"You're doing fine. Great, in fact."
And Tiel could have said the same for him. One had to admire the calm, competent manner in which he was dealing with the frightened girl.
"Are you okay?"
Tiel had been staring at him with overt admiration, but she didn't realize he was addressing her until he glanced up. "Me? I'm fine."
"You're not going to faint or anything?"
"I don't think so." Then, because his composure was contagious, she said, "No. I won't faint."
Sabra cried out, jerked into a semi-sitting position, and grunted with the effort of expelling the baby. Tiel rubbed her lower back, wishing there was more she could do to relieve the girl's suffering.
"Is she all right?" The anxious father was ignored.
"Try not to push," Doc reminded the girl. "It'll come now without your applying additional pressure. Ride the pain. Good, good. The head's almost out."
The contraction abated and Sabra's body collapsed with fatigue. She was crying. "It hurts."
"I know." Doc spoke in a soothing voice, but unseen by Sabra, his face registered profound regret. She was bleeding profusely from tearing tissue. "You're doing fine, Sabra," he lied. "Soon you'll have your baby."
Very soon, as it turned out. After all the concern the child's slow progress had given them, in the final seconds it was eager to make its way into the world.
During the next contraction, almost before Tiel could assimilate the miracle she was witnessing, she watched the baby's head emerge facedown. Doc's hand guided it only a little before it instinctually turned sideways. When Tiel saw the newborn's face, its eyes wide open, she murmured,
"Oh my God," and she meant it literally, like a prayer, because it was an awe-inspiring, almost spiritual phenomenon to behold.
But there the miracle stopped, because the baby's shoulders still could not clear the birth canal.
"What's happening?" Ronnie asked when Sabra screamed.
The telephone rang. Donna was nearest to it and she answered. "Hello?"
"I know it hurts, Sabra," Doc said. "The next two or three contractions should do it. Okay?"
"I can't," she sobbed. "I can't."
"This guy name o' Galloway wants to know who got shot," Donna informed them. No one paid any attention to her.
"Doing great, Sabra," Doc was saying. "Get ready. Pant."
Glancing at Tiel, he said, "Be her coach."
Tiel began to pant along with Sabra as she watched Doc's hands moving around the baby's neck. Noticing her alarm, he said softly, 'Just checking to make sure the cord wasn't wrapped around it."
"Is it okay?" Sabra asked through clenched teeth.
"So far it's a textbook birth."
Tiel heard Donna telling Galloway, "Nope, he ain't dead, but he deserves to be and so does the damn fool that sent him in here." She then slammed down the receiver.
"Here we go, here we go. Your baby's here, Sabra."
Sweat was running into Doc's eyebrows from his hairline, but he seemed unaware of it. "That's it. That's the way."
Her scream would haunt Tiel's dreams for many nights to come. More tissue was torn when the child's shoulders pushed through. A small incision under local anesthetic would have spared her that agony, but there was no help for it.
The only blessing to come of it was the wriggling baby that slipped into Doc's waiting hands. "It's a girl, Sabra.