billie's jacket. "Will he be coming back---it's just that his cell phone was resting on top of it?"

"Leave it with me---I'll make sure he gets it. Thank you."

The nurse placed the jacket at the bottom the bottom of the bed and then once again, Adrienne was alone. Spying the cell phone, she picked it up and turned it over in her hands. With the threads of an idea forming in her mind, she opened it up and went to Billie's contact list.

"Not tonight," she mumbled to herself as she found the name she was looking for. "You've done too much tonight, I'll deal with you tomorrow."

Yawning, she placed the cell phone, still open on the contact list, on her bedside table; then rolling over to look at her baby, she found herself grinning as he stretched in his sleep.
"Nothing's going to harm you," she whispered to him. "Not while I'm around. Tomorrow I'm going to sort this for us."

---