by Nancy Thayer
“I will, I will,” Jerry said, and pressed down on the accelerator. He drove studiously, rapidly, for a few minutes, then suddenly said, “But where are we going? Which hospital?”
This made Daisy laugh, causing her to lose control of her cadenced deep breaths. “St. Mary’s,” she said. “And hurry. And Jerry—thank you. I’m—I’m not going to be able to talk to you anymore—”
“Do you think we should stop and call the police? Or an ambulance?” Jerry asked.
But Daisy this time could not speak to answer him, she could only shake her head in reply, and moan. How hard the contractions were hitting, how the pain was pulling her down and down. She had to give in to it, she had to submerge, she had to let go. She turned her face away from Jerry so he would not be frightened by how she looked, all contorted and lost and inhuman, and she braced herself as well as she could in the car, and she concentrated on the breathing, and she let her body be taken over. She rose and fell with the pain, she billowed and plunged, she let herself be pulled under, and she heard herself sob when she was lifted for a few seconds up free from the pain.
“God,” she said to no one in particular, “it feels so good when it stops.”
By the time they got to the hospital she had to push.
“Jerry,” she said, “you’ll have to go in and have someone come out for me with a wheelchair or a stretcher. I can’t possibly walk.”
Jerry burst from the car and ran toward the emergency room. As soon as he was gone, Daisy let herself indulge a bit in sounds that she had been holding in, afraid that she would scare him. “Oh damn, oh shit, oh hell,” she yelled into the dark night, “oh, I don’t like this, oh, baby, I hope you’re quick.” Her back was arching in spite of herself and she was immensely uncomfortable in the car. She was extremely hot inside her coat and wool dress and tried her best to take off the coat, she felt so mussed and wretched, but all she could manage to get off was one sleeve. And then the attendants were there with a wheelchair, and as Jerry stood helplessly watching with eyes as large as Danny’s, they managed to get her from the car and into the chair with a gentle clumsiness that came from the fact that she could no longer control her body to help them. She could scarcely stay in the chair, her back was arching so furiously.
“Are you okay, are you okay?” Jerry kept asking, running along beside her into the bright clean emergency room, his eyes vivid with worry.
Oh, poor man, poor man, Daisy thought, he doesn’t know. “I’m fine,” she told him.
“But you’re crying!” Jerry said.
“Well, I hurt,” Daisy shouted at him. “I hurt a lot. But it’s okay, Jerry, don’t worry. It’s fine—” Then she was talking to a nurse, babbling almost incoherently her name, her doctor’s name, her telephone number, her address, her insurance number, her social security number, and the nurse wrote frantically on a set of forms until Daisy screamed, “If you don’t get me into the delivery room, I’m going to have this baby right here!” The last thing she saw before they wheeled her away was Jerry standing helplessly wringing his hands, and her last civilized thought was: Why, he’s actually wringing his hands! I’ve never seen anyone wring his hands before!
And then they were in the delivery room and were half carrying her, half throwing her onto the table. A young doctor she had never seen before came rushing in, pulling on his white jacket and gloves, strings flapping about him. Almost before anyone could move to help her, Daisy had arranged herself: Now she was better, now she was in a place she could remember, now she knew what to do. She gripped the armholds on either side and pushed against the stirrups and let her head fall back. She stopped holding in, she stopped puffing, she let her body remember the fearful rhythm of the past, and she took an enormous breath and pushed. When she looked up, she saw that the doctor had taken scissors and simply cut her pantyhose and underpants away from her body. “Hahahaha!” she laughed, suddenly overtaken with a lunatic glee. She was in such pain she was almost demented; perhaps this time her back would break. When she pushed again, the doctor said, “The head is crowning.” So she pushed again, moaning deep in her throat, knowing she sounded like nothing so much as a mad dog, and hoping with one clear part of her mind that poor Jerry was not standing outside the door listening to her, listening to her lose all control of her civilized, human self. For one excruciating minute the baby seemed to be stuck inside her; it seemed lodged tightly, it seemed stuck; it seemed suddenly far too large to be able to leave; it hurt like hell; it hurt, it hurt, the round fluorescent light above her went square and blurred with her pain—and then the baby was out.
Her baby was born. Her new child. She heard its pitiful wail.
The doctor said, “It’s a girl.”
Daisy raised her head, but could see only the white-robed backs of the doctor and nurses as they gathered around to wash and tend the baby.
“Give her to me,” Daisy said.
“We can’t,” the doctor told her. “You’re wearing street clothes. You would contaminate it.”
“Give me my baby,” Daisy said, raising herself up on her elbows in spite of the contractions that continued to tug at the lower half of her body. “I’m not secured in here, you don’t have me tied down, and if you don’t give her to me now, I’m going to jump up off this table and bleed all over your floor and knock you all down and take my baby from you.”
The doctor stared at Daisy for one moment and Daisy stared at him. They had never seen each other before in their lives. Yet something flashed between them, perhaps a mutual admiration, or a recognition of some kind, and then the doctor smiled.
“You’re really a tiger, aren’t you?” he said.
“No, I’m a mother,” Daisy told him. “A tiger, Jesus Christ, what decade are you in? No one talks that way anymore. Give me my baby.”
And he did. He handed her the wriggling blotchy child and Daisy held her against her breasts for a long moment, suddenly lifted out of the delivery room and away from the whole earth with the wonder of this new creature, this new child, this creature she had borne, her daughter. The baby looked like a wet rat.
“She won’t look like any of the rest of us.” Daisy said aloud, more or less to herself. “She’s going to look like—why, I think she’s going to look like Dale! I think she’ll have brown hair. My other two were so blond.” The baby pushed and nuzzled against her, stretching tiny wrinkled legs and arms, squalling and squeaking with her wild general wrath. “Oh!” Daisy said. “Oh! Please, help me take my things off. I want to nurse her.” She saw the attendants exchange looks with the doctor.
“Go ahead,” the doctor told them. “Let her nurse.”
“These modern mothers.” The old nurse sighed, but she helped Daisy off with her clothes with gentle hands.
The baby took Daisy’s nipple immediately, and immediately went calm. And Daisy found herself entering that old lovely world where only she and the nursing infant mattered, and everything else blurred and fell away. She loved the sexual tug that moved through her from breast to crotch, and while she was vaguely aware that down below, far far away, the doctor was taking out the placenta, her feelings were focused on her new daughter and the almost irritating pleasure of her tiny nuzzling mouth. How small the baby was, how perfect, how vulnerable she was, and how remarkable. Her skin was almost iridescent, gleaming with subtle pastel colors that nearly shimmered like the lights of an opal; and her nails looked like mother-of-pearl, like small translucent stones; she was indeed like a jewel washed up from the sea, all fresh and gleaming in the warmth of her mother’s warm dry arms. Daisy stared at and studied her new child, ran her hands over the tiny sculpted body, over the small cranky-looking limbs. And she was lost again; she was in love. The baby nestled against her, softly sucking, tugging open in Daisy’s body a whole vast new space of love.
Finally a nurse came and officiously took the baby away to do the routine things that needed to be done. Daisy fell back down against the hospital bed, relaxing into her own body and sudde
nly realizing how she ached in every part. She was grateful for the competent hands that worked so efficiently about her body. She closed her eyes.
“We can let your husband in now to see you and the child, if you’d like.”
Daisy looked up to see the young doctor who had delivered her daughter standing next to her, smiling down.
“My husband?” she asked, surprised. “I don’t have a husband.”
“You don’t have a husband?” the doctor said, puzzled.
“No. I’m divorced, or almost,” Daisy told him. She was too tired, it was all too complicated, to explain.
“But there’s a man out there—the man who brought you in—”
“Oh,” Daisy laughed feebly, “he’s just my date.” And she had to laugh again, thinking of it. “I missed my dinner,” she said.
“Well, you certainly must lead an interesting life,” the doctor said.
“Oh, I do, I do,” Daisy told him, laughing even more at this. “But I get hungry a lot. God, I’d give my soul for a cheeseburger with onions and a Coke.”
“I’ll take care of it,” the doctor said lightly, and moved off.
Daisy closed her eyes again and drifted off, only vaguely aware that she was being moved onto another cart and carried out of the delivery room and down to a private hospital room. Nurses tightened her white gown and tucked her in bed and took her temperature again and checked her pads and murmured, and Daisy let it all happen to her as if she were in a dream. She asked for some aspirin and someone gave her some pain pills and another kind of pill that she was too lazy to ask about, and then she drifted again, smugly indolent. It was all over. Her new child was here, the work had been done, the pleasures of the flesh were ahead. She could rest.
“Are you still hungry?”
Again it was the young doctor. He had in his hand a big white paper sack, and he carried with him the most delicious smells that had nothing to do with a hospital, smells of meat and onions.
“Do you have a cheeseburger in there?” Daisy asked, all at once awake and ravenous.
“Yes,” the doctor said. “I had someone run across the street, I’m hungry, too; do you mind if I join you?”
“Of course not,” Daisy said. She let the doctor crank up her bed and pull the table around in front of her. He sat down on her bed and spread the food out on the table: cheeseburgers and french fries in cardboard cartons, Cokes in cardboard cups.
“This is so much better than the hospital food,” the doctor said. “And I felt we really should share this meal. If I could get champagne in here, I would. You were my first delivery.”
“Really?” Daisy said. “How exciting. Well, you did a marvelous job.”
“Thank you. But you did all the work. I just got to be there. It was wonderful.”
Daisy ate and ate—he had had the sense to bring two cheeseburgers for her—and listened to the doctor talk. He was a homely young man, and yet endearing, and Daisy felt her affections flowing out toward him doubly, because he had been her physician and yet seemed such a child. It seemed extraordinary, a special treat, a unique prize, to be able to sit in the pale-yellow hospital room eating cheeseburgers with her obstetrician. It never could have happened with her regular physician, a capable but dour older man who had delivered so many babies he practically sighed with boredom at having to go through it all again. With Dr. Leston she had always felt a bit like a child who had willfully gotten herself into a scrape and needed help. With this young man she felt like a grown-up, a contemporary, and if he was a god because he was a doctor, then she was a goddess because she had carried and given birth to a child. She felt comfortable with him, his equal. In fact, she felt almost euphoric in his presence, but that was, she knew, because of the pain pill, and the food, and the physical aftermath of the birth.
“What happened to Jerry?” Daisy asked, struggling to be sensible now that her stomach was full and sleep was overtaking her again.
“I told him he should go home,” the doctor said. “He said he’d be back to see you tomorrow. And he’s going to stop by your house on the way home to tell your sitter what happened.”
“Oh, good,” Daisy said. “Well, Sara knows what to do. I’ll call her in the morning. Oh—I have to call Mother, and Daddy. I have to call Dale!”
“I’ll leave you, then,” the doctor said. “I’ll stop in and see you tomorrow. You need your rest. Don’t stay up talking too long.”
Daisy smiled. “I couldn’t if I wanted to,” she said. “I’m fading away fast. Thank you so much for the cheeseburgers; that seemed like the best food I’ve ever eaten.”
Daisy waited until she was sure the doctor was gone, then reached for the phone. No one answered at her father’s house; she would have to call him the next day. She called her mother next, and gave her a long and detailed report.
“Oh, thank heaven. I’m so pleased, I’m so glad,” Margaret said. “I’m so glad you’re both fine. I’ve been wondering about you constantly. And darling, what a wonderful story this will make—you going into labor on a date. I’m glad you’re dating, you know.”
“I am, too,” Daisy said. “I’m glad about everything. In fact, right now I’m absolutely high. And it’s not just the drugs. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m well,” Margaret said. “You know, when Danny was born, I went around for a week saying to myself: you’re a grandmother now. A grandmother. I felt so old. I guess the first grandchild is always the shocking one. This new baby doesn’t make me feel any older at all.”
Daisy smiled to herself to think that her mother would turn even this event into a reflection on herself, but she ended her conversation with Margaret amiably enough, and thanked her again profusely for the money, and said she would send pictures as soon as possible. Then she said goodbye, and called Dale, who responded with wholehearted enthusiasm and concern.
“I’m so sorry I can’t fly back and help you out,” Dale said. “Are you going to be okay?”
“Oh, I’ll be great,” Daisy said. “I’ve got Karen and Jane helping me for the next two weeks: they’ll have Danny and Jenny with them. And I’ve got the rooms rented out to girls I really like, and I’ve got enough money, and I’ve even got a nice doctor who brought me cheeseburgers!”
“You’ve got the sun in the mornin’ and the moon at night,” Dale said. “What kind of happy pills do they have you on?”
“Oh, Dale.” Daisy laughed, but even as she spoke she felt the effect of the painkillers take a turn; she was suddenly so sleepy she wanted to simply drop the phone on the floor and pass out. “Dale, I’ve got to go. I’m all woozy. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“No, you save your nickels and dimes. I’ll call you.”
“Okay. Thanks. I love you. And guess what—I’ve done my bit with babies, now—it’s your turn. The next babies in this family will be yours.”
“Well,” Dale said. “There’s a thought. Well.”
Daisy said goodbye to her sister and hung up the phone, then slid down into the comfort of the warm blankets. She felt as though she had just gotten in from a most unusual, serendipitous, and strangely erotic party. How lucky she was, she thought, and instantly fell asleep.
Nine
Oh, the color of the trees: such vibrancy! Margaret’s gaze kept catching on the trees, the flowering apple and crab and dogwood, the cut-leaf maple, and the myriad gentle greens of the spruce and low shrubs. She was looking out the window of her new home, or rather trying not to look out; she had so much unpacking to do. And it was only nine-thirty this Sunday morning, and she had vowed to herself that she would have her new house in order by that night, so that the next day, when she came home from work, she could have some sort of order to return to. But the flowering trees, the ebullience of all the flowers, lured her, lured her, and finally she took up her cup of tea and went out the door and sat down on her back porch step simply to stare.
It was late April, and the sun warmed everything, made everything glimmer with a golden light. The
re was nothing more pleasant than this, to sit warmed and private in the sunlight of her own backyard, surrounded by the pinks and whites and greens and golds of spring. Pandora, the white cat, was sprawled luxuriously near a rich green bush of peonies which were almost ready to bloom. Ulysses, the gray cat which had adopted Margaret, was farther out in the garden, creeping around under the azalea bushes, trying to find something to capture his attention. He had turned out to be such a whimsical, frivolous sort of cat, so unlike Pandora, who spent most of her life lolling about, that Margaret had become really fond of him; he entertained her, he was past her imagining. He chased his tail, something Pandora would never be naïve or energetic enough to do, and he talked incessantly to Margaret. He was a bit of a ham. Now, seeing that Margaret had come out of the house and was watching him, he executed a clever graceful dance among the bushes and ended by leaping up into a low branch of the apple tree. Then he mewed questioningly at Margaret.
“Yes, I see you, Ulysses, I see you. You’re marvelous,” Margaret said.
This seemed to satisfy the cat. He turned his back on her and began to groom and preen himself with such brisk concentration that Margaret smiled, sure that sooner or later he would fall out of the tree. Some things you choose for yourself, and some things Fate brings you, Margaret thought, and perhaps you can never know, even at the end of your life, at the summing-up, just which sort was better. For she needed the aloof and luxurious Pandora, just as she needed an aloof and luxurious life; but now she knew that she also needed, still needed, in her life, the unexpected, the enchanting, the lively things. How full life could be, Margaret thought. Life could be full and long, and now she knew that the choice of one way of life over another did not mean placing any sort of limitations—or if limitations were placed, then so were new possibilities opened up. It was a matter of making the best of both.