“No wonder he drinks.” Brad looked dismayed at what he was hearing. “Think he'll stick with it?”
“Probably. I don't think he even considers any other option.” Certainly no one in their family had ever got divorced, but in the face of what he was hearing from Teddy, Brad would certainly have considered it. And one thing was sure, and that was that he was glad he hadn't fallen into Pattie's trap. The tragedy was that Greg had.
But the strangest thing of all was hearing all of the news so distantly from his brother. When he had been in Europe, everyone had made a point of staying in touch. They had written as often as they could, especially his mother. And now, since he and Serena had come to California, there was a measurable difference. Greg no longer wrote at all, feeling uncomfortable toward Brad perhaps, about his sudden marriage to Pattie. Or maybe, in light of what Teddy had just said, he was just desperately unhappy. Brad had heard from his father only once, but from his mother never. He had called her a few times at first, but her voice had been so chill, her remarks about Serena so cutting, that he no longer called her, and she never called him. And he hated to admit it, but he missed hearing from them. It was as though, in an odd way, he and Serena had become outcasts from an old familiar life.
27
Teddy had expected to be totally devoured by his studies when he got to Stanford. But as things turned out, it wasn't quite as ferocious during the first semester as he had feared. And although he had a mountain of reading to do most of the time, he still managed to come into town to see them, particularly at the end of Serena's pregnancy. He wanted to be there if something momentous happened. He had already told Brad that when the time came he wanted to be around. Brad had promised to call him at Stanford in case she went into labor, and they both assumed that Teddy would have time to come into town on the train and walk the halls with his brother for as long as it took the baby to arrive.
On the third weekend in December, Teddy was on vacation from school and staying with them, and Serena's due date was still four days away. Brad was gone for the day on mock-war maneuvers in San Leandro, and Teddy was upstairs studying for exams. Serena was in the baby's room, folding tiny white nightgowns and checking things over for what Teddy accused her of being the four hundredth time. She was just putting the nightgowns back into the drawer when she heard a strange sound almost like a pop, and then suddenly felt a gush of warm water run down her legs, and splash onto the shiny wood floor. She stood there for a moment, looking startled, and then walked slowly into the baby's bathroom, to get some towels so that the fluid wouldn't stain the floor. She felt an odd sensation of cramping both in her back and low in her stomach and knew that she had to call the doctor, but first she wanted to take care of the floor. He had already explained to her that at the first sign of pains, or if the bag of waters ruptured, she was to call him, but she knew from that time it would still take many hours. She wasn't even worried about Brad being in San Leandro. He would be back in time for dinner, and there was nothing he could do after he drove her to the hospital anyway. They wouldn't let him see her while she was in labor, and at least this way he would be spared some of the pacing with Teddy. There was no reason at all why Teddy couldn't take her to the hospital and then come back later with Brad.
She felt a sudden surge of excitement as she realized that the time had come and in a few hours she would be holding her baby and she laughed to herself as she knelt on the floor with the towels, but the laughter caught in her throat and she had to clutch the chest of drawers to keep from screaming, a cramp had seized her so brutally that she could barely breathe. It seemed hours before it had ended, and there was a damp veil of sweat on her forehead when at last it had passed. It was definitely time to call the doctor, she realized, and she was a little startled to discover that the first contraction could be so painful. No one had warned her that it would start with such vehemence. In fact the doctor had told her that at first she probably wouldn't even know what the pains were. But there was no mistaking this, or the next one, as it brought her to her knees halfway back to the bathroom with the damp towels, and she suddenly felt a pressure so sharp and so heavy that she fell to all fours on the floor. She held her stomach and moaned both in pain and terror, and in his room Teddy thought he heard a strange sound like an animal moaning, but after a moment he decided it was the wind and went back to his studies, but a minute or so later he heard it again. He picked up his head and frowned, and then suddenly he realized that it was someone groaning and he heard the sound of his own name. Frightened, he stood up, not sure of where it had come from, and then realizing that it was Serena, he ran out into the hall.
“Serena? Where are you?” But as he stood only a few feet away around a bend in the hallway, she was in the grips of yet another pain so forceful that she was unable to breathe or speak his name again. “Serena? Serena? Where are you?” A terrible moan met his ears, and he hastened toward it, coming through the door of the baby's room and finding her in the bathroom doorway, crouched on the floor. “Oh, my God, what happened?” She was so pale and in such obvious pain that he felt his own knees tremble. “Serena, did you fall?” Instinctively he reached for her pulse and found it healthy, but as he held the delicate wrist in his fingers, he saw her face contort with a pain so terrible that he winced as he watched and tried to take her in his arms as she screamed. But she fought to keep him away from her, as though she needed every bit of air and each touch was painful, and it was fully two minutes before her face relaxed and she could speak to him rationally again.
“Oh, Teddy … it's coming … I don't understand … it just started …”
“When?” He was desperately trying to gather his wits about him. He had only seen one childbirth, although he had already carefully studied all the chapters in his textbook on the subject, but he didn't feel at all equal to the task of delivering his own niece or nephew and he knew that he had to get her to the hospital at once. “When did it start, Serena? I'll call the doctor.”
“I don't know … a few minutes ago … ten … fifteen …” She was still trying to catch her breath and was sitting propped against the wall, as though she no longer had the strength to move.
“Why didn't you call me?”
“I couldn't. My water broke, and then it just hit me so hard, I couldn't even”—her breath began to come more quickly—”speak … oh, God … oh, Teddy …” She clutched at his arm. “Another … pain … now … ohhh …”It was a terrible groan of pain, and he held her hands in his own and watched her helplessly. Instinctively he had glanced at his watch when it began, and he saw with utter amazement that the contraction was over three and a half minutes long. He recalled what the textbook had said, when he read it only a few days earlier, that in general, contractions lasted from ten to ninety seconds, and it was only in rare cases that they extended past that, and that when they did, it was frequently in unusual labors, with frequent, prolonged, and violent contractions, which generally shortened the labor process by several hours. The more brutal the pains, the quicker the baby would be born.
With a look at Serena he ran his handkerchief across her forehead as the pain ended. “Serena, I want you to lie here. I'm going to call the doctor right now.”
“Don't leave me.”