They passed over Stockton and then Modesto before their route took them further to the west, where the south San Francisco Bay Area came into range. From here, they could easily land in San Jose if needed. Beyond San Jose was Hollister and Salinas. Laura kept contracting regularly, but stayed in the nine-minute range. Just past Salinas, Jake began his descent, bringing them down from thirty-one thousand to four thousand at a rate of two thousand feet per minute. By the time they passed over Pasa Robles—the last possible diversion airfield with a NICU in easy striking distance—Jake knew they were going to make it.
He entered the familiar pattern for San Luis Obispo Regional, taking them offshore over Morro Bay and then turning for an ILS landing on Runway 11. He did not do many night landings as a matter of course, but he had done enough to be comfortable with it. The sky was clear and he could see the lighted runway from more than ten miles out. The ILS brought him down the glideslope smoothly. At five hundred feet above the ground, he disconnected the autopilot and took over control of the plane. He touched down neatly at 5:13 AM.
“We’re here,” he said, unnecessarily since both of his passengers were awake (Laura, like usual, had awakened when the flaps came down prior to landing).
“Thank God,” Laura breathed.
“Amen to that,” Celia echoed.
Jake did not bother taxiing to the hangar. Instead, he simply parked in the general aviation area and shut down the engines. He quickly tied down the plane while Celia unloaded the luggage from the cargo compartment. Jake jogged over to the hangar and opened it up. Inside was Laura’s Lexus that usually stayed in Granada Hills but that had been driven to SLO just for this mission. It was hooked up to its own trickle charger and fully fueled. He pulled the electrodes off the battery and got inside. The keys were in the glove box. He started up the engine and pulled out. After closing the hangar door and securing it, he jumped back in the car and drove quickly back to the terminal.
“All right,” he said as he got out and started picking up their bags. “How we doing?”
“I just had another one,” Laura said. “A little stronger this time.”
“What’s the timing?” Jake asked Celia.
“Still at nine minutes,” she reported.
“Cool,” Jake said relieved. “Let’s get our asses to the hospital.”
They loaded the trunk and climbed in, Laura in the front next to Jake, Celia in the back seat. Jake drove them quickly through the nearly empty streets and arrived at the entrance to the women’s and children’s center at Baptist Hospital of San Luis Obispo at 5:45 AM.
“I’ll go grab a wheelchair,” Celia said when Jake brought them to a stop in the circular entryway.
“I don’t need a fucking wheelchair,” Laura said testily. “I can walk.”
“Well ... yeah,” Celia said, “but I thought you were supposed to bring pregnant women in that way.”
“I can walk,” Laura repeated, stepping out and putting her feet on the pavement. “If someone would just grab my bag for me.”
“I’ll get it,” Jake said. “C, you stay with her. I’m going to go park.”
It took him the better part of five minutes to find a parking space and then jog back to the entrance. Once he was there, the three of them went through the sliding door and into the labor and delivery building. They were in a foyer with a few chairs scattered about and a large semi-circular desk staffed by a female registration clerk in scrubs and a male hospital security guard. There was nobody currently sitting in the chairs. The three of them walked up to the desk.
“Hello,” the female greeted. “Checking in?”
Jake looked at his two companions for a moment and then back at the clerk, irritation plainly visible on his face. A man and two women, one of whom was quite obviously in late pregnancy and holding her belly in a painful manner, come strolling into the labor and delivery department at 5:50 AM and she wants to know if they are checking in. He did not say what was on his mind, however. “Uh ... yes, we’re checking in,” he told her. “My wife seems to be in labor.”
“Okay,” the woman said brightly. “You’ve come to the right place then. Are you pre-registered here at Baptist?”
“Yes, I am,” Laura said. “Dr. Niven is my OB.”
“Okay,” she said. “Your name?”
“Laura Kingsley,” she said.
That caught the woman’s attention. The security guard’s too. They both stared at her for a moment, recognition showing in their eyes.
“Oh ... Mrs. Kingsley, of course,” she said. “How exciting for you!”
“It doesn’t feel all that exciting at the moment,” Laura said sourly.
“I’m sorry,” she said with seemingly sincere sympathy. “If I could just have your date of birth to look you up in the computer?”
“April 11, 1965,” Laura said.
She tapped on her computer keyboard for a moment and then looked at her screen. “Okay,” she said. “There you are. I see you’re already overdue.”
“Yes,” Laura said, “I...” she winced and grabbed her belly. “Oh God, here comes another one.”
“Let me just call the nurse to get you back into the triage room,” the woman said. She picked up a phone and dialed a number. After a moment, she spoke to someone on the other end. “Laura Kingsley is here checking in.” A pause. “That right ... Laura Kingsley. Jake Kingsley and a visitor are with her. She is reporting contractions.” Another pause. “Okay, will do.” She hung up the phone. “The nurse will be right out.”
“Very good,” Laura grunted, breathing a little heavily as the contraction faded.
While they were waiting, she took Jake’s name for the record and then asked who the visitor was.
“I’m Celia Valdez,” Celia told her.
The woman’s eyes got even bigger upon hearing this. She looked at Celia in awe for a moment. “Oh my God,” she said. “It is you! I thought you looked like you, but I didn’t think it really could be you. Wow! This is so amazing!”
“Thank you,” Celia said. “Laura and I are very good friends. She plays saxophone for me, you know.”
“I’ve heard that,” the woman said.
“It’s true,” Jake said. “Now, is there some visitor badge or something you’re supposed to be making for us?”
“Oh ... right, of course,” she said. She bent to her computer and went to work. A minute later, Laura had an armband on her wrist and Jake and Celia both had visitor stickers with their names and Laura’s name stuck to their shirts. A moment after that, one of the side doors opened and a middle-aged nurse in blue scrubs came through. She was pushing an empty wheelchair.
“Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley?” she asked.
“Yes,” Laura said.
“I’m Arlene, one of the L&D nurses. I’m going to get you triaged and see how you’re doing.”
She insisted that Laura sit in the wheelchair even though Laura insisted she was perfectly capable of walking.
“It’s hospital policy,” Arlene said simply. “We don’t want you falling down.”
“A little while ago I walked to the back of an airplane that was bouncing around like a moth on a porch light,” Laura told her. “I didn’t fall then.”
“You were in an airplane?” Arlene asked, her eyebrows coming up.
“That’s right,” Jake said. “Two and a half hours ago we were in Coos Bay, Oregon. We flew down here when labor started. It was a bit of a bumpy ride for the first part of the flight.”
The nurse was now looking at them as if they were insane. “You flew down from Oregon in the middle of the night while you were in labor?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Laura told her. “That was our plan all along. It worked out.”
“Wow,” Arlene whispered. “Anyway, as I was saying, it’s hospital policy that you sit in the chair. If you would just take a seat?”
Laura took a seat. She was wheeled back through a secured entrance and into a hallway, Jake and Celia trailing behind. From there, she was put in a room labeled TRIAGE. The triage room had two gurneys in it separated by a curtain. Monitoring equipment filled the back wall. Arlene directed Laura to sit on the left gurney (the right one was unoccupied currently). She then took her temperature, hooked her up to a blood pressure cuff and a pulse oximeter, and then asked her a few questions about when her labor pains started, what they felt like, if they had been timing them, how far apart they were. Laura answered everything and Celia even provided Arlene with her paper record of the contraction times and duration. Arlene was impressed with the document.