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Mary used one of the ropes around her waist to tie herself in. If she should slip, it would be bad, but she wouldn’t splatter her brains over the sidewalk.
The mother held her smallest child still while Mary wrapped the rope around and around. She tugged and tested. “Good,” she told the mom.
Straddling the newly opened space, Mary slid her legs between the next bars over. She positioned herself so that her knees would bend over the edge when she leaned back again. Even with her safety belt in place, the idea of going upside down again stopped her heart. Mary pounded a fist into her chest.
In her pole classes, Mary had just advanced to the point where she was learning how to do inversions. Yes, she was new to these sensations. But if she could hang six feet off the ground upside down from a class pole with only the friction of her skin to keep her from falling on her head, then hanging like a kid on the monkey bars—no matter the height—should be no problem, right?
“Rope secured?” Mary yelled.
“Affirmative. Rope secured.”
“Get ready,” she called down, but really, that directive was for herself.
“Ready!”
The kid with the rope tied around him must have just figured out what would happen because he freaked. While he clung to his mother, fighting and screaming, the mother forced one of his feet into Mary’s hand and then the other.
The mother trusted Mary with this child’s life.
Could she do this?
Honestly? They had no choice.
Very shortly, they were all going to die. So even if Mary dangled the child and dropped him. There were men along the way below who might grab hold.
Doing anything now gave the child a better chance of surviving the next few minutes.
And as if mirroring Mary’s thoughts, the woman said, “He’s going to die if you don’t go, the boys will die. Just go! Just do it!”
Oh, man. This was the part of nursing that Mary hated most. It was the point when a mother stood over her child and looked her in the eye: this is my everything. My world is in your hands. I’m giving you my life when I hand you this child. I’m trusting you. Depending on you.
When Mary had jumped on top of the gurneys, straddling an unconscious child so that she could bag while her fellow nurses ran them down the hall, moving the bed toward the critical care resources needed for survival, she’d been part of a team. The team was trained. They knew—or had a darned good idea—what came next. There was no team up here with her.
There was just the desperation of the mother’s utter flat calm.
Chapter Twelve
As the mother held her squirming, terrified kid, Mary gripped that child’s ankles with her full adrenaline-fueled strength.
“Now!” Mary screamed and went over backward, jerking the kid through the bars.
Dropping backward, Mary slid the child along her body.
As soon as the boy left the woman’s grasp. She grabbed back at Mary’s ankles, giving Mary a counterweight that would keep her from slipping off the balcony.
The weight of the child pulled Mary’s arms long. Her hands had become vices, trapping the child’s ankles as he swung—upside down and screeching—five stories above the glass-sparkled ground.
Mary hung there, feeling her body stretched by his weight, feeling the tug of the sinews in her shoulders and the begging scream for relief from the nerves behind her knees.
There was no oxygen upside down. There was snot and saliva.
“I have him. Release.”
Mary’s fingers froze in the grip. And though she shouted at her hands to cooperate, she couldn’t make them comply.
“I have him,” the man hollered. “Release his feet and get the next child.”
In her mind, Mary was back at pole class when the teacher would say, “Let go with your right hand. Trust that your body will hold in place. Let go and reach.”