The Bridge Tender by Marybeth Whalen

Author:Marybeth Whalen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2014-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

After they both dozed for a couple hours, they got back in her car and headed toward the bridge. They were waiting when it swung shut to finally allow passage. She looked at the bridge tender’s house, expecting to see Kyle’s face and give him a wave, but she saw another man with gray hair instead. She told herself that she wasn’t disappointed and that it didn’t matter whether she saw him or not. What mattered right now was getting Amber to a doctor.

Thankfully there wasn’t a crowd in the ER of the local hospital when they got there and they took Amber back right away. Emily was impressed at the girl’s resourcefulness. She had her insurance card ready and filled out the forms with an efficiency that surpassed her age. She really was on her own, Emily realized. In that respect, Emily felt that they were kindred spirits. Each of them, when it came down to it, had no one to rely on except herself. She reached over and put her hand over Amber’s. “It’ll be okay,” she whispered.

Amber, who seemed on the verge of tears, nodded. A moment later a nurse called her name. “I’ll be right here,” she promised as Amber walked away.

Emily flipped through old magazines—a Woman’s Day from two years prior and a Runner’s World from six months earlier. It was practically a new release, she thought with a smile. She was debating taking up running—maybe training for a marathon—when a nurse came and fetched her. “Ma’am,” the nurse said. “Your daughter would like you to come back and be with her now.”

Embarrassed, Emily started to tell her that Amber wasn’t her daughter, but decided not to correct her. What difference did it make if that nurse thought wrong? At the rate she was going, Amber might be the closest she ever got to having a daughter. Never mind that—but for a teen pregnancy of her own—the girl couldn’t be hers. She followed the nurse, thinking how touching it was that Amber had asked for her.

She found Amber in a small exam room wearing a backward gown, sitting up on a gurney with a blanket over her. “They’re going to do an ultrasound,” Amber said. “To see if there’s a heartbeat.” Emily crossed the room and took a seat on a small wheeled stool beside the gurney. She reached for Amber’s hand and it didn’t feel weird at all. Amber took it, looking grateful. “I just didn’t want to be alone when I found out,” she said.

In a few moments a tech came in pushing an ultrasound machine on wheels. “So,” she said. “You’ve been having some bleeding?” the tech asked, all business, plugging the machine in and adjusting knobs as Amber began recounting the last few hours to the tech who nodded sympathetically but didn’t seem to need to know the details.

Once she was happy with the machine, she pushed open Amber’s gown in the middle, revealing a little pooch of stomach. She caught Emily’s eye.

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