My 6-year-old granddaughter phoned me in panic just after midnight. “Mommy says the baby is coming! Help!” I asked, “Where’s daddy?” She answered, “He k!cked mommy’s tummy and left.”…..

“Dad,” she whispered through the mask.

“I’m here.” Harry took her hand, and her fingers felt freezing cold. “Lydia called me.”

The EMT near her feet glanced up. “Are you the father?”

“I am.”

“We need to move fast to Bozeman General. Severe blunt force trauma to the abdomen, possible placental abruption. The baby’s in distress.”

Harry understood trauma. He had witnessed enough of it on oil rigs when men became careless and steel stopped forgiving mistakes. He knew what bodies looked like when they were fighting to survive things they never should have endured.

The difference was those had been accidents.