Uncle Roger had finally evicted George six months ago. There had been an unpleasant incident. Roger had been vague about it, only telling us that the sheriff had to physically remove George from his house. As far as we knew, George had been staying with friends since then.
I glanced at Jim. His face was unreadable, the excitement of the pending birth diluted by the phone call we had received.
I touched Jim’s leg. “Just because his bags were found at the pier doesn’t mean it’s him.”
Jim nodded.
“I mean, what did the guy say? The body was badly decomposed, right? How long would bags sit on a pier in San Francisco? Overnight?”
“Hard to say,” he muttered.
I rubbed his leg trying to reassure him. “I can’t believe any bag would last more than a couple days, max, before a transient, a kid, or someone else would swipe it.”
Jim shrugged and looked grim.
A transient? Why had the medical examiner asked that? George had always lived on the fringe, but homeless?
Please God, don’t let the baby be born on the same day we get bad news about George.
Bad news-what an understatement. How could this happen? I closed my eyes and said a quick prayer for George, Jim, and our baby.
I dug my to-do list out from the bottom of the hospital bag.
To Do (When Labor Starts):
1. Call Mom.
2. Remember to breathe.
3. Practice yoga.
4. Time contractions.
5. Think happy thoughts.
6. Relax.
7. Call Mom.
Oh, shoot! I’d forgotten to call Mom. I found my cell phone and pressed speed dial. No answer.
Hmmm? Nine P.M., where could she be?
I left a message on her machine and hung up.
I looked over the rest of the list and snorted. What kind of idealist had written this? Think happy thoughts? Remember to breathe?
I took a deep breath. My abdomen tightened, as though a vise were squeezing my belly. Was this only the beginning of labor? My jaw clenched as I doubled over. Jim glanced sideways at me.
He reached out for my hand. “Hang in there, honey, we’re almost at the hospital.”
The vise loosened and I felt almost normal for a moment.
I squeezed Jim’s hand. My husband, my best friend, and my rock. I had visualized this moment in my mind over and over. No matter what variation I gave it in my head, never in a million years could I have imagined the medical examiner calling us right before my going into labor and telling us what? That George was dead?
Before I could process the thought, another contraction overtook me, an undulating and rolling tightening, causing me to grip both my belly and Jim’s hand.
When my best friend, Paula, had given birth, she was surrounded mostly by women. Me, her mother, her sister, and of course, her husband, David. All the women were supportive and whispered words of encouragement while David huddled in the corner of the room, watching TV. When Paula told him she needed him, he’d put the TV on mute.
When I’d recounted the story for Jim, he’d laughed and said, “Oh, honey, David can be kind of a dunce. He doesn’t know what to do.”
Another vise grip brought me back to the present. Could I do this without drugs? I held my breath. Urgh! Remember to breathe.
I crumpled the to-do list in my hand.
Bring on the drugs.
•CHAPTER TWO•
After checking into the hospital and spending several hours in “observation,” we were finally moved to our own labor and delivery room.
“When can I get the epidural?” I asked the nurse es corting us.
“I’ll call the anesthesiologist now,” she said, leaving the room.
Jim plopped himself onto the recliner in the corner and picked up the remote control.
“Hey, I’m having contractions here. . they’re starting to get strong. Aren’t you supposed to be breathing with me?”
“Right,” he nodded, flipping through the channels. “He he he, ha ha ha,” he said in an unconvincing rendition of Lamaze breathing.
“Jim!”
“Hmmm?”
“I need your help now.”
His eyebrows furrowed. “No TV?”
“Get me the epi. . oooh.”
He pressed the mute button. I sighed and gave in to the contractions.
Another hour passed before the anesthesiologist walked in. I was horrified to see that he looked all of about seventeen.
“Sorry to make you wait,” he said. “There was an emergency C-section.”
“I’m just glad you’re here now,” Jim said.
The anesthesiologist laughed. “How are we doing?”
“She’s doing great, really great,” Jim said.
I would have told him to shut up, but that would have taken more energy than I had. Was this teeny bopper qualified to put a fifteen-inch needle in my spine? What exactly could go wrong with the epidural? I was about to chicken out when the nurse rushed in.
“Oh, here you are,” she said to the anesthesiologist. “Let’s go, before she’s too far along.”
Before I could back out, my torso and legs were blissfully numb.
The nurse placed a metal contraption, resembling a suction cup, on my belly and studied a monitor. “Do you feel anything?”
“Nope.”
“Good, because that was a big contraction.”
I smiled. “I didn’t feel a thing.”
The anesthesiologist nodded as he left the room. The nurse advised us to get some rest. Jim returned to the recliner and put the volume back up on the TV. I glanced at the clock: 3 A.M. already. Where was my mother?
My thoughts drifted back to George. What had his bags been doing on the pier? An image of a swollen corpse with a John Doe tag on its foot crept into my mind. I shook my head trying to dissociate the image from George and willed myself to think sweet, pink, baby thoughts.
I scratched my thigh to double-check the effectiveness of the epidural.
During my pregnancy, I had heard dozens of horror stories about infants with umbilical cords wrapped around their tiny necks, only to have the doctor push the infant’s head back into the birth canal and perform an emergency C-section. In most of the stories the poor mother had to go through the C-section without any anesthesia. At least I’d already had the epidural.
At 7 A.M., the door to the room opened and my mother appeared, dressed in jeans and sneakers, with binoculars around her neck.
“How you doing?” she asked cheerfully. Without waiting for a reply, she reached up and put two hands on Jim’s shoulders pulling him down to her five-foot-two level to kiss his cheeks. After which she handed him her purse and said, “I’m here now, Jim. You can sleep.”
Jim smiled, clutched the purse, and happily retreated to his cot. Mom had adopted Jim long ago, even before we were married; it was a relationship Jim treasured since he had lost his own parents so many years earlier.
Just seeing Mom relaxed me. She placed her freezing hands on my face and kissed my checks. “Are you running a fever?”
“No. Your hands are cold. Where have you been? You look like a tourist,” I joked.
“What do you mean?”
I indicated the binoculars.
“Well, I want pictures of my first grandchild!”
From Jim’s corner came a snorted laugh, the kind that comes out through your nose when you’re trying to suppress it. I laughed freely.
“What?” Mother demanded.
“They’re binoculars,” Jim said.
Mother glanced down at her chest.
“Oh, dear! I meant to grab the camera.”