Michael Quinn
Page 22
As it turned out, that was the best advice anyone could have been given. Michael and I had come through hell together and survived. We were young, strong and stubborn, perhaps the best quality of all three. I shut out everything that was going on except the fight of the little one inside me to come out. I had to hang in there.
I drifted in and out. I dreamed of watching the storms come in from the west over the rail fences at Tipperary and the way the horses knew what to expect. They ran with joy in the rain, but reared and ran when the winds came low. I saw Michael as he looked the first time I saw him. I remembered telling Mother how good-looking he was and she’d urged me away, saying he was beneath us. Now, there we were and quite the opposite was true. There was a ballet before my eyes, the people twirling like the little figures in the snowball paperweight someone gave me for Christmas. I knew then that I wanted to be an actress and now I made up my mind that when this was concluded, I would open a little theatre group in the county. I envisioned the nursery and decided to choose yellow or mint green instead of pink. I wanted to be different. Not every little girl was required to grow up in pink. Something told me it would be blue, however. Like his father, he’d been kicking me, demanding his way steadily. Even now, he was fighting to come early. Mostly, though, I saw the white ceiling of the hospital room with its fluorescent lights and the web of tubes. I heard my own cries as the pains took my breath away with their severity. Michael was coaching me, forcing his own strength into my body. The doctor stood by, a look of diligence and reproach on his face as he took my blood pressure. Had I been selfish? What if the child didn’t survive and I ruined the chance of ever having another? So many questions.
And then there was silence. I’d stopped screaming and Michael was squeezing my hand. There wasn’t a sound in the room… and then, a baby shrilled.
“It’s a boy, Katie! You’ve given me a son! It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. You’ve done it. Just as I knew you could. I’ve always said you were stronger than you looked.”
I held the baby against my perspiration-soaked skin and looked to Michael with the obvious question. “Damien Michael Quinn,” he said, and I nodded, pleased with his choice.
Eventually, they took Damien to the baby nursery, the nurses cleaned me up and then drew back the curtain so I could see the rainbow that climbed the sky outside our rain-soaked window. It was springtime and in a couple weeks, they would run the Derby. I was home and the man I loved more than life itself was standing next to the bed, covering my face with kisses. The room held huge vases of flowers and I was finally at peace. I’d made the right decision and we’d all lived to tell about it. I just needed a little nap.
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