On the Altar

Chapter 14

POV-Mystique, age 21

Roughly six months later.....

What happened after my huge fight with Mrs. Mason, was that my family and I spent a whole afternoon trying to convince Christy that she did not need to abort the babies just to please her mother and gain her acceptance. Christy had tried to do that when she was a child, but her mother was never happy with her, and it doesn't help that she is a devout Christian who frowns upon s*x before marriage.

That's why Christy did it, but, anyways.

I thought Christianity meant to love all living beings and treat them as your own, help people in need without expecting anything in return. But, according to Mrs. Mason, it means being a inhumanely perfect person, putting yourself on the back burner to please people and sacrificing the biggest parts of yourself to please others.

Christy did that for the first fifteen years of her life, but Jen and I were there to be the shoulder on which she cried after that. When I was at college, she had started high school with all these new people, new feelings and hormones, with no one to rant to, she chose the wrong crowd to be friends with. And the rest, as we say, is history.

Christy and Jen have been simultaneously pregnant. Christy has been living in my grandparents' New York apartment with them because there aren't any gynecologists near the beach. Mum an Dad are at work all day, so they help her with chores and finances while my grandparents keep her company. I was there for summer break before my third year of med school here at Massachusetts. Jen hangs out with her all day and only goes home when Marty comes to pick her up at night, after his duty is over. 

Jen experienced some bleeding a few weeks after Christmas, and Dr. Green told her to take extra maternity leave, for the sake of her babies. She has been home since month four, and now at month seven, she's becoming cranky. She'd go nuts if she didn't have Christy with her.

I feel so bad for abandoning my best friends at such a critical time in their lives, but I have med school. I can't exactly ditch it. And, anyway, I plan to go back to New York for a couple days when Christy and Jen give birth. And then, I'll move there permanently, Brooks-Anderson Memorial is a teaching hospital, and the Chief of Obstetrics has made it clear that I have a place there if I want it. I'll complete my residency, then work and look after my nieces and nephews or whichever is the gender of Christy's and Jen's kids. They don't wish to find out, just want it to be ten fingers and ten toes, each.

All was going so well, when suddenly one day, I get the call....

_____

"Hey Misty, you need to get here ASAP!" Marty says frantically. "I'm freaking out, so is everyone else, please be here on the next plane." He seemed to be crying. 

"Marty, what happened?" I ask him while simultaneously booking a ticket to New York on my laptop.

"I-I don't know, Misty. I was at work, when Christy called and said that Jen was feeling uneasy and they were going to the hospital. I told my captain that my wife was pregnant and wasn't feeling well, so he let me take the rest of the day off. I get to the hospital to find Jen on a bed, passed out, Christy on a chair and Dr. Green saying something to her. Dr. Green said something about one of the babies that I-I just couldn't decipher, I was too focused on Jen. She looked so pale, Misty. I-I don't know what to do." He sounds so sad, I wish I could jump in from the phone and tell him everything would be just fine. 

As he says all this, my ticket is confirmed and I start to quickly pack my bag. I put the phone on speaker so that I can use both of my hands. "Give the phone to Dr. Green, Marty. I'm sure it's just her blood pressure or something," I lie smoothly, so as to not invoke more panic in him. He hands the phone to Dr. Green, and I ask her, "Please tell me what happened?" 

She lets out a long sigh and says, "Misty, the umbilical cord is wrapped around one of the twins' necks. We need to do an emergency C-section, or the baby could die and Jen could be in danger." "DIE?!"  I hear Marty exclaim in horror in the background. "Thank you. Can you please give it back to Marty?" She hands over the phone and he says, now sobbing wholly, "M-Misty, I-I love her, I-I can't breathe without her. Will she be okay?" My bags are packed and I write a quick note to my roommate and possibly best friend in med school, Lily, that I'd gone back home for an emergency, and would be back in a couple days. It's the weekend, so I have no classes, just some homework that I could do just as easily from New York.

I stick the the note on the fridge, and say to Marty, "Martin, honey, Jen will be all right. I'm thinking Dr. Green  wants you to sign a consent form for the C-section? Please do that. It will be the best for you and Jen and the babies. I promise with my life. Good luck, sweetie. I'll be there in five hours," as lovingly and soothingly as I can muster without breaking into tears. "Th-Thank you, Misty." He replies in a wobbly voice which breaks my heart. "Love you, sweetie." I say to him. "Love you." He replies and cuts the phone.

I get out of campus and into a cab, telling the driver to go into the airport. He turns around to glance at me, but stares with shock, instead, because of the tears that are falling down my face, freely.

Oh, God, please let Jen be all right...