The Waiting Place
Page 14
“Think we are going to need the calf pullers?” Glen asks.
I stretch my neck to look up at him.
“Shut up,” I say and I mean it.
“Sorry,” he says. Perhaps he’s worried I am going to swear at him again.
More pushing, bearing down, face screwed up in both determination and pain, and then suddenly it is over. There’s a cessation of the pain and I feel the baby sliding out of me.
A boy. Eight pounds, four ounces. 21 inches long. He starts to cry and the nurse carries him away to do whatever it is they do with newborn babies. When she returns, she places the baby on my stomach with his head facing Glen and me.
I read somewhere that laying an infant on the mother’s belly is an aid to the natural expulsion of the placenta. It promotes the contractions that are necessary for that expulsion. But calling them contractions is a misnomer. These contractions feel more like waves, an ebb and flow with purpose but no pain. I sense a final wave and hear a soft sound as the placenta drops into a receptacle on the floor between my legs. Detritus of a completed pregnancy.
The absence of pain is a kind of euphoria, a lightness that makes me feel as if my body with its suddenly flatter belly could float away.
My baby has very little hair, but what he has is dark like mine. His blue eyes may change colour, I have been told. All babies are born with blue eyes. He is looking at me.
Is this attachment, I wonder? This unbreakable eye-to-eye contact? You are my baby. Always my baby.
“Wanna know something?” Glen asks. “You know that woman next to you in the labour room?”
“How could I forget her?”
“Well, her husband went to have a nap in the visitor’s lounge and the nurse woke him when it was time. Guess he passed out in the delivery room. Keeled right over, the nurse said.”
I laughed.
“There is a God,” I said.
“I phoned the grandparents.”
“Mom, too?”
“Your mom first. She said to tell you she told you so. What’s that about?”
“She said the baby was a boy.”
The baby is sleeping, wrapped tightly in a blue receiving blanket. His fingers are curled into tiny loose fists.
“I have an idea for his name,” Glen says.
“What?”
“I think we should call him Connor, what d’you think? It’s like connecting the two families, yours and mine. The Connors and the Davidsons. Connor Davidson.”
“It’s good,” I say. “Better than good. Why didn’t we think of it before?”
“Who knows? It just came to me now.”
“Can we call him Connor Lachlan?”
Glen laughs.
“Are you still on that? Yes, if you want.”
“No, I don’t want. I’m just jerking your chain. His second name will be Joseph. Connor for my family. Joseph for your dad. Davidson for everyone.”
Glen is silent.
“Joseph means ‘God will increase.’ Very Biblical,” I say.
“Don’t tell Dad that.”
“I won’t. We’re lucky it’s a boy. We had nothing for a girl’s name. Maybe that’s why. Maybe subconsciously we knew it was a boy.”
“Maybe.”
I look down at the baby in my arms, touching his fragile head with my fingers.
“Welcome to the world, Connor Joseph Davidson,” I say.
“He’s perfect,” Glen says.
“First and only perfect baby there ever was,” I laugh.
No, not perfect. But he will do just fine, I think.
A nurse comes and takes Connor from my arms.
“Time for you to get some rest,” she says.
Suddenly I realize how tired I am.
“I’ll go,” Glen says and leans over to kiss me. His lips are soft, his breath a little sour. I wonder what mine smells like and imagine it is even worse than his.
As he moves away, I see a tiny glass on the bedside table, more like a toothpick holder than a glass. In it are six crocus blossoms.
“Where did those come from?” I ask.
Glen laughs.
“They’re the same ones I picked yesterday. I wrapped them in a wet Kleenex and brought them with us and asked the nurse to find something to put them in. You never noticed them till now?”
No, I hadn’t. Too busy thinking about other things. I notice them now, though. Small purple petals in a small glass vase.
Things that are small: The point at the end of a pen. The eye of a needle. Snowflakes. Raindrops. Grains of sand in an hourglass. Grains of wheat in a bin. Blades of grass in a pasture. A hummingbird’s wings. A baby’s fingers. Little things that fill the spaces between bigger things and hold them all in place. But which are which, because big and little don’t always mean what you think they might. How to find room for them all. How to make them fit.
“Too many puzzles,” I think, not realizing that I have said the words out loud until Glen asks me to repeat myself.
“It was nothing,” I say. “I’m rambling.”
“Get some sleep,” he says. “I’ll see you later.”
I realize I have forgotten something important.
“Thank you for the flowers,” I say, but Glen is gone.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I have many people to thank:
The staff at Turnstone Press for their support, encouragement, and patience with me.
Various instructors at Manitoba Writers’ Guild workshops who worked with me on story manuscripts over the years.
The Manitoba Arts Council for grant funding to work on the stories and prepare a collection.
Sage Hill Writers’ Retreat for giving me the opportunity to write without interruption on the stories and to share in the process with other writers. My Sage Hill Sisters Gwen Smid, Julianna McLean, Heather Haley, and Michelle Greysen for their advice and support. And instructor Terry Jordan, who continued his work with me during his stint as Writer in Residence at the Millennium Library in Winnipeg.
Friends and colleagues at the Manitoba Writers’ Guild. Special thanks to Joanne Epp who took the time to read the manuscript in its early days.
The literary magazines Prairie Fire, Room, and Cahoots which published several of these stories before their conversion into book chapters.
My editor Kimmy Beach whose consistent message brought the novel to its present form, eliminating the unnecessary and polishing the bones.
My long time and dear friend Susan Ching, with my apologies for giving her name to a character who does not appreciate it.
And most of all, Kerry, Morgan, and Keaton, who have put up with me as I write and re-write and talk about writing. You may not always have all of my attention, but you always have all of my love.
Table of Contents
The Waiting Place
copyright © Sharron Arksey 2016
Dedication
The Waiting Place
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Landmarks
Cover