Just Perfect! (Persaud Girl)

by Teisha Mott

  “I have to leave you for a while, okay?” Bianca told her. “Try to get some rest, and if you need anything, just ring for a nurse. Are you going to be okay alone?”

  Samantha nodded. She wished her mother would come back in a hurry and she hoped she would break the rules and bring her a burger. Or even a cookie... Being placed on this horrible eight hour fast was just torture! She lay back in the pillow and sighed. When did this become her life? Hours away from being a lonely, hungry single mother? This was certainly not a part of her life plan!

  The hours ticked by. A million and one nurses came and went. Dr Creary came by to check on her and Caitlin. They were both doing fine. Not ‘fine enough’ to put off the procedure for another day, Dr Creary declared. The countdown was on. Two hours until ‘show time’. Two hours, and she had not heard from Jeremy. Bianca had told her that her mother had called him, so he knew what was going on. He knew that she was in the hospital. So fine, he couldn’t just jump on the first plane out of Kennedy to come, but why didn’t he call?

  Klao came by after her classes.

  “You look like crap!” She told her cousin, then whipped out her ubiquitous Mac palette make-up kit. Like her Persaud Enterprises charge card, she never left home without it, and she definitely had love affair with flavoured lip-gloss. By the time Klao was through, Samantha thought she looked more prepared for fashion night out than for a c-section, and her lips tasted like a mixture of raspberries and mango. Klao had even brushed her hair, and formed it into an elegant figure eight knot. At least now when Caitlin saw her for the first time, she would not look like ‘fright night’. Klao’s visit cheered her a bit, but she did not stay long. Hospitals freaked her out, and she was manically hypochondriac, which was weird, given that both her parents and brothers were doctors.

  Dr Persaud stopped by with Christopher and Grandpa Ravi and Grandma Sylvia. Grandpa kissed her forehead and called her ‘his brave girl’. She did not feel like a brave girl. She felt like a lost and lonely girl, in desperate need of the father of her child. Christopher did not yell into her belly this time. Instead he gave her a tiny poke.

  “Hey Caitie,” he whispered. “It’s Uncle Christopher. You only have to hang in there a little longer, okay? Just another couple of hours. I can’t wait to see you, and I have a lot of jokes to teach you.”

  Caitlin rewarded his gentle voice with a firm kick, and Christopher was over the moon. They played the ‘uncle and niece game’ for a while. He poked and Caitlin poked back. Samantha didn’t even mind the poking. She was just glad Christopher was there.

  Five o’clock and coming on to crunch time. Samantha looked at her phone. There were no missed calls. Just a myriad of text messages from all her cousins – even Dylan, all the way in Mozambique – and from Bridget and Nikki. She even had a text from Micah, wishing her good luck. He promised he would come by and see her when he got out of work. By then she would be a Mommy. He had kept his promise. He was being a good friend. Unlike Jeremy. He had bullied and pouted and carried on during August when she told him he could not be the coach. He had gotten his way, and now where the hell was he? Their daughter was going to be born in one hour, and he didn’t even have the decency to call! He had called no one – not even his parents. She was the one who had phoned Mrs Malcolm. Mrs Malcolm was pleased beyond words that Caitlin was coming. She promised the Judge would stop by and see her – tonight, or tomorrow if she was too tired. And definitely, she would be in Kingston on Saturday to meet her granddaughter. And when Mrs Malcolm handed Jasmine the phone, all Samantha could hear were high pitch squeals that were only understandable by dogs and bats.

  At a quarter to six o’clock, Dr Creary returned with Bianca and three other doctors – the anaesthesiologist, another OB/GYN, and a paediatrician. With her parents present, they explained the procedure in great detail. It would not be long, and now with Caitlin stable, there were no expected complications. The surgery would take half an hour – forty-five minutes, tops, and then Samantha would be able to see her baby.

  Samantha felt a hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. She was excited. Thirty-five weeks and six days had led to this moment. Nothing else that had happened before mattered now. She remembered all of it – kissing Jeremy in the Club, waking up in a rage in his apartment, meeting him for the Plan B, then mashing them out; waking up Andie at midnight. “Andie, I think I might be pregnant…” She recalled her earlier ambivalence; how she refused to talk to Jeremy… He had proposed to her and she had told him hell no. “Just to be clear, when hell freezes over, I’ll buy a sweater, not marry you!” She recalled telling Nathan that having this baby was the antithesis of an exciting time. Nathan told her that she would change her mind once ‘Sebastian’ was two and cute. She did not have to wait for ‘Sebastian’ to be two and cute. She was excited right now. If only Jeremy was there… It was clear he was not coming. It was already six o’clock. In no time, the nurses and orderlies would come to fetch her. When it was all over, she decided, she would let Andie email him a photo of his daughter. She hoped that Caitlin would not look like him after all.

  “Sam can you take one more visitor?” Her mother peeped into the room.

  “Sure,” she replied, although she really felt tired of all the visitors. It had to be Grandma Joyce and Grandpa James. Those were the only ones who had not shown up yet. Or perhaps Nathan. Andie had told her he would come straight from work. She tried to sit up. Good thing Klao had made her up, she thought. At least she would see Grandma Joyce looking pretty. She couldn’t imagine minutes before being wheeled in to the delivery theatre being told by her grandmother that she looked fat and oily.

  Samantha thought she would pass out when her new visitor entered the room.

  “Jeremy!”

  She thought she was dreaming. Jeremy could not possibly be there. That would be too good to be true. But there he was. And he was wearing a suit. A rather rugged, crushed looking suit. He looked like he had been through the wringer, and Samantha realised he must have come straight from work.

  Jeremy looked at her, lying in the bed, looking so vulnerable and really, really fat. She was okay! He realised. She was not in a coma, and most importantly she was not dead. She was in a robe, with a weird looking baker’s hat covering her hair, and she was looking at him. Jeremy was not sure what that look was, but all he knew was that he was relieved that she was not dead. He crossed the room in two strides.

  “You’re okay!” He breathed, pressing a kiss to her cheek, as he tried to hug her the best he could while she was hooked up to a thousand and one machines. “I’m so glad you’re okay!”

  She felt so familiar. He could not believe he had been away from her for almost three months. At that moment, he was not sure how he had managed for three minutes. “I’m so sorry I’m late, I was at a meeting at Premium Digital, and I had turned off my phone, and the rain was so bad… I couldn’t get a taxi, a little old woman beat me up… and then Phillip told me to go home and I thought I was being fired… and the airport was a mess, and New York is so flippin’ far away…” He was babbling, but just couldn’t stop. “But I’m here now, and you’re okay! Thank God you’re okay!”

  Samantha was still at a loss. “I can’t believe you came!”

  “Of course I came!” He told her, scared to let her go, lest he did and something went wrong. “I’m the father – I’m the coach.”

  Samantha couldn’t help it. This was all too much. A dam inside her broke and she began to cry – horrible, gasping sobs, as she hugged him back, almost squeezing the life out of him.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I am such a dope. A big stupid moron. We had this great relationship, and I ruined it. You are amazing and perfect, and you love me and I didn’t realise and I was so stupid. You think I want to be with Micah, but I don’t. I only want to be with you, but I took too long to tell you, and now I have lost you to Jen!”

  “You haven’t lost me, Sammy!” Jeremy declared. “And certainly not to Jen! Why would you even
think that?”

  “Because I called you last night. I wanted to tell you that Micah isn’t my perfect person – you are, but then she answered your phone…”

  Ahh! Jeremy nodded. So Sam was the hang up Jen had told him about last night. Jen was convinced he had a stalker, but he just figured that it had been a wrong number. No one he knew phoned him from a number that was ‘ID Blocked’.

  “Silly girl!” Jeremy used his fingers to wipe the tears from her face, and in the process, wiped away some of the makeup that Klao had so painstakingly applied. “I was with Jen because she was telling me that I was an idiot to have left you, and that I had better straighten up and fly right, because anything worth having is worth fighting for, and that includes you. She was right, Sam. I was a total ass for leaving you, and not talking to you. I told you before that you are it for me, and I don’t care if you are Micah’s friend, as long as you are my family. You and Caitlin are my family. I want both of you.”

  “Really?” Samantha managed to smile through her tears.

  “Really!” His face was dangerously close to hers. “I love you!”

  “That’s cool!” Samantha closed her eyes, and waited for his kiss. This moment would also be filed in her memory bank, under ‘the first kiss after making up after a really long, stupid fight… Or maybe it could be filed under last kiss before we become parents for the first time.

  Then she decided, as Jeremy’s lips touched hers, it would definitely be filed under ‘best kiss in the whole world’…

  “Oh for God’s sake!” Andie barged into the room with Nathan on her heel. “You haven’t gotten the first baby out yet, and you’re working on number two? And in public?”

  “Ignore her!” Nathan instructed. He greeted Jeremy with a warm ‘man hug’, then leaned in to kiss Samantha’s cheek. “Hey, it’s show time. Are you ready?”

  “Well, we don’t have a choice,” Samantha responded, as a team of nurses and orderlies appeared at the door. “They’re here to cart us away!”

  “Well happy landing,” Nathan replied. He winked at her. “Still think this is the antithesis of an exciting time?”

  “This is the definition of an exciting time!” Samantha smiled.

  And it truly was, she decided, as the anaesthesiologist administered her spinal block, and she was covered with drapes and screens. She was happy for the screen. She did not think she really wanted to watch herself getting cut.

  Dr Creary’s head appeared behind the screen, her face split in two by her grin.

  “Ready to rock?” She asked. Her voice had regained its sing-y pitch. “C’est l’heure!” She looked at Jeremy. I’ll just say, Daddy, that you are one for last minute appearances! Well, better late than never, anyway, right? You sit there by mommy’s head, and unless you want to be traumatised, keep your eyes on that side of the screen. Donot look at what I am doing, okay?”

  Jeremy looked at all the drapes and curtains and instruments. Dr Creary did not have to tell him twice. He had no desire to see what was going to happen on the other side of the screen. As it were, he wondered whether he wouldn’t be safer outside with the rest of the family. Perhaps Mrs Persaud could come in and hold Samantha’s hand. He would pace outside and hand out cigars when it was all over, just like Grandpa Ravi had suggested.

  “Hey!” Samantha nudged him. He looked like a cross between a cafeteria lady and an orderly covered, literally, from head to toe in sterile garb. She saw the panicked look on his face. “Don’t you dare freak out. ’Cause I just drank a chalky mixture that I’m sure is poison, I can’t feel my legs, I had a catheter shoved up my ‘you know where’ by Bianca of all people, and in a few minutes I am going to be sawed in half to take out your child, so I have dibs on all the freaking out that will be taking place tonight. Are we together?”

  Jeremy smiled and squeezed her hand. “Yes, ma’am!”

  Dr Creary and her entourage carried on a vibrant conversation on the other side of the screen. They discussed High School – who went where, and the shenanigans they got up to, and which high school had produced the most doctors. It turned out Dr Creary had gone to St Theresa’s School for girls 25 years before Bianca.

  “If you graduated from High School in 1975, Dr Creary,” Dr Lee, the second OBGYN commented, “then age wise, that should make you…”

  “Old enough to be a Consultant Obstetrician-gynaecologist and Neonatal surgeon, and your boss!” Dr Creary interrupted firmly.

  “Well you know the saying,” Dr Ali, the anaesthesiologist, who did not look as though she had been out of medical school longer than a year, although she claimed she had been High School batch mates with Jeremy’s mother, added, smiling at Samantha. “True beauty is ageless!”

  “Yes,” Bianca piped in. “That and ‘black doesn’t crack’!”

  Her comment led to raucous laughter throughout the theatre. Samantha laughed and shook her head. Who knew this would be the atmosphere in such a sterile environment?

  Dr Creary continued to chatter on about her University days, her decision to go into OB/GYN as opposed to Paediatrics that had been her first choice. She told Bianca they were very much alike at that age. Perhaps Bianca should think about Obstetrics too. Bianca told her no way. She wanted to be a Paediatrician. It had been her dream since she was eight, and she wasn’t going to abandon it.

  Samantha chimed in, reminding Bianca how she had only ever wanted to work at the Bank of Jamaica and be the Governor one day. She realised how simple things could cause plans and dreams to change. For her, all it took was one random phone call from Micah.

  “More like one random hook up!” Bianca tittered.

  “Look at that, Jeremy!” Samantha pointed out. “Caitlin’s godmother list just decreased by one. It is down to Andie, Jasmine and Bridget now!”

  From her side of the curtain, Samantha could hear her cousin’s gasp of horror.

  “Never mind, Bianca!” Dr Creary pacified her. “You have lots more cousins who will be popping out babies left, right and centre. You’ll get another shot…. But, now! Who have we here?”

  For a brief moment there was complete silence in the room. Then the silence was broken by the most pitiful, heart wrenching wail that one could imagine. Samantha gasped. That was Caitlin. And what a pair of lungs she had.

  It seemed like forever as everyone played pass around with her. Passed from Dr Creary to the nurse then to the paediatrician to be checked, then back to the nurse to be weighed, measured and cleaned. Finally Samantha got to see her child.

  “Look, Jeremy! It’s Caitlin!” She whispered, kissing the indignant, crumpled bundle that the nurse handed to her.

  “Happy birthday, Caitlin!” Jeremy too gave his daughter a kiss. She did not care about being kissed. She just carried on wailing as though she did not understand why her blissful existence within the warmth of her mother had to be cut short, and why that strange woman had slapped her when she hadn’t even done anything wrong.

  Samantha looked at the tiny person who she had been carrying around inside her for the past 35 weeks and 6 days. The person whose tiny arms and legs and poked her from the inside. This was the person who had pressed on her bladder, causing her to run to the bathroom every five minutes. Samantha had imagined her, and now, here she was, in live and living colour. She was not cute. In fact, she was almost bald and crushed and red, with a very big mouth and lots and lots of gums. From the looks of her, it was doubtful if Caitlin would have dimples, or a heart shaped face, or straight white teeth. But that didn’t matter to Samantha anymore. She couldn’t stop gazing her alien baby.

  “She looks weird, doesn’t she?” Jeremy commented. It was the first time he was seeing a baby that was just a few minutes old. He was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that this baby was his baby. His daughter. He was a real live father.

  Samantha looked at him. Then she kissed Caitlin again.

  “I don’t think she looks weird at all!” She whispered, as tears of joy and contentment fell from h
er eyes. “I think she is just perfect!”

  --End--

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  teisha’s special thanks

  A big hug and lots of gratitude toKenesha, my friend first and editor second, for talking me through every single page, and for really being there when I needed you. Special thanks to Saudia, Shevonne and Jaron for your patience as I badgered you on all the nuances of being pregnant, preeclampsia and caesareans. Thanks to Von, Lindy and Courtney for your ‘real guy’s’ perspective. Always to Kadia, my ultimate cheerleader, who wouldn’t allow me to throw my laptop out the window. Most of all, thanks always to God, who never fails to create beauty from ashes. I am so grateful for the gift of creativity and self-expression.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Teisha Mott was born in Saint Ann, Jamaica, and holds a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Management Studies and Economics, and an MBA in Banking and Finance both from the University of the West Indies, Mona.

  Her passion has always been writing, and she has penned short stories, poems and articles, several of which have won her awards and recognition.

  She currently lives in Paris, France, and spends her spare time reading and travelling.

  Teisha is a Seventh Day Adventist Christian, and actively involved in youth ministries.