North of Nowhere, South of Loss

by Janette Turner Hospital

  Dr Seuss bends over him. “Hey, listen, it’s not that bad. It’s over before you know it. Mine had ten hours of labour, I’m telling you, I understand why they call it labour, I was wiped, I thought it would never end.” He rubs his forehead with the back of his balloon-holding hand. “I stayed right to the end though,” he says proudly. He takes a wondering inventory of his own body, amazed by its strength. “Right to the last inning it’s touch and go, you’re scared the whole damn time, you’re thinking there’s no way the head and shoulders can get through without ripping her in half, there’s no way, and then shazam, you win the pennant, know what I’m saying? Pennant? What am I talking about? This is the World Series, this is it, man, there ain’t nothing like it. This time tomorrow, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Hold these.”

  He thrusts the roses into Jonathan’s hand and fishes in the pocket of his jacket.

  “Here, have a cigar. Think of it as a stolen base, and you’re there on third just waiting for that one little extra push to get you home free. Compliments of Ernest Hampton Somerset the Third, Ernie for short, in honour of Ernest Hampton Somerset the Fourth, Ernie Junior for short.”

  Bubbling would be the word, Jonathan thinks. He is bubbling on, Seussing and sluicing, covering up panic. And Jonathan is unexpectedly swamped by a great rush of mournful tenderness for Ernest Hampton Somerset the Third, whose son has not yet reached the age of disappointment. He stumbles out of his car.

  “Your roses,” he says awkwardly.

  “Oh geez, thanks. Don’t know which way is up. I’m flying, I admit it to you, man. High as a kite. Feels like Christmas.”

  “Merry September,” Jonathan says. “Congratulations.”

  “Here’s my card. Every kind of insurance you can think of. Listen, you’ve got to pull yourself together, it’s important for them, you know. She’s going to be fine, the baby’s going to be fine, you’re going to be fine, uh … what did you say your name –?”

  Another small wave of turbulence rises in Jonathan and recedes. “Jonathan,” he says meekly enough.

  “You’re white as a sheet, Johnnie boy.” Ernie takes in the tweed jacket, the horn-rimmed glasses, the greying hair. “Starting over?” he guesses. “Is that why you’re so scared?”

  Jonathan blinks at him. “Pardon?”

  “I mean, you know …” Ernie flounders a little. “Well, I thought maybe second family. Younger wife.”

  “Oh.” Jonathan winces. “No.” He is leaning against his car, studying the cigar, trying to think where to put it. “It’s my daughter,” he says faintly.

  “Oh well, for God’s sake, that explains it,” Ernie says. “Ginny’s dad was a wreck. I’m not kidding you. A total wreck. We had to send him packing last night, hours before Ernie Junior took his bow. Hours before.” He hooks the balloon string around the bunched stems of the roses in order to free his right hand. He pats Jonathan on the shoulder. “Listen, Johnnie, before you can blink, you’ll be passing out your own cigars, and signing the kid up for college. That’s where I come in, by the way. College tuition fund, the best gift a granddaddy can give. You got my card, give me a call. You’re not going to pass out on me, are you?”

  “No, no. I’m exhausted, I guess. Long drive.”

  “Where’d you come from?”

  “Boston,” Jonathan says.

  “Good God.” Ernie stares at him, and then walks to the back of the car. “How about that?” he says with wonder. He bends down and runs the knuckles of his balloon hand across the licence plate. He shakes his head. “How come you didn’t fly?”

  “Bad weather. Fog.” Inner or outer? he waits for Ernie to ask. Ernie keeps staring. “The airport was closed,” he explains. “So I had to drive to New York, and then I just –” He makes a vague motion with one hand. “I don’t know. I just kept going.”

  A long slow whistle curves out of Ernie’s lips like an arc of spit. “How many hours that take you?”

  “Um, around fourteen, I think, actual driving.” He frowns at his watch. “I stopped somewhere in West Virginia and slept for a few hours. Some ratty motel.”

  Ernie whistles again and shakes his head. “We all go a bit crazy, I guess. It’s kinda like their cravings for pickles or whatever, d’you think?”

  Jonathan thinks it was one way to arrive too late.

  “Lean on me,” Ernie offers. “Here, you hold the balloon. What’s your line, by the way?”

  Jonathan sighs. He has been blundering into situations of fleeting camaraderie more often lately, with the most improbable people. This bothers him. He fears it means that his haplessness is showing. He never knows how to extricate himself, but he has learned that it is definitely not a good idea to say, in answer to casual exploratory questions, classicist, or even college professor. It makes people too uneasy.

  “I deal in old stuff” he says, replaying one of his children’s jokes. He tries for their light dismissive tone. “I recycle it.”

  “You mean antiques? An antiques dealer?”

  “Antiques, antiquities.” He feels ridiculous, leaning on Ernie’s arm, the two of them shuffling toward the elevator. He cannot bring himself to give offence and break free.

  “Lot of money in that, Johnnie, especially in Atlanta. I could tell right off the bat from your jacket, by the way, not to mention your Yankee accent, that you were into something very upmarket.”

  Non semper ea sunt quae videntur, Jonathan thinks. He feels grotesque. He feels that Ernie has the better grip on life, that Ernie has more substance, more generosity, that Ernie deserves honesty, though he knows perfectly well that the truth will not be of the slightest interest to Ernie. Nevertheless. “Non semper ea sunt quae videntur, Ernie. As we say in the trade. Things are not always what they appear to be.”

  “Very true,” Ernie says. “That’s very true. Mind if I give you a friendly tip, Johnnie? No offence. But you should leave your car safe at your hotel where they’ll have a security patrol. Rent one for driving around in while you’re down here. With Georgia tags, know what I mean?”

  Jonathan is studying the mylar balloon that still bucks at his own wrist. Rara avis, it should say.

  “Some people down here have a thing about Massachusetts tags, is what I mean,” Ernie says as the elevator doors open at reception. “Listen, you think you’ll be okay now? I’m heading up another level.”

  “Your balloon,” Jonathan says.

  “Oh, thanks. Give me a call, Johnnie, okay? I work national. Got clients in fifty states.”

  Jonathan leans on the reception desk and gives his daughter’s name. The nurse frowns at him. “You asthmatic?” she asks.

  “No,” Jonathan says. “It’s the –” He gestures at the fog. “Happens to me in hospitals.”

  The nurse smiles. She runs a fingernail down the ledger on her desk, scanning names. Her fingernails are the colour of bruised plums, and Jonathan wonders how she bathes, how she attends to the body, without gouging furrows in her skin. He tries to imagine her making those rows of tiny braids in her hair, her long nails clicking like knitting needles. Other nurses come and go, ignoring Jonathan, sometimes leaning over the shoulder of the nurse at the desk to add brief notations to her book. The nails of the other nurses, Jonathan is relieved to see, are clipped. Perhaps desk nurses receive a special dispensation. But when they have other duties? He imagines the infant, his grandchild, prinked with blood. Nailed to death, he thinks ghoulishly. He feels lightheaded.

  “I’m afraid I’ve arrived too late, nurse,” he says. “I think she will have had –”

  “I’m not a nurse. I’m the receptionist.”

  “Oh. I thought … because of your uniform.” He tries again. “I think she will have had the baby by now.”

  The plum-lacquered index nail stops, scans horizontally, monitors data.

  “Nope. Not yet. Let’s see, D3. Oh yes, I know her. They brought her down to Delivery before I came on. About six hours ago, I think.” She laughs. “Everyone’s been teasing he
r, she was so gung-ho for natural, they always are, the primos, for all of about twenty minutes, and she’s swearing up and down, no way, no way she’s a quitter, she’s going to go the whole distance. And then she hears the screaming from Delivery 2, and asks for an epidural on the spot. We laughed so hard you’d have thought we were the ones with contractions.” She makes drumming motions with her right hand on the desk and the sound of her nails is like bird feet skittering on glass. “You can say a quick hello, that’s all. We’ve got a lounge down the corridor there, where you can wait after that, if you want. She’s being monitored because there are a few complications. It’s only relatives now.”

  “I’m her father,” Jonathan says.

  The receptionist’s mouth opens and her eyes widen. She blinks rapidly, staring at him. “But …” she says. Jonathan focuses on the O of her lips and waits. “Oh,” she says, recovering well. “In that case. It’s third door down, on the right. Delivery 3. I, uh, I apologise.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “Her mother’s in there with her.”

  Jonathan leans on the counter. It hits an air pocket and drops several feet. He breathes slowly. “I’ll be fine,” he says to the receptionist. “Third door down, on the right. Right?”

  She stares at him. “Right.”

  Delivery 3 is in twilight. The shades are drawn, the light dimmed. At first he sees only the tilted bed, the trolleys, the drips, the equipment, the stirrups, his daughter’s face, coffee-pale, and the corona of her hair, black and damp, against the pillow.

  He kisses her forehead, pushing aside a mass of curls.

  “Dad?” She half opens heavy lids but they fall again.

  “Stace,” he says.

  She makes another effort to open her eyes. A smile flickers and stays. “We’ve been waiting for you,” she says, slurring her words like a drunk. She gropes for his hand.

  We.

  He peers through the murk of the room and sees an armchair, shadowy against the closed drapes. He sees the form of a woman. His hand jumps like a fish in Stacey’s, and Stacey gives a little cry of fright. “Me and the baby,” she says, each startled word distinct. “I told the baby not to come till you were here.”

  The woman in the armchair is not Cathy. He can see more clearly now. He can feel his pupils dilating, pushing against the edges of his eyes. He blinks several times, but the sensation of painful bulging does not go away. Owl-like, he and the woman study each other.

  “Hi,” she says quietly. “I’m QP’s mom.” She comes forward and extends her hand. She is a handsome woman, fifty perhaps. Fifty-five? Her face is worn, her hand feels like fine-tooled leather. He notes a wrist band with woven initials: WWJD “I guess you’re Stacey’s dad,” she says.

  “Jonathan Wilson. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Callisto Wade. Your wife’s gone to buy Stace a few things. I’ve been keeping watch.”

  “Kind of you.”

  “I’ll let you two be. I feel like I know you already, Stacey’s talked about you so much.”

  He is startled. And now, he sees, he cannot ask: Who is QP? Nor can he ask: And what does she say about me? What does she say about her mother, about us? He works at words, dragging them up a levee in his mind, but he cannot get a firm purchase.

  “No problem at all,” Callisto says, and he understands that some verbal scree, a few pebbles, inane, must have ricocheted up. “I could do with some sleep,” she says, “but I’d appreciate a call when things start moving. They gave her something to induce, because of the pre-eclampsia”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Means they got to get the baby out pretty quick. Means the hard part should begin in three, maybe four hours. I’ll be back for that. This’ll be my twenty-third grandchild, God willing, and I get just as excited every time.”

  “Twenty-third,” he murmurs, stunned.

  “QPs my baby” she says. “My tenth and last.” She sighs. “Though he is like to bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.”

  She catches his look.

  “The Bible,” she says. “Book of Genesis”

  “Yes. I thought so.”

  This interests her. “Whitefolks don’t usually know their Bibles as well as us.”

  “Is it Abraham?”

  “Close. OldJacob, when he thinks he’s lostJoseph and Benjamin, both. It’s the youngest ones break our hearts.”

  “Yes.” He has not thought of it as a general rule.

  She puts a hand on his arm. “They go astray, but they come back.” She studies him, considering what to tell. “I’m going to stop by at my church on the way home. Church of the Lord Victorious. I’m going to stop by to pray.”

  “It’s dangerous, this pre-eclampsia thing?”

  “You a believer, Mr Wilson?”

  “Well,” he says.

  “All things are possible to them that believe. You see these hands?”

  She offers her palms.

  “Touch them,” she says.

  Jonathan glances uneasily at Stacey whose eyes remain closed.

  “They don’t look much, do they?” Callisto says, turning her hands over and back. “They do hair, is what they do weekdays. Straightening, lightening, braiding, beading, cornrows, dreadlocks, you name it. That’s what they do weekdays. But on Sundays, they come to glory. On Sundays, in the Church of the Lord Victorious, they handle snakes.”

  She waits to gauge the effect of her words.

  “Poisonous snakes,” she says.

  When he says nothing, she lays her cool snake-handling fingers on his wrist.

  “All things are possible,” she says, “to them that believe.”

  A nurse comes in and takes Stacey’s blood pressure.

  Stacey says: “Has something gone wrong? Why have my contractions stopped?”

  “They take their own sweet time,” the nurse says. “Especially for first births. Not to worry. Dr Steiner’s keeping a close eye on you. We have to let him know every little blip and change in your readings. He’ll be by again in half an hour.” She leaves.

  “Dad?” Stacey says.

  He gets up from the armchair and comes to her side. This time he manages to say it. “It’s so good to see you again, Stace.” He kisses her forehead. “It’s just so good to see you.”

  She reaches for his hand. The way she holds it reminds him of a day on the beach north of Boston. She would have been five or six and they were walking on great ribs of rock, the frenetic surf between. “Do you remember the beach near the lighthouse?” he asks.

  “That time I fell into the ocean?”

  “You were five, I think.”

  “There was blood all over.”

  “The rocks grated us,” he says.

  “I had nightmares for ages. I was so scared.”

  “So was I,” he says.

  Her eyes close, but she does not let go of his hand. Minutes pass. He thinks she is asleep and then realises she is watching him.

  “Hey,” he smiles.

  “I’ve fucked up again, as usual, Dad.”

  “Don’t think about it. It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does,” she says. “But I’m too tired to care.”

  “We were afraid we’d lost you, Stace. It’s been so long.”

  “Yeah. Two years.”

  “More than two years. We’ve been worried sick. We didn’t even know if you were … you know … ”

  “Alive or dead,” she says.

  “Why didn’t you call? Why didn’t you at least –”

  “I don’t know. Too much I didn’t want to talk about, I guess.”

  “At least a postcard.”

  “Just too much I didn’t want you to know.”

  “Oh Stace.”

  “Don’t go weepy on me, Dad.”

  “I’m not,” he says, embarrassed. “It’s the air-conditioning.”

  “You seen Mom yet?”

  “No,” he says. “She called me. We talked.”

&nb
sp; Stacey’s eyelids fall shut again. “I’m so tired,” she says. “I didn’t know it would be such hard work.”

  Someone pushes at the door and the garish neon of the corridor blares in. Jonathan flinches. A hand and a head appear, not Cathy’s. The hand and the head are black. “Oh, sorry,” a male voice says. “Wrong room.”

  Stacey stirs. “Stag?” she asks sleepily. “Is that you?”

  Stag’s eyes widen. “Stace?” He comes into the room, startled. “How you doin’, girl? Thought I got the wrong room.”

  “You got the right room,” Stacey says, turning lively. She sits up. “That is, if it’s me you’re looking for.”

  “And who else would I be looking for, girl? How many women you think I know about to pop a baby in Northside Hospital?”

  Stacey laughs. “Is that a question we really want to know the answer to, Stag?”

  “You watch your mouth, girl. Man,” he says admiringly, patting her stomach. “You as blown-up as a whale on steroids. What you cookin’ in there?”

  “Get lost,” she laughs. “Dad, this loser is QP’s best friend.”

  “From when we were this high,” Stag says, touching the floor. He locks the index finger of his right hand around the middle finger. “Like this,” he says. “Me and QP. Blood brothers. That’s what I had to tell the chick outside, by the way. Only relatives, she says. I’m family, I tell her. Blood brother. Had to throw in a little sweet talk as well” He pauses, frowning. He contemplates Jonathan with the air of someone replaying a track in his head. “Stace? –?”

  “This’s my dad, Stag.”

  “Your dad?”

  “You got a problem with that?” Stacey asks, belligerent.

  Stag raises both hands, a surrender. “No, ma’am”. He falls into a violent mock trembling. “No, ma’am. I ain’t got no problem with that.”

  “Get lost,” Stacey says. “You idiot.”

  “Your dad. Well, how ’bout that?” Stag’s smile is full of wonder and white teeth. “Pleased to meet you, suh. Stace never let on her folks was whitefolks.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Stag. Jonathan Wilson”

  “Virgil Haynes, suh. But everyone call me Stag.”

  “ Virgil? Your name is Virgil?”