It hadn’t been more than 3 weeks later when I awoke to the smell of smoke.
My groggy brain slowly came to the terrifying realization: Shit, Smoke = FIRE!
“Grace,” I screamed, “get up, please wake up, babe!”
“Huh?” she muttered. I half dragged her out of bed before she realized what was happening.
“Oh, God, we have to get out of here,” I said
“How?”
“Stay back,” I told her as I felt the door. It was warm, but not burning hot, and I knew we were going to have to go that way, “Stay down and hold on to me, Grace, okay?”
She looked scared, but she nodded anyway.
As soon as I opened the door the smoke blinded our views. We stayed as low to the ground as possible, ran into several dead ends, and we were becoming delirious. Grace kind of took over by now and she’s the one who led us to a window that we managed to kick out. We fell to the ground in a heap and I held her tighter than I ever had. We still had to get away from the house, so I literally carried Grace to the road, fairly far away from the fire.
We watched what we had worked to get and keep go up in flames, and we were completely and utterly heartbroken. We were both crying by now, and coughing from the heavy smoke. I heard the sirens in the distance and hoped they would get here soon.

It was then that Grace passed out and I was unable to get her to wake up.
I was screaming, which hurt like hell on my already raw voice, for someone to please help, to do something, and the neighbors gathered, but none were exactly helpful. Finally the firefighters arrived, as did the ambulance. They wanted me to ride in a different ambulance than Grace, but I refused, saying that I as fine, over and over again. She needed help a lot worse than I did and I wanted to be there. Finally they agreed.
Then the bombarding of questions began.
Her name? Grace Areilo.
Date of birth? Novmber 5th, 1990
Health problems? None.
I couldn’t think fast enough. They didn’t ask if she was pregnant, so I just told them anyway. When I did, I felt all eyes roam over to me.
How pregnant? About 6 weeks.
Once again, all eyes roamed to me, and then they roamed to Grace. She had to breathe through an oxygen mask and it killed me to see her like that. She was so…helpless, and let me tell you – Grace is rarely helpless.

Once we arrived at the hospital, we were poked and prodded, and we had to wait to see if our baby was still alive. The stress was killing me, and I had to get out of the room for a minute. I ran to the bathroom, puked, and looked at myself in the mirror. I was covered in soot and the tears were still streaming down my face. The realization that we were homeless, broke, and that our baby could be dead, on top of the fact that Grace and I could be put to blame for a fire we didn’t cause, and she could have permanent lung damage all came to me at once. I feel like we had taken 10 steps forward and about a million back.
I walked back to the room and held Grace so tightly it hurt. Finally they came and took her back to an ultrasound room. We were, despite our lack of religion, praying so hard to hear something. Then, we heard our baby’s heartbeat. It was the faintest sound, but it was there. And that meant, of course, that we still had a baby. We were so relieved and the tears of pain soon turned to tears of joy. The doctors left us in her room alone, and I apologized.
“For what?” she whispered, her voice even more hoarse than mine.
“Because I should’ve done something more to get us out.”
No,” she whispered, “it’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault. It happened and yes, it’s horrible, but we’re still here and so is our baby, and I love you and nothing’s gonna change. Okay?”
“I know,” I said, “I love you so much and I just…I never saw this coming. But I want you to know that I’m not leaving no matter how hard it gets.”
“Yeah, I know you’re staying, or else you would’ve been gone by now.”
And with that, I squeezed on the bed with her, snuggled against her, and whispered to her until she fell asleep.
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Rather ominous turn, I know.

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