Tomorrow and Always

by Rachel Ann Nunes

  “I think they’re hungry,” Malcolm said.

  Faith gave him a smile. “They’re babies; they’re always hungry.”

  “A baby’s instinct to nurse is the strongest in the first half-hour or so of life,” Maggie added.

  Malcolm gave the first baby back to Brionney, who sat staring, relieved from her pain now, as if bemused by the miracle that had taken place. “You’d better nurse,” Faith said. “It will help your uterus contract. You’ve lost a bit more blood than I like to see. I’ll make you a cayenne mixture to drink. That’ll help.”

  “I’ll go get the girls.” Malcolm went reluctantly to the door, and Karissa knew it wasn’t because of his broken ankle that he went so slowly, but because he was loath to leave the new babies and the miracle of their birth. She gazed at the baby in her arms, so soft, so tiny, so . . . helpless. One minute they weren’t there, the next they were. Karissa felt like laughing, singing, and crying all at once. Not the sad kind of tears, but those that came from uninhibited joy.

  Everyone arrived in Karissa’s room nearly at once. Jesse, Dr. Fairfax, a nurse, and the ambulance workers came in the front door and down the hall just as the girls burst into the room. The medical people carried bags and equipment; the girl brought hugs and kisses. All were anxious to see the babies and Brionney. Only Malcolm did not return.

  Karissa handed baby number two to Jesse as reluctantly as Malcolm had relinquished his place in the room. “He came second,” she murmured. “Just so you don’t get them mixed up.”

  “As long as they came out safely,” Jesse said. His eyes met his wife’s. “And as long as Brionney’s all right, nothing else matters.” He sat on the bed and leaned over to kiss his wife, sharing a private moment even among the excited, giggling girls and the other adults who looked on. The baby in his arms began wailing again.

  Karissa backed away from the bed and toward the door. Where was Malcolm? After having been in the room during the birth, and even having been an important part of getting the first baby to breathe, was he now suffering from embarrassment? Or feeling unneeded, as Karissa herself now felt?

  “So you’re making house calls now,” Brionney joked as Dr. Fairfax approached the bed.

  “It isn’t the first time,” he said. “And it won’t be the last. Too many people live too far from the hospital.” He glanced over at Faith and Maggie. “But I see you’ve been in capable hands. These women have been helping deliver babies since before I left the island to attend medical school, and more than once we’ve run into each other.”

  “Tell the rest,” Maggie said with an indulgent smile.

  Dr. Fairfax laughed. “Okay, okay. Maggie here delivered me herself.”

  “How about that,” Jesse said.

  Karissa left them then, the happy family and those who would examine both mother and infants. They would weigh and dress the new additions, and finally clean up until there was no trace of the miracle that had occurred. Karissa was no use to them now, but the thought didn’t make her sad. For a few moments she had helped a baby take his first breath of air. Her exhilaration at the experience was tinged by bitter pain and sweet hope. What would her life have been like if her first baby had lived? Would this new baby inside her womb heal her from that aching guilt and longing?

  She found Malcolm on the porch, the last place she looked. He stood at the top of the stairs, staring out into the dark night. The rain had worsened into a genuine storm, and the wind whipped her hair around her face. She heard a crack of lightning and a short time later saw a jagged flash in the distance, illuminating the angry tumult of clouds in the sky.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?” Malcolm asked without turning.

  Karissa had always preferred quiet, peaceful nights when she could hear the grasshoppers calling and smell the earth cooling from the heat of the day. She stepped to the edge of the stairs and looked in the direction where Malcolm stared, searching for the beauty that fascinated him. The wind rushed at her, bringing a tumult of fresh, stimulating scents, some comfortingly familiar, some wildly different and intoxicating. The blast of cold air spiraled around her, playing with her hair and making her think of a nymph set free to dance in the night where no protruding eyes watched or arms threatened to seize. It was incredible.

  The lightning flashed in the sky and Karissa saw the clouds shifting, driven by the wind-nymph in her untamed dance. Then the thunder came again, pounding through her body, summoning reactions she had never before noticed. “It’s more than beautiful,” she agreed.

  He turned to her, smiling, his eyes meeting hers. But she couldn’t read the thoughts written there in the gray that now seemed black in the stormy night.

  “I’ve been an idiot,” he said. “I can’t believe I’ve let so many years go by being a complete and utter idiot.” Karissa gazed at him without speaking, not understanding his words.

  “I’ve never seen a baby so new,” he said, touching her arm. “Suddenly there he was, squeezing his eyes shut and refusing to take a breath, and I knew I could spank him or give him mouth-to-mouth and make him breathe, but then I thought how much better if he did it on his own, so I rubbed his feet, and then he took that first breath and everything was okay. Now I see what my parents have been doing all these years; they’ve been rubbing my feet and praying—as hard as I prayed to find you on the road tonight—that I would breathe on my own.”

  “What are you saying?” Malcolm occasionally talked in metaphors and Karissa had chalked it up to his creative nature. This time she wanted plain language.

  “That baby is from heaven, Karissa. From heaven! Where our baby is. I want us to be a complete family, an eternal family. Here I’ve separated us because I wasn’t willing to sacrifice for our child as much as you were. I’m not worthy of a child, but I will be. So help me, I promise you I will be.”

  The wind blew her hair in her face, and she tossed it back impatiently. “You’ll quit smoking?”

  He nodded. “I don’t know how, but I know why. By the time our child comes, I’ll be ready. I want it all back. Everything I was raised to.”

  The lightning blazed, closer this time, and in that flash, Karissa saw that he was serious. “What are you say—?” She broke off, recognizing that she didn’t know if she wanted to hear the answer.

  “It’s time we decided what’s really important in our lives.” The wind tore his words from his lips, but instead of tossing them into the night, it planted them deep in Karissa’s heart. His eyes were awash with love and purpose. “You’ve been hinting at this all along, haven’t you? With all this talk of the Church and eating right. Only I was too blind to see it.”

  She had mixed feelings about this sudden change of heart. Over the years she had told herself it would never come, even knowing all along that it would. Malcolm was a good man, and in her heart she had always felt that one day he would want to search for a deeper meaning in life, one that wasn’t connected to material gain or professional recognition. Yet she had looked forward to the change with trepidation, not joy, even though in her heart she yearned for the freedom it would give her. For embracing the gospel would entail great changes, and she knew she wasn’t capable of changing herself—not completely. She couldn’t admit her unforgivable sin, not to anyone but Brionney, and certainly not to Malcolm, who would never understand.

  “Let’s take this one day at a time,” she said softly. “Start first with the smoking.” Maybe he won’t be able to quit, she thought. He couldn’t before. And then the point of further spiritual progression won’t matter. I can’t lose him now.

  Fear and regret grew in her heart. Why had she insisted? The very thing that had kept Malcolm from the Church had kept him with her. Why hadn’t she realized that until this very moment? Why did things have to be so complicated?

  One thing stood out clearly: Malcolm, whether he liked to admit it or not, came from a spiritual family, and their ideas were engraved upon his heart and mind. Worse—or better, depending upon the viewpoint—he had f
elt the Spirit tonight. Latent roots, planted firmly in the soil of his youth, had sprouted; now they had only to grow.

  Karissa too had felt the Spirit, but her secret made redemption impossible. Her roots had been cut off permanently because of her past. Malcolm, I committed a sin, she could say, and have it over with. But she wouldn’t—she couldn’t. She knew he would turn against her.

  He pulled her close and rested his cheek against hers. “Can you believe those two little babies? Soon that will be us.”

  “I’d prefer a hospital, if you don’t mind,” she said, marveling that her voice could be so calm when her heart ached so badly.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  She couldn’t say it back. Her emotions were so volatile that even if it were true on this stormy night, it might not be tomorrow. More important than love was the commitment. The love could come and go, blaze or dim, but regardless, she needed her husband.

  “Stay with me?” she asked.

  “I’ll never leave you again.”

  Karissa hoped he spoke the truth.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Help! It’s the unidentified flying diaper!” Jesse called laughingly. He threw a disposable diaper over Camille’s head and into the short garbage can they’d kept in the family room since the day after the twins’ birth. Savannah and Camille echoed their father’s laughter. Baby number one, or Gabriel as his parents called him, blinked lazily as his father fastened the tabs on his new diaper, his dark eyes an undefined blue-brown.

  “Pass me Forest,” said Jesse, pulling on Gabriel’s tiny pajamas. “I might as well get this over with in one nose-plugging swoop.”

  Karissa laid Forest on the baby blanket next to his brother. As Jesse opened the myriad of tiny snaps on his soft pajamas, she picked up Gabriel and returned to the sofa, where Delinda Goodrich eyed him intently.

  “They look exactly alike,” Delinda said. She moved closer to make sure, and the plastic sack on her lap crinkled noisily.

  “They’re identical twins,” Malcolm reminded her. He sat in the easy chair, his cast resting on an ottoman.

  “Can I hold Forest when you’re through?” Savannah asked.

  Forest started to cry. It seemed to Jesse that Forest was always crying, just as he had the moment he had come from Brionney’s womb.

  “Of course you can. But for Pete’s sake, get the pacifier before he wakes up your mother and Rosalie.” Jesse’s face held a tint of green as he eyed the contents of Forest’s diaper. Savannah scrambled for the pacifier and obediently poked it in the baby’s mouth. He promptly spit it out and cried more loudly.

  “You need some tape to keep it in his mouth,” Malcolm suggested.

  “What, you don’t have Crazy Glue?” Grimacing, Jesse fished into the container of wipes and came out with a small stack.

  “Landsakes!” Delinda said. “Let me do that. You’re going to use a whole pack of wipes on two diapers!”

  “Oh, no,” Jesse said. “I made a deal with Brionney to change all the diapers for two weeks. I’ve only got two more days to go, and then I’m free.”

  Delinda sighed. “It’s good I brought ya these then,” she said, dumping the contents of her sack onto the floor: a mound of diaper wipe refills. Malcolm, Karissa, and the girls nearly choked on their laughter, but Jesse looked at Delinda gratefully.

  “Thanks, Delinda,” he said. “Whoever invented these must have been a father who hated changing diapers.”

  “Or a mother who was sick of doing all the work,” Karissa said wryly.

  Delinda laughed. “That’s more likely.”

  “Are we going to have family night?” Camille asked.

  “Well, I don’t know. We don’t have a treat,” Jesse said to tease her.

  “Uh-huh.” Camille looked at him seriously. “We have burnt cookies.”

  Karissa colored. “You weren’t supposed to tell them about that.”

  “But they’re good.” Savannah licked her lips.

  “My motto is that if they got sugar, kids’ll eat ’em,” Delinda said. “Now pass me one of those little angels. Not the one that you said came out screaming—goodness, I’m too old for that. Give me the other one. Gabriel, right?”

  Jesse finished the diaper and let Savannah hold the screamer Forest under Karissa’s watchful eye. He went into the kitchen to wash his hands, and Malcolm followed.

  “Got a minute?” Malcolm asked.

  “Sure, what is it?” Jesse turned on the water.

  “About that night, when the babies were born.”

  Jesse turned, leaving the water running. “I appreciate what you did, Malcolm. If you hadn’t found Karissa and Brionney, things would have been a lot worse. As it was, everything turned out great—except for my missing the birth.”

  “It’s not that. I feel partly at fault for Brionney even being at the house instead of in Anchorage or in Kodiak, closer to a hospital.”

  “It was me who forgot to fill up Karissa’s gas tank,” Jesse said. “I don’t blame you for anything.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “There I was at the head of the bed, wishing I could help Brionney, thinking that if you were there, you would have given her a blessing. But I couldn’t do that. I gave up my right to do so long ago. I hadn’t missed my priesthood before that night, not even when Karissa threatened to miscarry. Someone else would be there and would certainly give her a blessing—and did, as it turned out.”

  “It was Damon.”

  Malcolm shook his head as if he could shake the name out of the conversation. “Someone was there, it didn’t matter who, just that it didn’t have to be me. But that night with Brionney, there was only me, and I couldn’t do it.”

  Jesse felt a leap of excitement in his heart. “It could be you. It was once. You gave me a blessing when you were on your mission. You still have the power; you just need to be worthy.”

  “I know, I know,” he said, his voice low and tense. “But I’ve got to quit smoking. I went and got a patch.” He pulled up his sleeve to reveal a blue nicotine patch, then covered it again and began to pace awkwardly with his heavy cast. “It’s not working. I’ve tried and tried, and I know it’s no longer a physical problem, really, but a psychological one. Despite this stupid patch, I’ve smoked every day since the babies came, even though I tried so hard not to. I can’t tell Karissa. She’d be so disappointed. It doesn’t help that she quit the first time she tried.” He slammed his fist in his hand. “Darn it all, I’ve got to beat this, but how?”

  Jesse wanted to make a suggestion, but something held him back. Let it be Malcolm’s idea, he thought. He squeezed soap from the flowered bottle near the sink and methodically washed his hands under the running water. Turning it off, he shook his hands in the sink the way Brionney hated, before remembering the hand towel hanging from the ceramic holder. As he dried his hands, he turned back to where Malcolm had stopped pacing and stood staring, waiting.

  “I’d love to help,” Jesse prompted. “What can I do?”

  Malcolm’s thick eyebrows drew together, wrinkling the skin on his forehead. He clamped his lips tightly together before opening them to say, “Could you give me a blessing?”

  The words hadn’t come easily, and Jesse quickly squelched any sign of triumph or amusement that might have come to his face. “That might work,” he replied more calmly than he felt. “I’d be glad to do it. Can you think of anyone else that you’d like to assist me?”

  “Can’t you just do it alone?”

  “You know how it is, Malcolm. It should be two. One does great in an emergency, but we have time here.”

  Malcolm sighed. “Okay, then. Jud Kennedy’s my home teacher. I don’t know who his companion is now, but Jud’s always trying to come and teach me something. I think he’d be glad enough to assist.” His face turned sheepish. “I don’t know how I’m going to call him, though. I’ve spent so long trying to avoid him that I don’t even know his number.”

  “I have it on the ward list. I’ll g
o get it.”

  “Wait.”

  Jesse paused on his way out the door.

  “Do you think we could keep this between us men?” He shrugged. “I don’t want to worry Karissa now. She’s been through enough in the last few months.”

  “Sure, Malcolm.” Jesse wondered if Malcolm’s real reason for not telling Karissa was that he was embarrassed by his inability to stop smoking on his own. “We’ll invite Jud to come home teaching, and afterwards you can show off your studio. We can do it then.”

  The crease went out of Malcolm’s forehead. “Thanks, Jesse. I appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  * * * * *

  Jud came that night, without a companion but promptly and with a lesson. During the discussion he ducked his blonde head nervously, and the flaccid cheek beneath his left eye twitched furiously. But when he bore his testimony, both the nervous ducking and twitching stopped. His round face seemed firmer, and his eyes burned with the strength of his conviction.

  Malcolm listened intently, as did Karissa, but Jesse noticed that her face was pale and the hollows in her cheeks more pronounced. She’s not happy about Malcolm asking Jud to be here, he concluded. The Spirit confirmed his thought. But why? Jesse had always thought it was Malcolm holding Karissa back, but now he was not so sure.

  Later, as he gave Malcolm a blessing, a strong prompting came to Jesse’s mind: “Pray every day to keep from smoking, and the strength will be given you at the moment you are in need. But you must also love your wife and remember that she is a special daughter of God. Cleave unto her and to no other.”

  The two things didn’t match, but neither of the other two men seemed to think it strange. Jud shook Malcolm’s hand. “I’m really glad you asked me to come out.”

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Malcolm said.

  “I enjoyed being here. But what about Sunday? Will you be coming to church?” The twitch had relaxed after the lesson was over, but now came back in force. Jesse felt a burst of admiration for this man, who forged ahead regardless of his insecurities.