by Leslie Gould
“Caye, gotta go,” she said without missing a beat. She didn’t tell Caye what had happened—she felt like such a bad mom when it came to Liam. She was sure Caye would never put a child on a timeout near a drape cord or leave a two-year-old unattended in the tub.
Jill heard voices in the hospital hallway. She listened for a moment, expecting a nurse to come in and take her temperature or blood pressure. Laughter followed the talking. A nearby door opened and closed. Jill stretched out her legs.
Liam was the child she had longed for most and then didn’t know what to do with. As a baby, he cried and couldn’t be consoled. He didn’t want to be held unless he was nursing. He wouldn’t take a cup until he was weaned.
When she met Caye, she already wanted to get pregnant again, but when Audrey was born, Jill became desperate for another baby, lusted after another baby. When she held five-pound Audrey in the hospital during the first minutes of life, Jill, for the first time, even thought a little girl would be wonderful.
Hudson had been napping when Caye called that afternoon of Audrey’s birth. It was a gorgeous April Saturday in a long stretch of sunny, warm days. Caye, Jill, Hudson, and Andrew had gone to the mall in Medford in the morning. Rob was out of town on business. Nathan was coaching the eighth-grade baseball team at a game in Roseburg.
“Do you want to do lunch?” Jill had asked Caye. “We could get food from the deli and take it to the park.”
“We’d better not,” Caye responded. “I need to get some things done before Nathan gets home.”
“Are you feeling okay?” Jill noticed that Caye’s face looked flushed.
“Just tired.”
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Caye said two hours later when Jill picked up the phone.
Jill hated it when people started a conversation that way. “Bother me?” she wanted to scream. “Please, bother me.”
“But I think I’m in labor, and Nathan isn’t home yet.”
“I’ll be right over,” Jill said, grabbing her keys before she hung up the phone. She ran down the hall of her split-level house and scooped Hudson out of his crib.
“Gonna go see Andrew,” she chirped at her startled son.
As Jill backed her Jeep Cherokee out of the garage, she tried to remember exactly how early the baby would be—five weeks, maybe five and a half. Definitely early.
Caye’s doctor was in Medford, so unless labor was really slow and Nathan got back, Jill would need to drive her over and stay with Andrew. Jill accelerated as she turned onto the Boulevard. She felt anxious. Why hadn’t she asked how far apart Caye’s contractions were?
“It’s bad,” Caye croaked as Jill hurried through the front door. “How far apart are they?” “Three minutes.”
“Three minutes! Did you call your doctor?” “The answering service lady is paging her.” “Where’s Andrew?”
“Playing his new Fisher-Price computer game.” Jill rushed to the staircase, “Hey, you!” she called up to Andrew. “We’re going to Medford. We’re leaving now!” “Just a minute.” “No. Now” Jill commanded.
Andrew came running down the stairs. “What’s the matter?”
“The baby’s coming. Everyone out to the car. Do you have a bag?” Jill asked, turning toward Caye.
Caye pointed to the Reebok sports bag by the door and then leaned back against the living room wall, her breath quickening, her eyes and face scrunched.
Jill looked at her watch.
Caye shivered when the contraction ended. “Sixty seconds,” Jill said. “And strong. Maybe we should call 911. I’ll call and then go get Hudson out of the car.” “No. Lets just go.”
By the time they’d all made their way to the Jeep parked on the street, Caye had stopped for another contraction. Jill opened the back door for Andrew and then, when the contraction had ended, helped her friend up into the vehicle, pushing from behind. They both started to laugh.
“This is crazy,” said Caye as she buckled her seat belt. “It wasn’t like this at all with Andrew. It took—” Caye gasped.
“Not another one,” Jill said, glancing at her watch. “Just over a minute apart. I’m taking you to the Ashland hospital. If they say it’s okay, I’ll take you on to Medford.”
When the contraction was over, Caye answered firmly, “No. Just take me to Medford. Please. I don’t know if our insurance will cover the hospital here.”
“Who cares?” Jill retorted. “Do you want to have the baby in my car?” It was her first glimpse into Caye and Nathan’s money issues.
“Medford,” Caye repeated, unfastening her seat belt. She put the seat back, against Andrew’s feet, and positioned herself on her knees, face to face with her son.
“You’re not thinking clearly,” Jill said. “You’re five weeks early, your contractions are just over a minute apart, and you’re fifteen minutes from your hospital. You have a choice. I’m either taking you to the Ashland hospital or calling 911 with my cell phone.”
Jill pulled onto the Boulevard.
“Are you okay?” Andrew asked softly from the backseat, straining his neck, his big brown eyes wide.
“She’ll be okay,” Jill said, glancing at Andrew in the rearview mirror and then looking quickly at Caye, who had her eyes squeezed shut.
Jill pulled up by the emergency room door and rushed into the hospital. “My friend’s about to have a baby,” she called out as she flew through the door.
“Grab a gurney,” the nurse at the desk yelled to the nurse behind her.
Jill ran back through the automatic doors and flung open Caye’s door.
Caye grabbed Jill’s arm, yanked it to her chest, and squeezed. She pushed her lips downward, the tendons in her neck bulged.
“Is it the baby?” Jill stammered.
The nurses arrived with the gurney.
“Yes!” Caye exploded as she came out of the contraction.
The nurses pulled Caye onto the gurney, her peach-colored T-shirt riding up over her white belly.
Jill was tempted to leave the boys in the car, but Andrews frantic look convinced her to let them out. She quickly unbuckled Hudson from his car seat and motioned for Andrew to undo his seat belt.
“Come on, guys,” she said. “Let’s run.”
Jill could see Caye in the hallway, the back of her head and half-exposed belly visible. The nurse grabbed the just-born baby.
“Hold on to Hudson,” Jill commanded Andrew, rushing to Caye’s side.
Caye grabbed her hand. “Is the baby okay?”
Jill looked at the gray blob of flesh in the nurse’s hand.
“Get me a suction,” the nurse yelled.
“The baby’s okay,” Jill answered, hoping that she wasn’t lying. “Is it a girl?” Caye asked. Jill looked again. “Yes.”
“I thought so,” Caye said. She squeezed Jill’s hand.
Jill began to cry. She’d never wanted a little girl—never wanted a daughter who might feel toward Jill the way she felt toward her mother. But in that moment, a little girl looked like the most wonderful thing in the world.
In a second, after being suctioned, Audrey screamed and pinked up. Jill held her tightly in the wad of bloody towels while the nurses checked Caye. An arm grabbed on to Jill’s leg. It was Andrew.
“Oh, Andrew,” she said, “here’s your sister.” She squatted down and, holding Audrey with one arm, drew both boys into the fold with the other. Andrew patted the baby’s head. Jill looked up at Caye. “This is so galactic,” Jill said as she began to laugh. “Totally amazing”
Audrey was okay, but two weeks later Caye hemorrhaged and then came down with a uterine infection. She ended up over in Medford, in Rogue Valley Medical Center, after all, with a high fever. The next day she had a D and C. The doctor said it was a good thing that Caye already had her two babies. “There was a lot of scar tissue,” she told Caye. “You might not be able to have another baby.�
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“Might not,” Jill responded, as Caye told her what the doctor had said. “I’m going to pray that you will.”
Nathan had already used up his paternity leave and was back at school. Over the next several weeks, Jill spent nearly every day at Caye’s.
It wasn’t until late June that Jill realized she was pregnant.
Rob rolled over again, this time toward Jill.
Life is like that. She envisioned Caye’s loss, joy, and pain all wrapped together like a baby in a wad of bloody towels. The miracle of Audrey—the loss of more babies.
And then the baby that Jill carried, that she had conceived at about the time of Audrey’s birth, left her too. Miscarried the middle of July. She always thought of that baby as a girl, even though she always said she only wanted boys.
Rob opened his eyes.
“How are you, baby?”
“Okay,” she said. Funny, she thought, that she was dwelling on Audrey’s birth at a time like this. Then she remembered, looking toward the window covered with the Venetian blinds, illuminated by the morning light, that it was Audrey’s birthday—her fourth.
Jill was standing in her garden.
Caye watched her friend walk gracefully away from her, toward the back of the garden where the wisteria wound it’s way over the brick wall.
“Come back!” Caye called.
But Jill didn’t hear. The breeze caught her long dark hair A shadow fell across the garden. Color drained from the image. Caye felt a chill.
“Happy birthday to me, happy birthday to me,” Audrey sang. She lifted the covers, letting in the cool morning air, and climbed in beside Caye. Liam threw his body over the top of them into the middle of the bed, landing on Simon. Caye pulled the baby out from under his brother. Scout began to bark.
Nathan groaned.
The phone rang.
Caye looked at the clock: 6:40 A.M.
Nathan answered it and passed it on to Audrey, who looked at Caye as she listened.
“Thanks, Jill,” Audrey said. “I knew you’d call.”
6
Audrey handed Caye the phone. This was exactly how Audrey’s other birthdays had begun—with a wake-up call from Jill.
“Hey, you! What were you doing four years ago today?” Jill asked.
Caye acutely felt the dissonance of the moment. Leave it to Jill to focus on the day rather than the issue at hand. Still, Caye smiled at the memory of Audrey’s birth and the weeks after. She’d never had a friend care for her the way Jill had.
“How are you?” Caye asked.
“Okay.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Some. They gave me meds. I’m not nauseated. That’s a relief. Our girl sounds a year older already.”
“Going on ten years older,” Caye answered. “How are my boys?”
Liam somersaulted across the bed and hit Nathan in the chin with his foot.
“I’m late,” Nathan muttered, rolling out of bed in his T-shirt and boxers and rubbing his jaw. “And I’ve just been attacked.”
Liam squealed and spread his arms and legs wide, flailing them over and over as if he were making a snow angel in the bed. The dog began to bark.
“What’s going on?” Jill asked with a laugh.
“Audrey, let me get up,” Caye commanded, climbing over her daughter and out of the bed with Simon in one hand and the phone in the other.
“I’m sorry it’s crazy there,” Jill said. “Are you doing okay?”
Liam somersaulted again, this time off the bed, catching the back of his head on the nightstand.
“I’ve got to go,” Caye said quickly before Liam caught his breath and let out a howling screech.
“What’s going on?”
“I’ll call you right back,” Caye answered. “What? I can’t hear you,” Jill said.
Liam screamed, loud piercing cries, one right after the other. Scout barked frantically.
“I’ll call you. Liam, are you…” came across the line and then a click. “What’s up?” Rob asked.
“Liam just hurt himself—I think. Call Caye back, okay?” Jill said to Rob, handing him the phone.
Rob sat up, took the receiver, and hit the redial button. “Nathan? It’s Rob.”
Rob listened as he looked at Jill. He nodded and then touched the back of his head as he raised his eyebrows.
“Okay,” he said to Nathan. “Call us back ASAP. Let me know if you need me.”
“Is he okay?” Jill asked.
“He cut the back of his head on the corner of the nightstand.” Tears filled Jill’s eyes.
“Baby, he’s okay,” Rob added quickly. “He’s screaming. I could hear him. That’s a good thing.” Jill nodded her head.
“They’re just trying to calm him down so they can tell how bad it is.” Rob grabbed a tissue from the table and handed it to her. He put his arm around her shoulder, sat on the edge of the bed, and pulled her to him.
Jill blew her nose, wiped her eyes, and tried to smile. Rob ran his fingers through her hair with one hand, pulling it away from her face, still holding her with his other arm.
She looked into his eyes. After eight years together, she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure that he was happy he’d chosen her and the domestic path she’d led them down. She’d always been a hundred percent sure that he was what she wanted. Unintimidated. Impulsive. Full of questions. Surfer. Snowboarder. Computer geek.
She felt his biceps bulge against her under yesterday’s wrinkled white T-shirt.
Often, when she thought of Rob, it was the image of him in midair against a snow-white mountain. Or the way the ropy muscles of his legs flexed when he ran.
Caye once asked if Rob ever planned to grow up.
“I hope not,” Jill had answered. She hadn’t been completely honest; still, she was hurt that Caye had asked.
Jill had pulled Rob in, domesticated him. Slung a mortgage, car payments, and charge debts around his neck. He hadn’t balked, but sometimes she saw in his eyes the waves crashing on an Argentine beach, saw him wanting to tip a kayak, take a chance, live a little more.
He’d grown up in Ecuador where his parents were missionaries. His freshman year of high school he moved to Portland to live with his grandparents. “My parents were afraid that if I didn’t live in the States soon, I’d never want to,” he had explained.
She wondered how he would have responded if she’d told him about the cancer in her family. Would it have been too much—the whole domestic package wrapped with the threat of being a single parent? Or would he have never given it another thought? Assumed it would never happen?
“It’ll be okay,” he said, letting go of her.
She smiled. What would be okay? Liam? Her? Their life together?
The nurse walked in. Dark blue scrubs swished with each step; white clogs treaded across the linoleum. Her short dark hair curled around her ears.
“I’m Bea,” she said, opening Jill’s chart, “your day nurse.”
She took a thermometer out of her pocket and slipped it into a plastic sleeve.
“Are you okay?” she asked, peering into Jill’s face.
“Our son—he’s at a friend’s house—just hurt himself,” Jill explained. “Were waiting for an update call.” She opened her mouth wide.
Jill played with the metal tip of the thermometer through the plastic with her tongue. The telephone rang. Rob picked up the receiver.
“Okay. No, that sounds cool. No, stitches would just leave more scar tissue.”
Jill listened, aware of Robs split-second decision not to have Liam stitched, as he agreed with Nathan and Caye.
“No, we trust you. Thanks a million. We couldn’t ask for better friends.”
It was out of her control. They’d made the decision without her.
“He’s okay,” Rob said. “They got the bleeding to stop. The cut is
only about half an inch long and not very deep.”
Jill nodded. The thermometer began to beep, and the nurse took it from Jill’s mouth.
“A little bit high—100.1. Now, I need you to drink this.” Bea held a bottle of barium.
“Oh no,” Jill answered. “I drank that last night.”
“You have to drink it again—one hour before the CAT scan.”
Jill frowned.
Rob walked into the bathroom.
The nurse handed Jill the barium. “Drink up.”
Jill could hear Rob using her hospital toothbrush. She was aware of the antiseptic smell of the room, the clanging of the breakfast trays through the open door to the hall, the soft cotton of her worn gown. She could feel Rob drifting as she listened to him splash water on his face. Cold, cold, water, she knew. Just as he did every morning.
He was restless. It was quite the personality combination he possessed. The restless extrovert, she called him. Even when they had company he’d begin to wander—go downstairs to check the ball game score on the TV, upstairs to his office to add an item to his work to-do list, down to the kitchen to sort through a pile of mail.
She knew he needed a break. Sometime soon. He couldn’t sustain his emotional focus much longer. And he really should get back to work.
Besides, she needed Caye.
“Go,” Caye pleaded. “Just go.”
“I feel bad leaving you with all the kids,” Nathan said.
She stood at the refrigerator, Liam on her hip, Simon clinging to her leg with one hand and holding half a banana in the other.
What was she getting? Right. Milk for the cereal.
Liam wiped his snotty nose on the shoulder of her nightshirt, right next to the blood-soaked neckline.
“Go,” she said again. “Or you’ll be really late.”
Nathan stepped toward Caye and kissed her on the lips. Liam pushed at him, wiping blood on the collar of Nathan’s blue oxford.
Caye frowned.
“What?” Nathan asked.
“Nothing,” Caye lied. “Just go.” It wasn’t worth the hassle of finding a new shirt, an ironed shirt. He wouldn’t notice—everyone else would just think he cut himself shaving.