Just Breathe

by Susan Wiggs

  “I like it this way. It shows where she stopped and you took up in her place.” She slung the shawl around her shoulders and gave a soft gasp of wonder. It’s a hug from Mom.

  Sarah would forever carry the ache of missing her. That would never change. But she knew now that her mother’s love burned inside her, a flame that would never go out. “Thank you,” she told her father. She studied his craggy face, etched by years of working in the sun and wind. She knew then that this man, this dear, caring man had been there all along for her, loving her from his remote distance and not knowing how to be closer. And yet he did know. And now, so did she.

  “Dad, I wish I hadn’t been such a lousy teenager, because I didn’t appreciate it here enough, or—”

  He turned and tucked the shawl more securely around her shoulders. “You look just like her. You sound like her. It hurt to look at you,” he said, a rasp of emotion in his voice. “Every time I saw you, it broke my heart all over again.”

  She took this in, feeling a dart of pain for him. Yet at the same time, a deeper understanding took hold. As terrible as it was to lose her marriage, her father’s loss was infinitely worse. He’d lost his wife, his best friend, his life mate. “I’m sorry, Dad. I wish you’d told me.”

  “I’m telling you now. Anyway, I was mistaken. You are your own person, not her, and I need you in my life and I hope to God you’ll stay.”

  Her father sat on the end of the chaise and she leaned her cheek against his arm. “You’re okay, Dad,” she whispered.

  He stroked her hair. “Runs in the family.”

  They sat together looking out over the water, where the sea and sky met over the oyster beds in the distance. The wherries bobbed quietly in a light wind. “I need to ask you something,” she said.

  “Sure.”

  “How would you feel about being my birth coach?”

  He froze for a moment, and then he let out a long breath. “Scared.”

  Her heart sank. “I mean, I need somebody to go through the classes with me. You don’t have to come into the delivery room if you don’t want, but I’d love to study with you, and practice—”

  “You didn’t let me finish. I said I’d be scared. And proud. I’d do anything for you, honey. You know that.”

  Thirty-Two

  Sarah couldn’t sleep. This was nothing new; she couldn’t sleep most nights. At her last weekly appointment, the babies weighed in at six pounds each and they were still growing, leaving little room for anything else. She lay in a tangle of covers, bathed in sweat, the skin of her stomach itching horribly. Her bladder was about to burst, too. She felt cranky and restless, ready to be done with this whole ordeal. On the heels of that thought came the inevitable fears, and if it wasn’t so hard on her feet and legs, she’d get up and pace the floor.

  Even though her perinatologist, Becky Murray, assured her that everything was progressing beautifully, all the haunting statistics and lists of complications plagued Sarah. Her increased bed rest only gave her more time to worry. She pondered the perils of premature labor, preeclampsia and prolapsed cords. She fretted about every sort of fetal distress they’d gone over in childbirth class. She even dreamed about vanishing twin syndrome, in which a lost twin was re-absorbed into the mother’s body, leaving no trace behind. Dr. Murray promised her that at this stage of the pregnancy, the syndrome was a physical impossibility, but that didn’t stop Sarah from worrying. She worried about everything—the health of the babies. Complications. A difficult birth. A C-section. Whether or not she’d wake up when they cried. She worried about where they would live. Health insurance coverage.

  Thanks to Birdie, the settlement from Jack and the child support were generous but ultimately she would have to provide for them. Drawing a comic strip suddenly seemed as ludicrous as Jack had always considered it.

  The fourth time she got up to go to the bathroom, she noticed a thread of light on the horizon and decided to stay awake. Franny was only too happy to get an early start on her yard patrol. Sarah opened the door and followed the dog outside to the still air. Fog obscured the view, creating a world of shadows. The plume of the dog’s tail marked her progress through the mist.

  Sarah realized it wasn’t morning at all. The light came from the moon, and it was 2:00 a.m. The moon was not full but getting there, a white ghost face staring down at her with those blank, empty depths for eyes.

  “I wish you were here,” she said to her mother, gathering the peony-pink shawl around her. Its soft weight settled around her shoulders like an embrace, and she was grateful all over again for her father’s gesture, finishing her mother’s final project and giving it to her. Her mother was just as gone, but finally, years after her death, she’d managed to bring Sarah and her father closer. Still... “I do, Mom. I wish you were here.”

  As she called the dog back in, she felt a wave of terrifying melancholy. Awaiting a birth was supposed to be the most thrilling and fulfilling time of a woman’s life. Most days, Sarah managed to convince herself she was thrilled and fulfilled, but at times like this, in the middle of the night when even the peepers were silent, reality set in. She was in this alone. Despite the support of friends and family, she had no true companion on this journey.

  Throughout the pregnancy, everyone did their best to mitigate that fact. She and her father diligently attended preparation classes. Tomorrow, her isolation would end. To avoid the risk of traffic on the Golden Gate Bridge, they were moving to a furnished efficiency across the street from Mercy Heights, where the babies would be born.

  Sarah told herself to snap out of it. She was damned lucky to be where she was. Before going back to bed, she made a pot of jasmine tea and brought everything to the bedroom on her lap desk, which was her constant companion these days. This past week, she had been in a creative white heat. She’d done dozens of episodes of Lulu and Shirl. Sketches littered the bedside table. Some were quite good—but she was still struggling with the key event she’d been building to for months—Shirl’s baby.

  The story line was working better than anything she’d imagined. Certainly it was working better than her own pregnancy, she conceded, studying her elephantine ankles. Shirl’s story was getting a great response from readers. Although the syndication editors were nervous, they stuck with it. Several of her papers had moved her above the fold.

  The trouble was, she didn’t know how or when Shirl would give birth. Often if she simply kept still and didn’t try to force anything, the right idea would come to her. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, hoping to clear the way for the answer.

  Unfortunately, her mind was not cooperating. She didn’t feel like keeping still. Maybe it was the dinner she’d eaten last night. Her father had brought her takeout from the Dolphin Inn, which included dessert. As big as she was, it was a miracle she had room for anything, but she managed to pack away the Alaska halibut and Duchess potatoes, no problem.

  The refrigerator needed cleaning, she decided, ignoring the fact that it was three o’clock in the morning. What the hell. She’d been diligent about bed rest for eighteen hours a day or more. She could stand to be up and about for a little bit. She might as well get the fridge knocked out.

  With the radio playing eighties rock tunes, she methodically removed each shelf, then scrubbed every surface. This was one of the benefits of living alone. You could act any way you wanted and no one was around to tell you it was weird to clean the refrigerator in the middle of the night, when you were pregnant with twins.

  During Jack’s illness, she would sometimes find herself wakeful, but back then, all she could do was put on her headphones and crank up the music, leaving the lights off because one of the medications made him painfully sensitive to light. Now she had only to worry about her own needs and comfort, and if she felt like being up all night with the lights blazing, then she would.

  The divorce wou
ld be final within a few weeks. She wanted it to be over before the babies came, but Birdie warned her it was unlikely. Each time Sarah thought everything was settled, Jack’s lawyer found something new to fret about, insisting on obsessively detailed minutiae and manipulating the numbers regarding his assets. His latest parlor trick was claiming that Sarah had threatened to abandon Jack during the darkest stage of his illness.

  The surprises just keep on coming, she thought, throwing away a questionable-looking jar of pickles. The biggest surprise of all, of course, was Will. What were the chances that she’d connect with someone like him, at a time like this? He couldn’t be more different from Jack. Her husband covered all his bases, his way of taking responsibility. But Will—he was a rescuer. He protected the people he cared about with every bit of his great heart. Now that, she realized, was responsibility.

  She reached for a jug of grapefruit juice, but as she lifted her hand, an intense pain ripped through her, stealing her breath. She found herself clinging to the door of the refrigerator, bathed in a sudden surge of sweat.

  The Braxton Hicks contractions she’d experienced up to this point were nothing compared to the iron-fisted agony she felt now. Even so, she denied that anything was amiss. She had drilled herself thoroughly on procedural matters. The perinatologist’s goal was, of course, a vaginal delivery, but Sarah understood that with twins, a C-section was twice as likely. They even had a target date for the birth, based on the rapid growth rate of the babies and ultimately, their presentation. If Twin A was breech, there would be no question—she would have them both by Cesarean. She was okay with that. Working with her father, she had written out a detailed birth plan, covering every eventuality. Franny would stay with Gran, and her father would drive her to the city. Everything was set for tomorrow.

  Unfortunately, the twins hadn’t gotten the memo.

  She managed to slam the refrigerator shut before a second pain sent her to her knees. Franny must’ve sensed something was going on. She roused herself and hurried over to Sarah, nails clicking on the floor. The dog nuzzled Sarah, who now lay on her side on the kitchen floor, legs drawn up as high as her enormous belly would allow.

  The dog sat back on her haunches and whined inquisitively. Sarah felt a wave of nausea and remembered a key piece of information she’d gleaned in childbirth preparation class: when a woman went into labor, all other body functions slowed down or stopped altogether. Including digestion.

  Using the handle of the refrigerator door to pull herself up, she staggered to the bathroom where her five-course dinner made a reappearance.

  She used a towel to clean herself up, and caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror. Wasn’t this supposed to be a magical, memorable moment in a woman’s life? Wasn’t she supposed to tap her slumbering husband on the shoulder and whisper sweetly, “Darling, it’s time”? Wasn’t her face supposed to be aglow in dewy-eyed wonder and mystery? Surely she wasn’t supposed to look like this—sweaty and pasty-faced, puke stains on her nightgown, her eyes wild with uncertainty.

  She made it to the bedroom, grabbed the cordless phone and collapsed sideways on the bed. Left side, she remembered. Gets more blood to the uterus. Scared, I’m so scared. Sip water and apple juice.

  She couldn’t quite reach the water glass on the bedside table. It was a mile away. A sense of utter isolation closed over her. She lay gripping the phone, her vision blurred by pain, her thumb fumbling over the buttons. If she dialed 911, would Will come?

  Of all the things she could be thinking at a time like this, why would she think of Will Bonner?

  She wasn’t ready to answer her own question. Focus, she reminded herself.

  With firm resolve, she pressed the numbers. A lifetime elapsed between each of the four rings. Pick up, she thought. Pick up, pick up, pick up. Maybe she would have to call 911 after all.

  “Hello?” The voice, raspy with sleep, kept her from hanging up.

  “I’m in labor,” she said. “Can you come?”

  “I’m halfway there,” said her father. “Relax, honey. Just breathe.”

  Thirty-Three

  “So now you’re the overachiever in the family,” Kyle said, bending to kiss Sarah’s forehead. “Congratulations.”

  Floating in a pastel fog of exhaustion and wonder, she smiled up at him from the hospital bed. “Did you see them?”

  “We did,” said LaNelle. “They’re perfect. We can’t wait for you all to come home.”

  Sarah had thought she was ready to love her children. What she discovered, while giving birth and later holding the babies against her heart, was an emotion so intense that it burned a hole clean through her. Could the word love even begin to describe the feeling that swept over her? Could any word? She had expected a strong, intense bond, but nothing of this magnitude, this incredible protectiveness and tenderness that closed her completely in a grip of iron. Maternal love wasn’t all gentle sweetness. Instead, it was fierce and consuming, more a force of nature than a feeling.

  She shut her eyes briefly, fighting a sudden and inexplicable burn of tears. The ordeal was over. The twins were stable and would be rooming in with her as soon as their bilirubin counts were within range and they’d each had a successful feeding. The pediatricians—both of them—had promised.

  “Home sounds good,” she said in a thick whisper.

  “Then why the tears?” LaNelle asked, patting her on the shoulder.

  In her wildest imaginings, Sarah could never have pictured her sister-in-law like this. Then again, she had never bothered to get to know LaNelle. Now she opened her eyes and saw a woman who was her friend.

  “Aunt LaNelle,” she said. “Or are you an ‘auntie’?”

  “We don’t need to decide that just yet. You’ve got more important decisions to make.”

  “Yeah, like naming your kids,” said Kyle. “Speaking of overachieving, this list of names is as long as my arm.” He held up several pages covered with Sarah’s handwriting.

  “I want to make sure I get the names exactly right,” she said.

  “I’m with Sarah,” LaNelle said. “There’s no need to rush. She has to choose two first names and two middle names, and everything has to coordinate with the last name.”

  Sarah closed her eyes again, remembering a recent conversation with Jack. They had talked last week while she was on bed rest.

  “The babies should have my last name,” he insisted.

  She thought he was kidding. “You weren’t even there at the time of conception,” she said. “It would make more sense to name them after the nurse-practitioner.”

  “You’re making a big mistake,” Jack had warned her. “They deserve their father’s name, like any other kid in America.”

  “They deserve a father who takes responsibility for them.” She couldn’t help making a reference to his battle to minimize child support payments.

  “So their naming rights are for sale?” he’d taunted. “You want me to pay for the privilege, like they’re a baseball field?”

  She pushed aside the memory and opened her eyes just as her father came into the room. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, yourself. What’s that frown? I just came from the nursery and the kids are doing fine.” His face shone with pride.

  “It just occurred to me that Jack needs to be told.”

  “I’ll call him, if you want.”

  God, she loved that. Loved handing the task over to him. Not for the first time, she felt a wave of gratitude for her father. Against all expectations, he’d really come through for her. Now, despite the gentle pride radiating from him, he looked almost as exhausted as she felt, with grayish skin and red eyes. His salt-and-pepper beard stubble was a reminder of the overwhelming process that had begun with a jar of spoiled pickles.

  The drive to the hospital had seemed endless, the amber
highway lights passing in long glowing streaks as she’d practiced her breathing techniques. “Breathe, honey,” her father had said, his voice shaking. “Just breathe, okay? We’re almost there...”

  The haze of pain had draped everything in gauzy softness. There was something dreamlike about the agony. It was overwhelming, muffling everything, making her feel completely alone, floating in the universe. She had only the vaguest recollection of their arrival and check-in at the hospital, though there was never a moment when her father left her side, leaving the car to be parked by a stranger.

  She had the twins in the operating room, the surgeon’s 10-blade poised over her like a guillotine about to drop. She’d fought it, though, allied with Dr. Murray, knowing vaginal delivery was still an option. Both babies were in the headfirst position, connected to the outside world via the internal fetal monitor wires that snaked through her. At times, the room felt like rush hour on Chicago’s El, with a crush of people surrounding her. IV drips and monitor wires tethered her to the bed like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians. Each baby had a pediatric team, Sarah had her perinatologist and since Mercy Heights was a teaching hospital, there were medical students, too. She lost count of the number of different people who did pelvics and checked her dilation.

  Finally, after the second student in a row educated himself about what seven centimeters felt like, she’d gritted her teeth and said, “I’m starting to feel like an ATM machine.”

  Her father stepped forward. She hadn’t even realized he’d been standing back against the wall behind her head. “No more,” he’d said, and the exams had stopped. By that time, Sarah was in a haze of pain and exhaustion, her hands raw from gripping the draping. She could hear a terrible barking noise from a woman in a nearby room, and another woman yelling prayers in Spanish. Sarah’s own pain had a sound, a wail that came from a place inside her she didn’t know existed. And then, only minutes before she was going to surrender to a Cesarean, she was fully dilated and instructed to push. A convex mirror high in the corner of the room showed Baby A crowning, then emerging like a small wild animal before being engulfed by a five-person pediatric team. She remembered wishing she hadn’t checked the mirror again, because the second view showed a resident with his arm buried seemingly to the elbow in her to deliver Baby B. Apgar scores—an impressive nine for the first twin and a more iffy six for the second—were noted; then the babies were swaddled and given to her to hold briefly before being whisked away.