by Leslie Gould
Caye wondered how it would work our. What would she do with Audrey and Andrew if it was a weekday? What if she had to go during the middle of the night but the baby wasn’t born until the next day? Would Nathan call for a sub?
“Don’t worry about it,” Jill had said. “If it’s meant for you to be there, it will all work out.”
As it turned out, Jill went into labor on a Friday afternoon. It was late May, and baseball season was over. Jill and Rob brought Hudson over to Caye and Nathan’s early in the evening to spend the night.
Jill wore soft denim maternity shorts and a neon green tank top. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. “I’m ready for business,” she announced as she walked into the house.
She didn’t want to go to the hospital sooner than she needed to, so it was decided that she and Rob would hang out for a while.
Caye had thought of Audrey’s birth thirteen months earlier. “Just don’t stay too long,” she said with a laugh.
Rob put Hudson to bed on the floor in Andrew’s room while Caye put Audrey down. Jill walked in a circle from the living room, through the dining room, into the kitchen, back through the hall, over and over.
“Okay,” she said when Caye closed the door to Audrey’s room, “it’s time to go.”
“When do you want me to go up?” Caye asked.
“Now. With us. Drive yourself so you can get back home. But please come now. And don’t forget your camera.”
Jill was already at seven centimeters when the nurse checked her.
The labor went quickly and smoothly. Jill walked the hall when she wasn’t hooked up to the heart monitor. Rob walked with her. Caye took photos and timed the contractions, writing the information down in a little notebook she’d bought for the birth.
After an hour and a half Jill knelt dramatically beside the bed and said she needed to push. But first, she said, she needed to get the sweaty hospital gown off. She peeled it over her head. Underneath she wore a camisole that rode up above her belly. Caye knew it was one she’d bought in Argentina—a strip of Italian lace was inlaid along the neckline.
It occurred to Caye that Jill looked sexy even having a baby. “You’d better buzz the nurse,” Jill said to Rob. “Do you have enough film in the camera?” she asked Caye. Caye nodded.
The nurse came in and helped Jill onto the bed.
“Ten centimeters,” the nurse announced, pulling off her glove. “The doctor’s changing into scrubs. You’re faster than I thought you’d be.”
Jill’s legs began to shake.
Caye leaned up against one. “Brace yourself,” she said. Rob squeezed her hand.
“I need to push,” Jill said.
“Hold on,” the nurse said.
Jill shifted in the bed, moving her leg away from Caye, rocking herself over onto her hands and knees.
She moaned louder, pulling it into a deep scream.
Go ahead and push. Caye thought of all the calves that she’d helped her father pull in the middle of the night in the big barn. Just push.
“I’m not pushing,” Jill gasped. “But he’s coming.”
Caye posed the camera.
“He?” Rob asked. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Jill said.
Caye knew Rob wanted a girl. They hadn’t found out beforehand, hadn’t had an ultrasound—Jill had just been sure all along that it was another boy.
“Let me take another look,” the nurse said.
Before she could, the baby slipped from Jill’s body into his mama’s hands. Jill slid to a kneeling position, holding the baby against her chest.
Caye clicked the shutter of her camera. Her tears blurred the scene through the viewfinder.
“Is it a boy?” Rob asked. The tone of his voice had softened.
Jill drew the baby from her chest for a moment and then clasped him to herself again.
“It’s Liam,” she said.
“Well, that was an easy one,” the nurse said just as the doctor walked in.
“I didn’t need you.” Jill smiled at the doctor, still holding the baby tight against her chest.
Liam never cried, just looked at his mama with big, admiring eyes.
Rob held the baby, swaddled in a receiving blanket, while the nurse cleaned Jill up.
“I’ve seen burritos bigger than you,” Rob cooed down at Liam, running his finger under the baby’s chin.
Caye clicked the camera again and then put it down. “My turn,” she said, taking the wide-eyed baby. In that moment she fell in love with Liam, deeper in love with Jill and, at that moment, even a little bit in love with Rob. Who could not love a man who cooed at his baby so shamelessly?
“Oh, just throw that away,” Jill said to the nurse who was holding up the camisole, soiled with blood from Jill clutching the baby to her chest.
“Don’t throw it away,” Caye said before she realized she was speaking. “I’ll take it home and wash it in cold water.” She couldn’t bear the thought of it going to waste.
With Liam’s birth they had two shared births between them. And it would remain just those two.
Simon came quickly in the middle of the night. Rob called, his voice alarmed. “Can you come stay with the boys? Jill woke up in labor. I’m going to take her to the hospital.”
The next day, Caye took Hudson, Liam, and Audrey up to the hospital to see baby Simon. It was Andrew’s last day of school.
“I almost told Rob to stay with the kids and have you bring me to the hospital,” Jill said.
“Would’ve worked for me,” Rob said, holding his newborn son.
Is he joking? Caye looked at Rob and back to Jill. Does he know Jill was joking?
“It really would have helped to have you here,” Jill said quietly while Rob knelt with Simon so the kids could see his face. “I had really bad back labor. I thought something was wrong. I needed someone to tell me it was normal, that it was supposed to hurt like that, that I’d live through it. Thankfully it was fast—but it was furious.”
Caye had had back labor with Andrew. She understood. Seven years later she remembered it clearly, much more clearly than Audrey’s nearly painless birth.
Simon began to fuss. Jill opened her hospital gown and took the baby. Caye scrunched a pillow down beside her friends arm and helped position Simon. It all seemed so natural. Seemed as if they could go on forever this way, Jill having babies, Caye helping Jill, Jill helping Caye, the kids swarming around them.
“Do you mind keeping Hudson and Liam tonight?” Jill asked. “I’m going to stay at the hospital another night. I feel like I need my rest—I know I won’t get it at home. And Rob’s wiped out from last night.”
Caye had felt no jealousy when Liam was born. He was Jill’s second, and he came after her miscarriage. Caye felt only happiness for her friend, for all of them. At the time, she was still hoping she would have another. By the time Simon was born, Audrey was over three. It was obvious that there would be no more babies for Caye and Nathan. The doctor had been right. Too much damage had been done to Caye’s uterus to carry another baby. She felt the loss acutely the first time she held Simon—but in the weeks to come, as he became his own person, the pain subsided. And besides, it was time to move on. Find a job. Concentrate on raising the two kids they had. But Caye knew Nathan still pined for another child, still wanted their family to be larger, as different from the lonely home he’d grown up in as possible.
“Pizza!” Rob yelled, coming through the front door with Nathan behind him. “Who wants pizza?”
The kids stampeded up the stairs from the basement.
Caye stood with Simon and started up the stairs to the second floor to put him in his crib. She’d forgotten to ask Stephanie if he’d had an afternoon nap. Probably not. She’d let him sleep for an hour, just long enough to get the rest of the troops fed.
Right before she reached the landing, she looked up.
There was Marion, up from her nap, her gray hair completely disheveled, standing above Caye with her arms folded across her chest, waiting to descend the stairs.
Simon began to cry.
16
“When is my husband coming back?” Jill asked the nurse, her first words since the tube was removed. Her voice was hoarse. Her throat was sore.
“Soon,” the nurse answered, checking the monitors.
Jill’s back hurt. The nurse said it was from the exploratory part of the surgery. “They moved things around,” she explained. “Poked here and there. It’ll hurt for a few days.”
Jill knew the surgeon had stopped to see her when she was still in recovery and had told the nurse he’d talk to Jill tomorrow.
She bent her legs, trying to find some relief. They ached, her back ached, her stomach was bloated. She gingerly touched the dressing, imagining the incision under her rib cage. After Rob had left, she’d had horrible dreams of snakes crawling over her belly.
The sheets were slippery against her feet. The mauve thermal blanket slid to the right. She pulled it up to her chin, brushing the IV line against it.
Rob, where are you? Let Caye put the boys to bed. Or you put the boys to bed and send Caye over. Just someone come over.
The nurse handed Jill a cup of ice. “Try to suck on this,” she said. “It will help your mouth and throat.”
“Go,” Caye said to Rob. “Go back over there. We don’t want her to be all alone.”
Rob looked from Hudson to Liam to Simon.
“They’re okay,” Caye said. “I’ll put them to bed. Take your time. Marion’s here—you don’t need to rush back.”
“No. I’m going to bed,” Marion said.
Caye looked at her exasperated. “If the house caught on fire you’d get the boys out, right?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Marion said. Caye turned back toward Rob.
“Okay, let’s do this. You drop Nathan and our kids off at home on your way to the hospital. I’ll stay here until you get back.” All Caye wanted to do was go home with Nathan and have him hold her while she sobbed and sobbed.
Marion kept eating her pizza.
“You’re back,” Jill whispered, turning her face toward Rob.
“I’m here.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s 7:45.”
Rob sat on the edge of the bed. “What did the doctor say?” Rob reached out and took Jill’s hand. “Did they get the cancer?”
“They took the tumor—most of it.” He paused. “The cancer has spread to your lymph nodes.”
“Really?” This wasn’t the way it was supposed to happen. She struggled to comprehend what it meant, but everything swirled around and around in her mind. Spread. Lymph nodes. Most of it.
“Chemotherapy,” Rob said. “You definitely have to do the chemotherapy. And the radiation.”
Jill felt her body sink into the bed; her head felt crushed against the pillow. Rob held on to her hand, held it tightly, as if he could pull her back, yank her up to her feet in an instant.
“Don’t leave,” she said.
“I’ll stay for a couple of hours,” he answered.
“How are the boys?”
“Caye’s putting them to bed.”
“What’s Mother doing?”
“Bed. She’s been in top form tonight. She was even driving Caye nuts.”
“Poor Caye.”
“How about if your mom comes over in the morning to see you? Then maybe she’ll fly home tomorrow afternoon or the next day. Could you stand that? To have her visit again?”
Jill closed her eyes.
“Who’s going to watch the boys tomorrow?”
“Caye—I think.”
The nurse came in to take her vital signs again. Jill opened her eyes. Rob stood and walked around the room.
“Are the boys okay?” Jill asked as the nurse took the thermometer out of her pocket.
They’re fine. They miss you.
“I feel so vulnerable,” Jill said and then closed her mouth over the thermometer.
“We’ve always been this vulnerable,” Rob answered. “We just didn’t know it.”
“I heard you need some help.”
“Oh, hi, Rita. Who told you that?” Caye asked. She tucked the phone under her chin, holding Simon and forcing his hands under the faucet.
“The queen bee herself. I just talked to her on the phone.”
“Jill called you?”
“No, I called her. I’m coming over. She wants you to take Marion to the hospital. I’ll stay with the kids.” Which would be worse? Staying with the kids or another fifteen-minute ride with Marion?
“She told me she’d be homicidal by now if she were in your shoes.”
“Okay, I’ll take Marion to the hospital,” Caye said, thinking she’d rather kill Jill’s mom than one of the kids. “See you when you get here.”
Caye had just finished cleaning Liam up after he tried to use the toilet. He’d smeared poop all over the seat and floor. While she was in the bathroom, Simon had flung dirt from the ficus tree beside the kitchen mural onto the slate floor. Marion sat a few feet from him in the window seat and read the paper, oblivious to her youngest grandson.
How can she do it? How can she waltz in here, act like she owns the place, and then not lift a hand to help?
Caye dried Simon’s hands and then walked over to Marion. “Here,” she said, extending her arms.
Marion looked over the newspaper. “The baby,” Caye said. “Take the baby.” For a minute she thought that Marion might refuse.
Marion meticulously folded the paper, placed it on the cushion beside her and then took Simon. She frowned. The baby turned toward Caye. She smiled at him and moved her head from side to side. You can do it. Show your grandma what a wonderful kid you are. Show her what she’s been missing.
“I’ll take you to the hospital in about half an hour,” Caye said. “Our friend Rita is coming over to watch the kids.”
“I’d better go get packed,” Marion, said, struggling to her feet with Simon in her arms. She swayed as she stood.
“Packed? You’re leaving so soon?”
“I’m going to call and see if I can get a flight out this afternoon. Here,” Marion said, handing Simon back to Caye, “you take him.”
Caye cleaned up Simons chair with one hand and put him back in it. She tossed a pile of Cheerios on the tray and gathered the bowls off the kitchen table, quickly rinsing them and sliding them into the dishwasher.
She could hear the water running upstairs. Marion must be taking a shower.
Audrey and Hudson came into the kitchen. “We’re hungry,” Audrey said.
“You just ate.”
“That was a while ago.”
“Grab an apple.”
“We don’t want an apple.”
“Where’s Liam?”
“Don’t know.”
“Hudson, where’s your brother?” Hudson shrugged his shoulders. “Is he still in the basement?”
“No.”
“Grab an apple, and keep an eye on Simon,” Caye said.
She went to the front door and looked out on the porch first, just in case he’d gone out the front door. No Liam.
She heard quick footsteps upstairs. He must have gone to his room to play.
Caye started up the stairs.
She made out Marion’s voice above the shower. “Go downstairs.” Liam was standing in the recently remodeled bathroom, the door wide open. “Go! Now”
Caye reached in to grab his hand. “He just has to use the toilet,” Caye said to the figure in the glass shower. “He’s potty training.”
As Caye turned to go through the door, she caught a quick glimpse of Marion through the glass. She’s flat. Her boobs have ail dried up. Then Caye realized Marion had no brea
sts.
Caye quickly dropped her eyes, scooped up Liam, and rushed him down the stairs. She felt the warm urine against her thigh as she reached the bottom step.
“Try to stop, Liam,” she said. “Hold it.”
It kept coming. By the time they reached the downstairs bathroom, their pants were soaked. Liam began to cry. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s okay. You tried.”
She sat on the edge of the claw-foot tub and put her hands on his shoulders.
“Mommy!” Audrey yelled. “Simon wants down! I think he’s poopy.”
The doorbell rang.
“Come on,” Caye said to Liam, “we’ll get you in the tub after I get the door.”
Rita began to laugh at the sight of Caye.
“What happened?”
Caye smiled, flashing her dimples.
“I peed my pants,” she said.
“You and who else?” Rita replied, looking at Liam, who stood holding on to Caye’s pant leg.
“Can you put him in the tub? I need to run home and shower and change.”
“Just grab something of Jill’s.”
Caye chuckled.
“What?” Rita asked.
“Even her capris are too long for me—and still wouldn’t fit in the waist.”
Rita laughed. “Get going.”
“If Marion comes down, tell her I’ll be right back.” Caye grabbed her purse and began digging for her keys.
Not only had Jill kept the secret of her dad’s pancreatic cancer, but she hadn’t said a thing about Marion’s cancer. Caye presumed it was cancer, thinking of the blurry image in the shower. Had she seen correctly? Had Marion had a mastectomy? She felt unsettled and naughty for having seen Marion naked.
It looked as though Jill hadn’t told Rob either—or Rob would have said something to Nathan on that first day Jill was in the hospital.
She climbed into her station wagon and started the engine. The day was already growing warm. She rolled down her window to ward off the smell of urine and headed down the hill toward her house. So many secrets. It felt like a sticky mess, like the warm saltwater taffy that Andrew had smeared in Audrey’s hair last summer.
And they were all stuck in the goo.