Mia sniffed and took in a shaky breath. “Do you mean leaving us?” She paused. “Or staying when you were miserable?”
Babs sat very still, the tears continuing to run unimpeded down her cheeks. Even with the layer of cream, weariness spoke plainly on her face. “I wasn’t blameless in either.” She turned her gaze to Mia, a sad smile lifting her mouth. “I’m running out of ways to apologize tonight.”
Mia let her head drop onto her mother’s shoulder and knew no other would fit her cheek as well. “I’m sorry too,” she said. “My whole body is heavy with being sorry.”
“Let’s be done with that part then, all right?” Babs smoothed Mia’s hair with slow, gentle strokes. “It’s time to try something new.”
Mia sighed, allowing the weight of her eyelids draw them down. “I don’t know if I can do this by myself,” she said. Her words ran together in exhaustion.
“You’re not by yourself.” Mia could hear the steel in her voice. “We Rathbun women can be tough old broads when necessary. We’ll round up the help you need.”
Mia felt sleep seeping into her. “I’m not by myself.”
“No, honey. You’re not alone.”
Mia felt the warmth of her mother’s hand rest on her head in silent blessing as her body dropped into the mercy of sleep.
Late September, Year of Your Birth
Dear Little One,
You’re almost here. My due date is a week away and the doctor says you’re making signs that you might not even wait that long.
I wanted to write you a letter before you’re out of your current apartment complex and moving into mine. I worry that with all the diaper changing and breast-feeding (try not to think about it too hard) and sleep deprivation, I’ll forget to tell you things you should know. Bullet points have always been helpful to me, so:
• You weren’t exactly planned. I know, I know, this is not the way a mother is supposed to begin a letter to her baby, but I have the feeling not much of our life together will be typical.
• It was not my plan, but I’m overwhelmed with how perfect it was. Your grandma (who will insist you call her anything but “grandma”) attributes this to God and His strange providence. We’ll talk later about that.
• Your dad and I loved each other. Not perfectly, by any means, but you should know we did. And do, I suppose. More about that later as well.
• This is likely to be a grand adventure and I would beg for your patience and understanding as I’ve never done it before either.
• Babs has done it before, but still treat her with caution. For example, never, ever accept food products from her without my approval.
• You owe me big time for the havoc pregnancy wreaked on my formerly lovely abdominal region. Big time. Huge.
• Stretch marks, I’ve found, are nothing that can be avoided with cocoa butter or fancy lotions sold to people like Angelina Jolie and Katie Holmes (you can look up those names online). And for the record, one’s skin is not the only thing stretched to breaking point with the expectation of a child.
This is just the primer. But I wanted you to know what I was thinking right before your debut.
I’ll see you soon.
No one is more surprised than I at the ache of my love for you.
Mom
30
Phoenix
Mia checked the hall mirror only because years of personal hygiene had made it a habit, not out of any wishful thinking that she could do anything about what she’d find there. She tucked an escapee curl behind her ear instead of taking the time to gather it into the ponytail restraining the rest of her hair. Her eyes, normally one of her favorite features, were one minute step away from being swallowed by the pillowy nature of the rest of her face. She patted her cheeks in an effort to drum up instant color, licked her lips and tried a smile. The baby, far too large for its cramped quarters, dragged a lazy arm or leg across Mia’s belly and she felt the weight of the child shift uncomfortably to one side.
“Science fiction,” she said aloud and then jumped when a knock rattled the door beside her. She unhooked the chain and flipped aside the deadbolt. The open door revealed Adam, hair in an impressive though likely unintentional bouffant and bearing four grocery bags.
“Hi,” he said from behind one of the bags.
“Let me help,” Mia said, moving toward one of the parcels.
“Don’t insult me, pregsy,” he said, pushing past her toward the kitchen. “These are heavy.” He stubbed his toe on the edge of the range and cried out. “Besides,” he said, letting down his bags, one at a time, onto the countertop. “What kind of a manly man would I be if I let a pregnant woman do my heavy lifting?”
She leaned against the kitchen table. “You’d probably be considered something of a pansy.”
“Exactly.” He clapped his hands together and brushed them off, face full of pride for having navigated the precarious transit. “So now you can rest assured. I’m all the man you’d ever need.” His grin spilled as much out of his eyes as out of his mouth.
Autumn had made its first crisp entrance that morning and had filled the air and trees with a breath of expectancy, priming the world for its eminent display of color and drama. Adam wore no jacket but had made a shift in his wardrobe from the ever-reliable T-shirt. He rolled up the sleeves of a soft brown corduroy shirt that matched his eyes. “Ready?”
“To birth or to help you cook?”
“Either, though the former might work better with trained professionals.” He washed his hands in the sink and she handed him a towel.
“Thanks for doing this,” she said. “Both for the nutritional value and for the distraction from the fact that I’m seven and a half days beyond my due date. Seven and a half days, if one is counting and one certainly is.”
Adam set to peeling garlic. “I wish I could do more than help you put together pans of lasagna. How does it feel to be almost in labor but not yet?” He cast a sidelong glance. “Am I going to regret asking this question? What with my being a manly man and all?”
Mia set a cutting board on the table and began slicing tomatoes. “I’ll clean up my response so as not to frighten the uninitiated. It feels like I’m carrying around a watermelon in my belly but that my belly is sick and tired of watermelon so it has given the responsibility to my pelvic region, which is not entirely equipped for weight-bearing exercise.”
“That’s enough detail, thanks,” he said. “I’m getting the picture. As many tedious hours in psych lecture taught me to phrase, what I hear you saying is that you are uncomfortable and anxious to get the pelvic show on the road.”
“Well stated, doctor.” She didn’t particularly like cutting tomatoes. The skin never cooperated with her cheap knives and the slices were so unwieldy after the first incisions. Juice puddled on the table surrounding the cutting board. But when a man says he’ll fill a girl’s freezer with homemade pasta, a girl knows when to shut up and keep cutting.
They worked in silence, washing, chopping, slicing, mincing. Mia watched the bowl of tomato chunks grow as she worked and thought about the quiet way in which her friendship with Adam had grown over the last months. When she replayed the weeks of feeling alone, desperate for Lars to return and hungry for resolution, she could see Adam’s face and kind eyes on the periphery, never overstaying his welcome in her life but not more than two steps away, either. She looked at him, bent over the sink and rinsing a tall crop of leeks.
“Adam,” she began and stopped, unsure of how to continue.
He looked at her above the spray of water. “What’s up? Are you sick of tomatoes? They’re kind of a pain, I know. Here, you take these. I’ll show you how—”
She shook her head. The seriousness of her face made him reach to turn off the water. He waited for her to speak.
“I realiz
e this might not be the greatest compliment as it’s coming from a girl in my condition.”
“You mean knocked up? In the family way? Inpregnito?”
“That will be sufficient.” She rolled a tomato toward her and began chopping again to give her hands something to do. “So I might not be the one you’d like to hear this from but, um. I think you’re—” She looked up at him, knife in hand. “I think you’re one of the most beautiful human beings I’ve ever met. You’ve been so good to me.” She shook her head and felt her cheeks grow hot, her eyes stinging with tears. “You’re the real deal, Adam Malouf. Some girl is going to be very lucky to land you.”
He looked down at the floor and seemed bothered by her words.
“Did I say too much?” she asked, flustered. “I’m sorry. And don’t worry about the crying. I get emotional about everything these days—”
Suddenly he was in front of her. “You should put down your knife. Makes a guy nervous.” The smile in his voice made her look up. He drew her out of her chair and into his arms. She closed her eyes and he brushed her lips with a kiss made of honey, mint, cashmere, maybe a touch of chocolate.
They pulled slowly away from each other.
He spoke first. “Don’t ruin this moment by telling me you’re damaged or not a great catch or any of that other rot you spout off with. I know you’re pregnant, I know your hands and feet are swollen, and I know you’ve gained more weight than whatever is written in that ridiculous book Frankie reads all the time.”
She groaned.
He drank in every millimeter of her gaze. “I know all that.” He shrugged slightly. “But I can’t do anything but be floored by you. So much so that I had to catch my breath when you walked into your baby shower.” He grinned. “Great place to pick up chicks, baby showers.”
“You’re sick.”
“I’m not done. You do things no one else can do and you do them so well. Like Flor? That was amazing. And your patience with Babs, God bless her. And the way you’ve carried this baby with dignity and … courage. You’re courageous, Mia.”
She was crying. Her head rested on his chest and she could feel the drumbeat of his heart. He held her, kissed her gently on the top of her head. She could feel her eyelids swelling after crying but knew there was little left that could scare this one away.
After a moment he cleared his throat. “Mia?”
“Mm-hm?” She closed her eyes and shifted slightly so the belly was out to one side of their hug.
“I think you just peed on me.”
Mia’s eyes flew open and she jumped back in horror. “Oh, please, no,” she groaned. “My bladder can’t hold anything these days and the baby’s crushing it—” She stopped, her eyes bulging at the puddle on the floor. “I don’t think that’s … I think my water just broke.”
Adam turned rapid-fire toward the stove. He flipped off the ignited burner with a vengeance and sprinted to the door. A second later he was back, grabbing his phone off the counter. “I’ll call a cab. Do we take a cab? Or do I call an ambulance?” He wasn’t looking at Mia, who stood fixed to the spot on the floor where he’d left her. When she didn’t respond, he looked up from his rabid scrolling. “Mia?”
“I think we call a cab,” she said in an unnaturally calm voice. “But I should probably have a towel.”
“A towel!” Adam said the word much like he might have exclaimed “Eureka!” upon finding gold in a California stream. He raced to the linen closet and Mia heard lots of banging doors along with one cuss word.
She took the towel he tossed at her from the doorway.
“Now do I call a cab?” His eyes were twice their normal size.
“Yes,” she said, amazed at the even tone of her voice when her pulse was setting a personal best. “And Babs. You should tell my mom the baby’s coming.”
He whipped a thumbs-up behind his back as he ran out the door and into the hallway, skipping the elevator and going straight for the stairs.
Her gait was careful but purposed as she walked around the apartment, retrieving her prepacked suitcase from the bedroom, toothbrush and toiletries from the bathroom, a lightweight coat from the front hall. She felt the first of what would be many contractions and sat carefully on a kitchen chair. One hand on her tightening belly, one on the back of the chair, she watched the door, tried to breathe, and prayed for her child.
Babs stationed her face inches from Mia’s. She followed her daughter’s gaze to the ceiling and said in her best Delia the Yoga Teacher impression, “Beautiful. Now breeeeeeathe.”
Mia ignored her completely and let out a high-pitched whinny. “I can’t do this anymore,” she wailed to the nurse standing opposite Babs. “Give me drugs.”
“All right,” the nurse said. Mia had been staring at the woman’s photo ID, which was suspended from her neck on a lanyard reading St. Jude’s—We Care. Above large block letters proclaiming HELEN, the photo was outdated, as were the height of bangs Helen had worn the day her image was captured. “You have written in your birth plan to distrust your first three requests because you …” Helen flipped through the file on Mia’s bedside table, “quote ‘would like the miracle of birth to take care of itself without human intervention or unnecessary medication.’”
“I was insane!” Mia screamed. “Delusional! Living in a dream world!” She halted her tirade to scream through another contraction.
“We need an epidural. Stat!” Babs’s face was white, though this was considerable improvement over the green she’d worn when stationed at the other end of the table during the last OB check. At that point she’d teetered in her stilettos and had needed Helen to escort her to a chair near the window. Now white-faced but no longer swooning, Babs turned beseeching eyes toward the nurse. “You can help her, Helen. Please put this woman out of her agony.”
Helen’s face remained immobile. Thirty-four years of experience in labor and delivery had provided her with coping skills fit for nuclear holocaust. The two hysterical women before her weren’t even registering on her Richter scale. “I’ll call the anesthesiologist but I have to warn you. It might be too late.” She walked calmly out of Mia’s room, white shoes squeaking on the tile.
“I’m going to die,” Mia moaned. Her hair splayed out in every direction on her pillow. Beads of sweat pooled on her forehead. She clung with white knuckles to either side of the hospital bed. “This is not normal. There’s no way women do this every day and live—” She stopped talking to endure another contraction.
Babs stuck her face between the bedrails. “Mia, look at me.” She held up her index finger. “Blow out the candle. Blow it out, like this.” She demonstrated a forceful push of air aimed at her “ignited” index finger.
Mia wept and turned her head to face the wall. “In case I don’t make it,” she panted, “I want you to know I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, sweetheart.” Babs fingers patted Mia’s arm like the beak of a woodpecker. “But you’re going to make it. Everyone feels like this right before the baby’s out.”
“You’re lying.” Mia’s voice sounded like the scary mini-person in The Lord of the Rings. “You have to say that but it’s not true.”
A sharp knock sounded on the door and Dr. Mahoney blew in, Helen behind him. “Mia, Mrs. Rathbun, how are things going?”
“Get. It. Out,” said Gollum Mia. “I don’t care if you have to go in with a lasso. Get it out of my body because I’m going to die.”
Babs smiled sheepishly at the doctor. “I think she’s tired.”
Dr. Mahoney snapped on a pair of latex gloves and positioned himself at the foot of Mia’s bed. “Let’s take a look.” He gently pried Mia’s legs apart. After a quick check he asked, “Did you call for an epidural?” He pulled his mask down over his chin and rolled his stool backward away from the bed.
Mia nodded.
“Ready to push! Ready to push!” Babs clapped her hands excitedly like a windup toy.
“Whoa, not quite yet,” Helen said when she saw Mia grimace. “Give us a chance to get ready.”
“Get ready?” Mia’s voice was a full-on shriek. “You’ve had twelve hours to get ready!” In the far recesses of her mind, a small warning light blinked above a sign reading Avoid Rude Behavior to Those Who Hold Your Life in Their Hands. She ignored it, however, and kept glaring at every medical professional in the room.
Dr. Mahoney’s face did not register any emotional response to being chastised by a ranting female. “Okay, Mia. When I say go, you push while Helen counts. When she gets to five, you can take a breather.” He planted himself between the stirrups and waited. Finally he spoke. “Here’s a good contraction. Okay, Mia. Push!”
She gritted her teeth and felt a relief, albeit crazed, flood her body. After hours of passive pain, at least she was able to do something.
“Five. Take a break.” Helen almost sounded bored.
Babs was panting in the chair by Mia’s head. “I don’t remember any of this,” she muttered to herself.
“And so explains the continuation of the human race,” Helen said and snorted a quick laugh before letting her face become implacable once again.
“Here we go,” Dr. Mahoney said. “Push, Mia.”
She complied and felt disappointment grip her when she felt just as miserable upon the contraction’s end.
“You’re doing great,” Dr. Mahoney said. “Don’t get discouraged. You’ve only pushed twice and many women do this for two hours.”
Mia’s wail floated past her door and into the waiting room, or so reported the desk nurse after the fact.
“Push!”
Mia took a deep breath and bore down. Any sense of dignity out the window hours before, she gripped both knees to her chest and saw stars as she finished the contraction.
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