Happy Birthday: A Novel

April smiled to herself as she started work, knowing that by then Jack and her mother were in Paris. He had been a wonderful addition to her mother’s life. Her mother said she didn’t want to marry him, she didn’t need to. They had agreed that they were comfortable with the status quo, and neither of them had any desire to get married. In their hearts, they already were. They had been inseparable since December. Jack said it was the longest relationship he’d had since his marriage, and it was for Valerie too. And by far the best one.

They had a particularly busy night at the restaurant. Mike was out, having a long, elaborate dinner, for a review: She liked going with him sometimes, but they had too many reservations for her to join him. The restaurant was doing better than ever, and their reservations were a month out now. At this rate, she would pay her mother back earlier than she’d hoped.

Everyone in the kitchen was working hard that night, the dining room was full, and one of the sous-chefs was working the pans. April had her back turned when she heard a scream, and turned around to see a wall of flame on the stove. One of the pans had caught fire, and it had already leaped to a stack of towels that were in flames, as one of the sous-chefs threw them to the floor and stomped on them. While he did, the fire on the stove got even more out of control. One of the waiters was in the kitchen, and grabbed the fire extinguisher and pointed it at the stove, and in her panic, April took it from him and aimed it at the stove herself. But the fire wouldn’t abate, and was getting worse. People were screaming, and Jean-Pierre ran in, and tried to pull April away. She pushed him off, and was aiming the fire extinguisher steadily, but the whole kitchen was in flames by then, and people were running out of the restaurant.

April could hear fire engines in the distance, but they weren’t coming fast enough. Jean-Pierre and the others were screaming at her to leave, but she wouldn’t. The restaurant that was her baby and first love was going up in flames, and she wouldn’t leave it. The fire had leaped into the dining room through the open door, and the sirens kept getting louder. She felt her arms and the back of her hands burning, and suddenly there were men in the kitchen, finally, with hoses and water everywhere. The kitchen was thick with smoke, and a man in a black coat was carrying her out. Her head was swimming, and people were staring at her when they set her down on the sidewalk and put an oxygen mask on her. She kept fighting to get up, she could still see the flames inside the restaurant, and they were shooting water everywhere. The restaurant was going to be destroyed and she was sobbing, as two of the waiters knelt beside her and wouldn’t let her stand up.

She heard the firemen call for an ambulance then, and shouting to someone that she was pregnant. All she wanted was to get up and go back inside. She was crying so hard she couldn’t stop. The ambulance was there minutes later, and just as she was fighting them not to take her, April fainted. One of the waiters had called Mike on his cell phone by then. They said the restaurant was on fire, and looked like it would be destroyed, and April had just been taken away by ambulance, but they didn’t know to which hospital.

Mike called 911 frantically and they told him to go to the Weill-Cornell burn center. All he could think about was April and their baby. The waiter had told him that she had fought the fire herself and wouldn’t leave until the firemen carried her out.

Mike literally bolted out the door of the restaurant he was reviewing, and ran out into the street. He hailed a cab and was at the hospital in less than ten minutes. April was in the trauma unit, and he told the woman at the desk that she was eight months pregnant.

“Yes, we know,” she said calmly. “There’s an obstetrician with her now.”

“Is she in labor?” He looked panicked. What if the baby died? Or April did? He didn’t even know how badly hurt she was.

“Not that I know,” the nurse at the desk answered.

“I want to see her!” he said, looking desperate.

“She’s in cubicle 19C.” She pointed to the double doors and he flew through them, and found himself amid a sea of people with gunshot wounds, heart attacks, head injuries, and the people with them and ER personnel, and then he saw her. She was unconscious, with an oxygen mask on, her hair still in a braid, her enormous belly sticking up, and they were treating the burns on her hands and arms. She had an IV in, and two doctors and a nurse were with her.

“I’m her husband,” he said, without even thinking, and he meant it. “How is she?” April was deathly pale, and they were monitoring the baby. The heartbeat sounded strong.

“She took in a lot of smoke. Second-degree burns on her arms. How pregnant is she?” the obstetrician asked with a look of concern.

“Thirty-five weeks.”