“I’m buying a helmet,” Peter whined, yet there was an odd sparkle in his eyes. Had they been experimenting with BDSM or something? The thought nearly made me spew the contents of my stomach.
I turned to Sarah. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just Braxton Hicks.” She eyeballed Peter. “I wish I could pop these babies out today. No one tells you how miserable the last weeks are. Or if they did, I didn’t believe them. And the hot flashes… If they’re any indication of what’s to come, I don’t want to go through menopause.”
“I’m starting to question this whole pregnancy thing.” Tie fanned Sarah with a menu.
“What do you mean?” Peter asked his wife.
“No offense, Sarah, but it looks like hell.”
“But you want kids, right?” Peter pushed.
“Yeah.” She hefted a shoulder. “Maybe we’ll have a surrogate. Not sure I’m made to give birth.” From the disdain in her eyes, Tie wasn’t kidding, not at all.
“Well, we wouldn’t want to ruin your Sports Illustrated Swim Suit Edition body.” I couldn’t decipher Peter’s plastic smile. Was he being sincere or mocking?
Neither could Tie, apparently, since she didn’t whack him again.
“What’s good here?” I asked in an effort to ease the tension.
Petrie family meals were usually fraught with tension, but with Tie and her new penchant for whacking, a hint of violence permeated the air.
While the four of them studied the menu, I studied Tie, thinking over Sarah’s words. When I first met Tie, I’d written her off as an airhead, but I was starting to see the light. Courtney was right: there was no limit to her conniving.
The waiter arrived with the wine and took our orders.
“Now that the food’s on its way, what’s the big news?” Peter asked me. “Besides the obvious.”
“I thought you had an announcement,” I said.
Peter shook his head.
I almost blurted out, “Then why the hell did I have to drag my pregnant wife all the way to Denver?”
Dad cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. He had big news. Was he retiring? Good Lord, what would the man do?
Sarah’s soft smile melted my heart and, from the relaxed look in my father’s eyes, paved the way for me to hear his announcement.
“I’m getting married,” he said.
“Married?” I squinted at the man across the table, a man I barely knew.
“To whom?” Tie asked.
“Helen.”
“Helen Helen?” Peter asked in a tone that implied he’d already met the mystery woman.
Dad nodded.
I queried Sarah’s face, but she gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
Peter balled up his napkin. “No. You can’t.”
Dad didn’t say anything, just cocked his head slightly to confront his firstborn.
“You don’t marry your mistress. It just doesn’t happen,” Peter continued.
“Prince Charles did,” Tie said without a trace of irony.
I was surprised she didn’t mention that Peter had, too, if Courtney was to be believed. More than likely, she never wanted us or anyone else to know that juicy morsel. The glare she gave her husband to zip it was as close to a death threat I’d ever been witness to.
Mistress? Helen was Dad’s mistress? It didn’t seem like an appropriate name for a mistress. During Mom’s final years, I’d discovered my father had frequently stepped out of the relationship. But I’d never heard his mistress’s name. Actually, I’d assumed it was a string of women, not a relationship. Did that make it better or worse?
Sarah nodded, agreeing with Tie’s observation as if we were having a completely normal family conversation about my father marrying his mistress. The meals hadn’t even arrived yet.
Dad remained mute, although the vein in his forehead pulsed.
Peter glared at a cougar’s head on the wall above Tie’s formidable face.
I needed to do something. “Hey, did you know the jackalope over there”—I pointed to the bar—“is named Blackberry, after the rabbit in Watership Down?”
Sarah wasn’t in my direct line of sight, but I sensed the shock on her face. Diversions weren’t my specialty. But I couldn’t stop. “Do you think BlackBerry the phone is also named after the character?” I gestured to Peter’s cell. It wasn’t a BlackBerry, but I had already crashed into the desperation zone.
“Elizabeth, what the fuck are you talking about?” Peter asked.
I had absolutely no idea.
“I think BlackBerries were called that because they thought the keys looked like seeds.” Tie sipped her wine. “I remember reading that somewhere.”
This little nugget that slipped out of Tie’s mouth reinforced Sarah’s point, and I was starting to wonder whether I’d lose the divorce bet.
“I remember reading Watership Down when it was published, before you were born, Lizzie.” Dad shifted in his seat again, blocking Peter from his sight completely. “I’d read a review in The Economist when it came out, and I wanted to know what the fuss was about.”
My dad read books? I wasn’t sure what was more shocking: that my father was marrying another woman less than a year after my mother’s death or that he read novels. I’d only ever seen him read the Financial Times.
“My students don’t complain too much about that book.” Sarah placed a hand on my thigh. Did that mean I’d done an okay job steering the conversation away from the pink elephant in the room?
Peter bolted upright in his seat, breathing heavily through his nostrils like an eighty-year-old man who’d just climbed a flight of stairs. He eyed Tie, who sipped her wine with a mystifying smile that almost dared him to make some kind of declaration. The waiter approached with our salads. Peter glanced at his wife and then at Dad, who was still ignoring him, before staring at his fork liked he wanted to stab someone with it.
The waiter, perhaps sensing the drama, placed the plates on the table and scurried away.
I was curious about Helen but wasn’t sure now was the time to ask how they met or how long they’d been together. Did I really want to enter that realm of my father’s relationship? That would send Peter into another fury.
Sarah and Tie chatted about the impending arrival of the twins, the safest topic at the moment, until the waiter returned to remove our salad plates and replace them with our main courses.
Tie wafted the aroma from her plate to her nose and then kissed her fingertips, releasing them with a flourish like an Italian gangster in a movie. “Oh, this smells so good. Reminds me of my childhood.”
“Did you eat a lot of elk?” Sarah asked without an ounce of ridicule in her tone.
“Never at home. But we used to come here once a week for family dinners.”
That explained why we were here this evening. I was starting to see the hunter in Tie, though I doubted she wasted her time pursuing elk. I blinked. Was I dreaming or actually hallucinating? Did people get delirious when it was over 105 degrees? I yanked on the collar of my shirt.
Peter forced a smile, baring his unnaturally white teeth. If he ever decided to get out of the finance biz, he had a great future in politics, probably only at the state level, though. Smarmy and Peter went hand-in-hand. He grabbed his knife and fork and tucked into his fifty-six-dollar T-Bone, topped with sautéed mushrooms and onions, each an additional seven fifty. Was that why he hadn’t scrammed earlier when it was obvious he’d wanted to? His seventy-something dollar meal? Surely, Peter, the finance whiz kid, could afford to skip out on a steak dinner without batting an eye. He was probably more concerned about his inheritance.
Coward. I wanted to circumnavigate the table, flapping my arms about, kicking up dirt, and squawking like a chicken, “Bock, bock, bock.”
Sarah nibbled on her quail, while I sat dumbstruck. Was everyone going to pretend Peter hadn’t just had a major temper tantrum? What about the news that m
y father was getting married for the second time? How old was he anyway? Sixty something? Or closer to seventy? How in the world did I not know this?
“Have you and Helen set a date?” Tie carved into her elk with precision.
Dad shook his head and finished up a mouthful of steak. After taking a sip of red wine he said, “No. We want to wait until my grandbabies are here.” He motioned to Sarah. “My guess is one week.”
“One week.” Sarah’s voice cracked, and she set her fork down. “The doctor thinks two, but one sounds… so… much sooner.”
I squeezed her leg under the table.
“I better clear my schedule, so I can meet my niece and nephew as soon as possible.” Tie turned to Peter. “And you’re going.”
Tie and Peter planned to be at the hospital on the day the babies were born? Now I was terrified, and I wasn’t the one squeezing watermelon-sized babies out of my twat.
“When do the rest of us get to meet Helen?” Tie’s question hinted she was displeased that Peter already had.
“Do you want to meet her?” Dad directed the question to me.
Sarah dug her nails into my thigh before I had a chance to open my mouth. “Of course.”
I gripped my water glass tight and took a long guzzle of the cool liquid.
Chapter Ten
“Lizzie.” Sarah shoved my shoulder.
I rolled over in bed. “What?”
“I—” She grunted in pain, snapping me wide-awake.
“It’s time?”
Sarah emitted a groan as confirmation.
I hopped out of bed in one motion. “Battle stations.” For the past few nights, I’d had jeans and a T-shirt ready to go by my bedside. In less than seven seconds, I dressed, donned a baseball hat, and slipped into flip-flops.
“Help me out of bed.” Sarah held out one lethargic arm.
I dashed to her side and eased her into an upright position.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” she screamed, clutching her stomach.
I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t say, “It’s okay. Everything’s going to be fine.” How did I know what she was going through? It wasn’t like she’d stubbed a toe. She was in early labor, and she had to go through it twice—hopefully in a relatively short span of time. I tried to recall what the Lamaze coach had drilled into my head about what to say. “Remember to focus on your breathing.”
***
The heart monitors thump, thump, thumped. Sarah, her eyes closed, rolled her head from side-to-side on the delivery table. The pain was kicking into high gear, mocking the discomfort she’d felt so far, leading up to D-Day. I had no clue how she could bear it. Two hours earlier, I’d been convinced she had reached the maximum pain threshold one human being could endure, but the obstetrician had insisted she wasn’t about to deliver. We had arrived at the hospital yesterday, which now seemed like weeks ago.
For many hours, Sarah had tried different positions to help alleviate her discomfort. Standing, walking, lying on her side, and even getting down on all fours. She, however, didn’t take to the birthing ball. Never before had I realized the importance of gravity. Now that she was fully dilated and had been pushing for more than an hour, Sarah was on the bed, hopefully ready to pop out the twins. The storming of the beaches on D-Day took less time.
The epidural, recommended for multiple births just in case of an emergency, had kicked in, but didn’t wipe out her pain completely.
“Keep breathing through it, Sarah,” the OB instructed.
The OB tech in green scrubs scurried around, prepping machines and setting up instruments in the operating room, another safeguard the birthing team insisted on, much to Sarah’s annoyance, who wanted to deliver both babies vaginally. Odds were with her, since the babies were in the vertex/breech position, meaning the first one was head down, the other would have to be turned.
At one point, Sarah gazed at me, shook her head, and smiled to let me know everything was going to be fine. The smile didn’t last. One arm reached behind her head to fist the pillow. She concentrated on her breathing again. “Okay, okay, okay,” she said, even though no one had asked her a question.
“Breathe, Sarah. Breathe.” I encouraged her, holding one of her hands in both of mine.
Her breathing intensified, punctuated with guttural moans.
“Little pants, Sarah.” The obstetrician smiled encouragingly.
Delivery nurses stood on each side of the bed near Sarah’s legs, her knees up in the air. The OB sat on a stool, like a baseball catcher. I would have giggled at the scene, if not for Sarah’s pain.
The crown of the baby’s head appeared, and I stared into Sarah’s eyes. “Oh my God. You’re doing this!”
She smiled—or grimaced—it was hard to determine. More of the head emerged, and a woozy feeling washed over me. “Oh my God. How in the fuck are you doing this?” I rubbed the top of my head with both hands.
Sarah belted out another scream. One of the labor nurses who had been with us the entire time gave me an admonishing glare that simultaneously said You’re a fucking idiot and Snap out of it.
“You’re doing great.” I said. “I love you so much. Oh my God…”
Her face, contorted in agony, wrenched at my insides. Her moans subsided to a lull, and we all waited breathlessly until her face jagged up in pain again.
“Push, Sarah,” the OB said.
Behind me, someone on the delivery team counted to ten. It seemed like the room now swarmed with hospital staff, and I couldn’t keep anyone or their roles straight.
Another pause followed before the process repeated itself.
“The head’s out,” I said to Sarah, practically jumping up and down, wanting her pain to end.
A bluish shoulder appeared.
“It’s almost here.” I squealed like a little girl, probably for the first time in my life. “There’s an arm.” Everything happened quickly after that, and the next thing I heard was a cry.
A baby’s cry.
Our baby.
The obstetrician briefly placed the wrinkled, bluish bundle covered in grotesque slime on the bed in between Sarah’s legs before whisking it up to Sarah’s chest. “It’s a girl,” she announced.
Maddie had been coaching me for weeks not to scowl at the sight of the babies seconds after their birth. “For the love of God, Lizzie, don’t say anything stupid or pull a face,” she’d scolded me over and over. “Labor is a messy business.”
A pair of scissors was thrust into my hand.
“Cut between the two.” The woman pointed to two clip-like things on the baby’s umbilical cord. “Right there.”
I cut the cord in a daze.
“Olivia,” Sarah cooed, tears sparkling in her eyes.
Someone placed a blanket over Olivia, while another was working down below, gearing up for Freddie. My gaze returned to Sarah and our daughter.
Grinning, I swiped both eyes with the back of my hand.
“Straighten your legs, Sarah,” the OB prompted.
Sarah was remarkably calm, while everyone else roved around the room, completing their tasks. My eyes never left Olivia. I was transfixed. It was as if time had stopped for me and no one else.
The babies’ nurse swooped our miniscule daughter to the side and placed her on a sci-fi-looking table surrounded by a plethora of machines and gadgets. Another team member joined her and started patting Olivia down with a sheet while the other shoved something into the baby’s mouth. She cried out. I wanted to tell the person to stop, but I was too stunned by their efficiency. They worked on our tiny baby with quick, robot-like urgency. I was awed and annoyed in equal measure. My daughter wasn’t a thing to be treated in such a manner.
Sarah gripped my hand, and I turned to her.
Our second child was on its way.
Sarah’s grip tightened, and she peered into my eyes with an intensity I’d never seen before. “I don’t know if I can do it. I want to go
home. One is plenty.”
I kissed the top of her head. “You’re doing great.”
“I’m so tired. I want to go home now!”
“Look at me.” I hunched down. “You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. You can do this.” I squeezed her hand. “I love you.”
Sarah made a move to get out of bed. “If you love me, you do it. Please.” Her gush of energy dissipated, and she sank against the padded headboard of the bed. “I just don’t know if I can do it again. Not so soon.” She clenched her tear-streaked eyes closed.
I smoothed her sweat-soaked hair and peppered her forehead with kisses. “It’s almost over. Afterward, all of this”—I waved to the room—“will be wiped from your memory. Focus on Olivia”—I nodded in the crying infant’s direction—“and on Freddie.”
Tears streamed down her face. “Why did you insist we have twins?”
I grinned. “Is that how you remember it?”
“No rational person would volunteer for this. This is torture.” The weak smile on her face gave me hope that her sanity had returned.
“You got this—”
Sarah’s nails dug into my flesh.
“Okay, Sarah.” The OB hunched down between Sarah’s legs. “Freddie wants out.”
“I’m not ready!” Sarah shouted.
“Sarah, listen to me. You can do this.” The obstetrician’s voice was firm but supportive.
I stayed at Sarah’s side, clutching her hand.
“Can I have a warm towel?” the OB asked one of her team members.
Sarah winced.
“Push, push, push, push,” the OB coaxed.
“You’re doing well,” agreed the delivery nurse in a comforting tone.
The one on my left mumbled, “Wait for the next contraction.”
“Got a heartbeat for the baby?” asked the OB.
I sucked in a breath. Was something wrong?
There were more barked orders, but I could no longer decipher who was saying what, so many were talking at once.
The doctor reached inside Sarah, causing my wife agonizing pain. Clearly, Fred was in extreme duress. The anguish on Sarah’s face reached deep inside, making me feel as if the floor was swallowing me whole.
A Family Woman Page 14