Dr. Bonnart reappeared, green-gowned and professional, and he parted Laura's legs to check her dilation. "You're working on it," he told her. "Still have a ways to go yet. Hurting much?"
"Yes. A little." Did apples hurt when they got cored? "Yes, it's hurting."
"Okay." He gave directions to Red Car about ceecee something, and Laura thought, Time for the big needle, huh? Dr. Bonnart went to a table and came back with a small item that resembled a spring in a ballpoint pen, a wire trailing from it to a high-tech white machine. "A little invasion," he said with a quick smile, and he reached up into her with his gloved fingers. The spring-looking thing was an internal fetal monitor, she knew that from her class. Dr. Bonnart found the baby's head, and he slid the device under the flesh. The high-tech machine began to put out a ticker tape of David's heartbeat and vital signs. Laura felt a scraping at her lower back. The nurse was preparing her for the epidural. At least she wouldn't have to look at the needle. The force of the contractions was powerful now, like a fist beating at a bruise on her spine. "Breathe easy, breathe easy," someone urged. "Little sting now," Dr. Bonnart told her, and she felt the needle go in.
A little sting for him, maybe. The wasps were bigger where she came from. Then it was over and the needle was out, and Laura felt the skin on her lower back prickle. Dr. Bonnart checked the progress of her dilation once more, then he checked the ticker tape and her own signs. In another moment she thought she could taste medicine in her mouth, and she hoped the epidural worked because the contractions were fierce now and she felt sweat on her face. Red Car mopped her brow and gave her a smile. "All that waiting for this," the nurse said. "Amazing how it happens, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is." Oh, it's hurting. Oh God, it really does hurt now! She could feel her body, straining open like a flower.
"When it's time, it's time," the nurse went on. "When a baby wants to come out, he lets you know about it."
"Tell him that," Laura managed to say, and the nurses and Dr. Bonnart laughed.
"Hang in there," Dr. Bonnart told her, and he left the room. Laura had a moment of panic. Where was he going? What if the baby came right this minute? Her heartbeat jumped on the monitor, and one of the nurses held her hand. The pressure built within her to what seemed like a point of sure explosion. She feared she might rip open like an overripe melon, and she felt tears burn her eyes. But then the pressure faded again, and Laura could hear her own quick, raspy breathing. "Easy, easy," the nurse advised. "Thursday's child has far to go."
"What?"
"Thursday's child. You know. The old saying. Thursday's child has far to go." The nurse glanced up at a clock on the wall. It was almost nine-fifteen. "But he might wait until Friday, and then he'll be fair of face."
"Full of grace," Red Car said.
"No, Friday is fair of face," the other contended. "Saturday is full of grace."
This line of argument was not Laura's primary concern. The contractions continued to build, pound within her like waves on rugged rocks, and ebb again. They were still painful, but not so much so. The epidural had kicked in, thank God, only the ceecee was not strong enough to mask all sensation. The pain was lessened, but the fist-on-bruise pressure was just as bad. At just after nine-thirty, Dr. Bonnart came into the room again and checked everything. "Coming along fine," he said. "Laura, can you give us a little push now?"
She did. Or tried, at least. Going to split open, she thought. Oh, Jesus! Breathe, breathe! How come everything had been so neat and orderly in class and here it was like a VCR tape running at superfast speed?
"Push again. Little harder this time, okay?"
She tried once more. It was clear to her that this was not going to be as simple as the classes had outlined. She could see Carol's face in her mind. Too late now, toots, Carol would say.
"Push, Laura. Let's see the top of his head."
Another face came into her mind, behind her closed eyelids as she strained and the pressure swelled at her center. Doug's face, and his voice saying The end of just us. The end of Doug and Laura. She saw the Hillandale Apartments in her mind, and Doug's car sliding into the parking space. She saw him walking away from her, carrying a six-pack of beer. The end of just us. The end.
"Push, Laura. Push."
She heard herself make a soft moan. The pressure was too much, it was killing her. David had hold of her guts, and he didn't want to let go. Still she tried, her body quivering, and she saw Doug walking away on the shadowfield of her mind. Walking away, farther and farther away. A distant person, becoming more of a stranger with every step. Her cry grew louder. Something broke inside her; not David's grip, but at a deeper level. She gritted her teeth and felt the warm tears streaking down her cheeks, and she knew it was over with Doug.
"There, there," Red Car said, and mopped her cheeks. "You're doing just fine, don't you worry about a thing."
"All right, take it easy." Dr. Bonnart patted her shoulder in a fatherly fashion, though he was about three or four years younger than she. "We've got the top of his head showing, but we're not quite ready. Relax now, just relax."
Laura concentrated on getting her breathing regulated. She stared at the wall as Red Car mopped her face, and the time alternately speeded up and crawled past on the clock, a trick of wishes and nerves. At ten o'clock, Dr. Bonnart asked her to start pushing again. "Harder. Keep going, Laura. Harder," he instructed her, and she gripped Red Car's hand so tightly she thought she might snap the woman's sturdy fingers. "Breathe and push, breathe and push."
Laura was trying her hardest. The pressure between her legs and in the small of her back was a symphony of excruciation. "There you go, doing fine," another nurse said, looking over Red Car's shoulder. Laura trembled, her muscles spasming. Surely she couldn't do this by herself; surely there was a machine that did this for you. But there was not, and surrounded by monitors and high-tech equipment, Laura was on her own. She breathed and pushed, breathed and pushed as she gripped Red Car's hand and the sweat was blotted from her cheeks and Dr. Bonnart kept encouraging her to greater effort.
Finally, at almost twenty to eleven, Dr. Bonnart said, "All right, ladies, let's take Mrs. Clayborne in."
Laura was helped onto a gurney, with what felt like a fleshy cannonball jammed between her thighs, and she was rolled into another room. This one had green tiles on the walls and a stainless steel table with stirrups, a bank of high-wattage lights aimed down from the ceiling. A nurse covered the table with green cloth, and Laura was positioned on the table on her back, her feet up in the stirrups. Light gleamed off a tray of instruments that might have found a use during the Inquisition, and Laura quickly averted her gaze from them. She was already feeling exhausted, with about as much strength as a wrung-out washrag, but she knew the most strenuous part of the birthing process still lay ahead. Dr. Bonnart sat on a stool at the end of the table, the tray of instruments close at hand. As he examined her and the position of the baby inside her, he actually began to whistle. "I know that song," one of the nurses said. "I heard it on the radio this afternoon. You hear it and it really gets in your mind, doesn't it?"
"Guns and Roses," Dr. Bonnart said. "My son loves 'em. He walks around wearing a baseball cap turned backward, and he's been talking about getting tattoos." He shifted the position of his fingers. Laura felt him prodding around inside her, but she was as numb down there as if she were stuffed with wet cotton. "I told him one tattoo and I'd break his neck. Could you lift your hips just a bit, Laura? Yes, that's fine."
Red Car turned on a videotape camera on a tripod, its lens aimed between Laura's legs. "Here we go, Laura," Dr. Bonnart said as the other nurse put a fresh pair of surgical gloves on his hands. "You ready to do a little work?"
"I'm ready." Ready or not, she thought, she would have to do it.
The nurse tied a surgical mask over Dr. Bonnart's nose and mouth. "Okay," he said, "let's get it done." He sat down on the stool again, Laura's gown folded back over her knees. "I want you to start pushing, Laura. Push unt
il I say stop, and then rest for a few seconds. He's crowning very nicely, and I believe he wants to come on out and join us, but you're going to have to give him a shove. Okay?"
"Okay."
"All right. Start pushing right now."
She began. Damned if she didn't have that Guns and Roses tune snagged in her brain.
"Push, push. Relax. Push, push." A cloth mopped her face. Breathing hard. David wasn't coming out. Why wasn't he coming out? "Push, push. That's good, Laura, very good." She heard the silvery click of an instrument at work, but she could feel only a slight tugging. "Push, Laura. Keep pushing, he wants to come out."
"Doing just fine," Red Car told her, and squeezed her hand.
"He's stuck," Laura heard herself say; a stupid thing. Dr. Bonnart told her to keep pushing, and she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth and did what he said, her thighs trembling with the effort.
Near eleven-ten, Laura thought she felt David begin to squeeze out. It was a movement of maybe an inch or two, but it thrilled her. She was wet with sweat and her hair was damp around her shoulders. It amazed her that anybody had ever been born. She pushed until she thought her muscles would give out, then she rested for a little while and pushed again. Her thighs and back rippled with cramps. "Oh, Jesus!" she whispered, her body strained and weary.
"You're doing great," Dr. Bonnart said. "Keep it up."
A surge of anger rose within her. What was Doug doing right now, while she was laboring under spotlights? Damn him to hell, she was going to sue his ass for divorce when this was over! She pushed and pushed, her face reddening. David moved maybe another inch. She thought she must surely be about to bend the stirrups from their sockets; she pushed against them with all her strength as Red Car swabbed her forehead.
Click, click went the instrument in Dr. Bonnart's hand. Click, click.
"Here he comes," Dr. Bonnart said as the clock ticked past eleven-thirty.
Laura felt her baby leaving her. It was a feeling of great relief mingled with great anxiety, because in the midst of the wet squeezing and the beep of monitors Laura realized her body was being separated from the living creature who had grown there. David was emerging into the world, and from this point on he would be at its mercy like every other human being.
"Keep pushing, don't stop," Dr. Bonnart urged.
She strained, the muscles of her back throbbing. She heard a damp, sucking sound. She glanced at the wall clock through swollen eyes: eleven forty-three. Red Car and the other nurse moved forward to help Dr. Bonnart. Something snipped and clipped. "Big push," the doctor said. She did, and David's weight was gone.
Slap. Slap. A third quick slap.
His crying began, like the thin, high noise of a motor being jump-started. Tears sprang to Laura's eyes, and she took a long, deep breath and released it.
"Here's your son," Dr. Bonnart told her, and he offered her something that was wailing and splotched with red and blue and had a froggish face in a head like a misshapen cone.
She had never seen such a beautiful boy, and she smiled like the sun through clouds. The storm was over.
Dr. Bonnart laid David on Laura's stomach. She pressed him close, feeling his heat. He was still crying, but it was a wonderful sound. She could smell the thick, coppery aromas of blood and birth fluids. David's body, still connected to her by the damp bluish-red umbilical cord, moved under her fingers. He was a fragile-looking thing, with tiny fingers and toes, the bump of a nose, and a pink-lipped mouth. There was nothing, however, fragile about his voice. It rose and fell, an undulation of what might have been adamant anger. Announcing himself, Laura thought. Letting the world know that David Douglas Clayborne had arrived, and demanding that room be made. As the umbilical was clipped off and tied, David trembled in a spite of infant fury and his wailing grew ragged. Laura said, "Shhhh, shhhh," as her fingers stroked the baby's smooth back. She felt the little shoulder blades and the ridges of his spine. Skeleton, nerves, veins, intestines, brain; he was whole and complete, and he was hers.
She felt it kick in then. What other women who'd had babies had told her to expect: a warm, radiant rush through her body that seemed to make her heart pound and swell. She recognized it as a mother's love, and as she stroked her baby she felt David relax from rigid indignance to soft compliance. His crying eased, became a quiet whimper, and ended on a gurgling sigh. "My baby," Laura said, and she looked up at Dr. Bonnart and the nurses with tears in her eyes. "My baby."
"Thursday's child," the nurse said, checking the clock. "Far to go."
It was after midnight when Laura was in her room on the hospital's second-floor maternity ward. She was drained and energized at the same time, and her body wanted to sleep but her mind wanted to replay the drama of birth again and again. She dialed her home number, her hand trembling.
"Hello, you've reached the residence of Douglas and Laura Clayborne. Please leave a message at the tone, and thank you for calling."
Beep.
Words abandoned her. She struggled to speak before the machine's timer clicked off. Doug wasn't home. He was still at the Hillandale Apartments, still with his girlfriend.
The end, she thought.
"I'm at the hospital," Laura forced out. And had to say it: "With David. He's eight pounds, two ounces."
Click: the machine, turning a deaf ear.
Laura, hollowed out, lay on the bed and thought about the future. It was a dangerous place, but it had David in it and so it would be bearable. If that future held Doug or not, she didn't know. She clasped her hands to her empty belly, and she finally drifted away to sleep in the hospital's peaceful womb.
5
Gaunt Old Dude
THE VOICE OF GOD WAS SINGING IN MARY TERROR'S apartment, at thirty-three and a third revolutions per minute. She was sitting on the bed, using a dark blue marker on the white size extra-large uniform she'd rented from Costumes Atlanta on Friday afternoon. The uniforms of the nurses on the maternity ward at St. James had dark blue piping around the collars and the breast pockets, and their hats were trimmed with dark blue. This uniform had snaps instead of buttons, as the real uniforms did, but it was all she could find in her size.
It was near seven o'clock on Saturday morning. The wind had picked up outside, scudding gray clouds over the city. The third of February, Mary thought: fifteen days until her meeting at the weeping lady. She was patient and careful at her work, making sure the ink didn't run or smear. She had a jar of white-out nearby in case of mistakes, but her hand was steady. On the table beside her bed was a dark blue plastic name tag with white letters: JANETTE LEISTER, in memory of two fallen comrades. She had gotten it from a place in Norcross that made plastic tags and novelties "While U Wait." It was the same colors as the name tags the nurses at St. James wore. Her white shoes — size 10EE — had also come from the costume rental, and she'd bought white stockings at Rich's department store.
She'd gone to the hospital yesterday, changing from her Burger King uniform after work and putting on jeans and a sweater under a baggy windbreaker. Had taken the elevator up to the maternity ward and walked around. Had gone to the big glass window to look at the babies, and she'd been very careful not to make eye contact with any of the nurses but she'd made mental notes of the dark blue piping on the white uniforms, the white-on-blue plastic name tags, and the fact that the elevator opened right onto the nurses' station. There had been no security people in sight on the maternity ward, but Mary had seen a pig with a walkie-talkie in the lobby and another one strolling around in the parking deck. Which meant that the parking deck was a scrub; she'd have to find another place to leave her truck, close enough to walk to and from the hospital. Mary had checked out the stairwells, finding one at either end of the long maternity ward corridor. The one on the building's south wing was next to a supply room, which could make for an unpleasant confrontation; the one on the north wing would have to do. A problem here, though: a sign on the stairwell door said FIRE ESCAPE. ALARM WILL SOUND IF OPENED. She couldn't che
ck out where the stairwell led to, so she had no idea where she would come out. She didn't like that, and it was enough to call the whole thing a scrub until she saw an orderly pop the very same door open with the flat of his hand and walk through. There wasn't a peep. So was the alarm turned off at some times of the day, was the sign a phony, or was there some way to cheat the alarm? Maybe they'd had trouble with it going off, and they'd shut it down. Was it worth the risk?
She'd decided to think about it. As she looked through the window at the babies, some sleeping and some crying soundlessly, Mary knew she could not take a child from this room because it was too close — twenty paces — to the nurses' station. Some of the perambulators were empty, though they were still tagged: the babies were in the rooms with their mothers. The corridor took a curve between the nurses' station and the north stairwell, and on almost every door there was a pink or blue ribbon. The last four doors next to the stairwell were promising: three of the four ribbons were blue. If a nurse went into one of those rooms and found a baby with his mother, what reason might she have for going in? Time to feed the baby. No, the mother would know the feeding times, and what were breasts for? Just need to check the baby for a minute. No, the mother would want something more specific. Time to weigh the baby.
Yes. That would work.
Mary walked to the north stairwell door and back to where the corridor curved again. A woman's laughter trailed from one of the rooms. A baby was crying in another one. She noted the numbers of the three rooms with the blue ribbons: 21, 23, and 24. The door to 21 suddenly opened, and a man walked out. Mary turned away quickly and strode to a nearby water fountain. She watched the man walk in the opposite direction, toward the nurses' station; he had sandy-brown hair, and he wore gray slacks, a white shirt, and a dark blue sweater. Polished black wingtips on his feet. Rich bastard, father of a rich kid, she thought as she took a sip of water and listened to his shoes click on the linoleum. Then she walked back to the stairwell's door and looked at the warning sign. She would have to know where this led if she was going to do it, because she couldn't come up in the elevator. There was no choice.
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