Jim relaxed, lying back on the cot.
Mom stroked my hair, then leaned over and kissed my forehead.
“You’re frowning,” she said.
“I’m worried about the baby. I’m worried about George.” I looked over at Jim. His eyes filled with tears.
“George?” Mom turned to look at Jim. Jim covered his face with his hands.
Mom clucked. “Let’s start with the baby. Why are you worried?”
I shook my head and took a deep breath. “Don’t know. Nervous, maybe.”
Mom patted my hand. “Well, that’s normal. Everything is going to be fine. When did your labor start?”
“Around nine last night. Didn’t you get our messages? Jim must have called at least three times. Where were you?”
Mom settled herself in the chair next to my bed. “I was at Sylvia’s. She had a dinner party. There was a lady there who wanted to take home some leftover crackers. Can you imagine? They had sat out all night on an hors d’oeuvres plate. And she wanted to take them home!”
Mom knew me too well. She was making small talk, trying to distract me from thinking thoughts full of doom and gloom. It was working. I was actually laughing.
I peered over at Jim. His eyes were closed, a grimace on his face. He wasn’t listening to Mom. He was stressed out. Mom followed my gaze.
“Now, what’s happened with George?”
Jim flinched. “Let’s not go there, Mom. We got a phone call, right, Kate? Just a call-”
I clutched Mom’s hand. “Not just a call! It was a call from the medical examiner. They found a body in the bay and George’s bags on the pier.”
Mom eyes turned into saucers and she gasped.
“We don’t really know anything yet,” Jim said. “Let’s not get all melodramatic.”
Mom and I exchanged looks. “Everything will be fine, you’ll see.” She gave my hand a squeeze, then released it and folded her hands into her lap.
An awkward silence descended over us. Just then the nurse slipped into the room. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I want to see how far along we are.”
Jim watched the nurse, his brow creased in concern. I tried to remain calm, my attention returning to the beeping monitor reporting the baby’s heart rate.
“Oh, goodness, the baby’s practically here,” the nurse announced.
I sat up a little. Mom clapped her hands in childish delight and Jim crossed the room to stand next to me.
“I’ll call your doctor,” the nurse said, turning to leave.
Mom started to follow her. “I’ll be right back. I just need to feed my parking meter.”
The nurse spun around and stared at Mom. “Don’t leave now. You may miss the birth.”
“The baby’s coming that fast?” Mom asked.
“I hope I can get the doctor here in time,” the nurse said, rushing out.
“I hope I don’t get a ticket,” Mom said.
I laughed. “Why didn’t you park in the hospital parking lot?”
Mom shrugged. “There was a spot in front.” She hurried across the room to the window, straining to get a peek at her car.
Jim tried to hide the smile that played on his lips. He leaned in close to me and whispered, “Here I am worried about you, the baby, and my brother the screwup, while I could be worrying about really important stuff like getting a parking ticket.”
I giggled. “Or who took home stale crackers from a party.”
Our eyes locked. Jim’s face broke into a huge smile. “I love you, Kate.”
Mom came away from the window. “No ticket yet, that I can see.”
Dr. Greene, my ob-gyn, popped into the room, her brown hair held in place with two tortoiseshell clips. She walked straight to my side, looking confident in her blue scrubs. She smiled into my face. “How are you doing, Kate?”
“Okay, I guess. I don’t feel a thing.”
She smiled wider. “That’s the beauty of modern medicine. Just push when I tell you.”
After about twelve minutes of pushing, Dr. Greene said the words I’ll never forget in all my life: “Kate, reach down and grab your baby.”
What? She wanted me to pull the baby out?
Startled by her words, I instinctively reached down.
There she was. I grasped my baby girl and pulled her to my chest.
I clutched her to me with a desperation I had never felt before, trying to press her right into my heart. Everyone else in the room seemed to fade into the background. My little angel, my little love.
She was the most beautiful thing in the world. Her round, pretty face was punctuated with a button nose, and strawberry blond hair graced the top of her head. Dark blue eyes peered at me, examining me with the wisdom of an old soul.
I realized Jim was crying. He reached down and enveloped the baby and me in his arms and I forgave him for muting the TV.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Mom pull a hankie from her purse and wipe a tear. “Don’t worry, darling, I’ve already memorized her face. No one’s switching her on us.”
•CHAPTER THREE•
We were moved to a bright recovery room with a view of Saint Ignatius Church. Jim slouched in a corner of the room on a hospital cot.
Mom had left for the day, ticketless. It was only 5 P.M., but felt much later.
I held my sleeping pumpernickel in my arms. I was told that newborns mainly sleep the first week. It’s difficult to wake them even to nurse. Right now sleep sounded great. Jim and I were exhausted.
“I wish I had space in this stupid hospital bed for you,” I said, raising the bed slightly, then lowering it again.
Who could ever get comfortable in one of these?
“Don’t worry, honey, I’m fine,” Jim grumbled from the corner cot.
“I miss you way over there.”
He stood, stretched, and hobbled over to me, his legs cramped from a long night of worry and catnapping on a bad cot. “Let me hold her awhile.”
I handed the baby to him. He settled himself against the windowsill and admired her. “Hope for the next generation.”
I knew, of course, that his remark was connected to George. But I didn’t have the energy to think about that. “I need to sleep awhile, honey. .”
I was already drifting off when I felt the covers being tucked against my chin. “Take care of Laurie,” I mumbled.
“Is that her name?”
“If you like it,” I said, drifting to sleep.
“I do. Get some rest. I promise to take good care of Laurie.”
I slept a fitful hour, dreaming that I was swimming in the bay. In the dream, I became entangled with a dead body that seemed to pull me under. As I freed myself from the corpse to swim toward the surface, my ankle caught in the strap of a bag. The sound of cries pierced the water. Suddenly, the water was full of bags and corpses. A shrill cry startled me awake.
I gasped for air as I awoke. Jim was standing over me with the baby in his arms. “Are you all right?”
I nodded, dumbfounded.
“Sorry, honey, I didn’t mean to wake you. She’s crying and I don’t know what to do.” Jim handed me the baby.
“I think she’s hungry, or wet, or both.” I placed her near my breast. Instead of latching on, she only cried louder, howling into my face. Jim laughed but I felt like crying, too.
“Maybe we should call the nurse,” I said.
Before we could do anything, a tall, slender African-American nurse glided into the room. Her name tag read GISELLE.
“What is it now? Little baby girl giving her parents a hard time? Hush now, they don’t know what they’re doing, girl.” She rewrapped Laurie’s blanket around her.
In an instant the crying stopped. Laurie gratefully curled into Giselle. Jim and I stared at her.