by McNay, Dan
“Fuck you,” Sarah told him.
“How about I shoot our favorite pregnant cow?”
“Edward, it’s all too late,” Sarah said.
“I’m not going to jail.”
Ted was moving, trying to pull his revolver from its holster. Edward bent over him to grab his police revolver. Daydee followed him. Her pistol got caught in her pocket. Shit! Edward had Ted’s gun. She ripped hers free and shot Edward twice in the back of the head before he even straightened up. He fell on top of the police chief. She tried rolling him off, but couldn’t manage it.
“Help,” she cried at Sarah.
Together they both managed to get him off the chief. Ted was alive. But there was blood and it looked like he had been hit in the chest.
“Go call for help with his car radio,” Sarah told Daydee.
Sarah was down in the snow beside him. She pulled off her scarf and was using it to try to stop the bleeding.
“They are sending an ambulance,” Daydee said when she came back. “This was real stupid.”
“I thought I could take him by surprise,” Ted said.
“Real stupid.”
Then she felt a little pop and her jeans were all wet.
“Shit!” she said. “Stay with him. I need to go to the hospital. My water just broke.”
“What?” Sarah said. “Wait!”
“Stay. You know where I’ll be!”
She walked carefully up to her pickup and climbed in.
“Hold on, kiddo,” she told the baby. “Take a deep breath.” Then she laughed at herself.
Chapter nineteen
She drove to the little hospital and checked herself in. They called the doctor and he came. The delivery wasn’t going anywhere. She wasn’t having the baby any time soon. After dilating half way, she ran out of steam. The contractions just seemed to fade away. She was exhausted. They let her nap for twenty minutes and then started her on the Pitocin drip and the baby was born about four in the morning. They let her hold the baby briefly before she was whisked away to the heat lamp in the nursery. Daydee didn’t want to give her up, but she was exhausted.
She awoke at dawn. There was not a soul around. There was a little chirping of the sparrows outside her window. She was sore and miserable. She tried the buzzer, but no one responded. Sitting up slowly, she put her bare legs down and stood, holding on to the bed until she thought she was ready to walk. The IV came with her. It helped to steady her. The night nurse was asleep on her desk, her head on her arms on the blotter. The intern that was the doctor on duty was snoring on a gurney. Daylight was peeking in the windows.
There was one patient she glimpsed as she passed the room. It was Rob. There was a guy in a white coat with him, changing his IV. The sheriff was in bed facing the door. He was in a body brace that had rods coming out of it to hold his head and neck immobile. His face was purple. But their eyes met. Daydee kept walking. The guy in the white coat hadn’t noticed her.
She found her way slowly to the nursery. The nurse there was asleep in her chair, her head drooped. Daydee’s little daughter was the only baby there. She was curled up in a little gown and blanket with a little cap on her head. The lamp was over her. She looked content. Daydee stroked her cheek.
This was so amazing. How did she rate being given this little soul to take care of. All she wanted to do was pick her up and hold her against her breast – for the rest of her life. But she was asleep and warmed up, so she thought it better to leave her in the crib.
“We got a ways to go yet,” she murmured.
She pushed the rolling crib ahead of her with her other hand bringing the IV along and slowly made her way back to her room. She rolled her daughter up next to her bed and got back in. Propping herself up, she put her right hand in with the baby, so she could touch her and stroke her. The baby had the cutest button nose she thought she had ever seen. She watched the window grow brighter and brighter as the day began.
* * *
There was a very small and quick service for Daydee’s father. She had Sean do it all for her. Sarah had Edward buried in another cemetery without a service. The son didn’t come home.
Things changed. Sarah was around a lot to help with the baby.
The local paper had reported the shootout, superficially, without naming her or Edward. A little later, they reported that the sheriff had back surgery and was indicted for filing false papers regarding the burial of Edward’s father and for covering up the illegal migrant workers that had been smuggled through town. One of his deputies testified against him. Not a word in the paper about Jack or Winston.
Jack continued to plough the cemetery for her. And his name was still on the sign at his church. Winston never came back from wherever he went. She hoped he went somewhere. She couldn’t believe he had done himself in. By his sights, he couldn’t get into heaven that way. She hoped he was doing good things wherever he was.
Ted recovered. And came to see the baby the day after New Year’s Day.
Daydee roused herself out of the house finally, and with the baby bundled twice over, took her to cemetery and gathered and threw away the frozen and brown decorations left over from Christmas. People started saying hello to her in the grocery store and cooed over the baby. The newspaper editor crossed the street to see her and the baby. His baby girl had been born on Christmas day.
And in early March it was spring and the snow melted and her daughter began sleeping through the night. It looked like the probate proceedings on the estate might finally be closing.
* * *
Two months later, Daydee and the baby in a stroller were on the sidewalk waiting for the bus. It was the same spot where she had stepped down when she had arrived here. She glanced to see she how she looked in the window’s reflection. She needed to diet. The bus pulled up before her. The bus driver came out first to open the baggage bays and in a moment John stepped down. He was thinner, and older. There was no drunkenness about him. He seemed a bit nervous and offered his hand to Daydee in an awkward attempt at a greeting. Daydee hugged him. He didn’t know what to say. His fingers were still a little gray, but much better looking than with the black stains. He claimed his suitcase and handed the driver a couple of bills for a tip. Then he turned to bend over the stroller to look at his daughter.
“Boy oh boy,” he said.
He put his finger down to touch the baby’s hand and she held on to it.
“Jill?” he asked.
“It won’t ever turn into something else.”
“I was thinking I’d call her Jillie-bean,” he said. She looked at him in disbelief. “Thanks for having me,” he added.
“How are you at cutting grass?”
“Sounds like paradise after being in for so long. Grass, think of it.”
They walked toward her pickup.
About the author
Dan McNay has been writing since he was fourteen. He studied creative writing in a special program in high school, was an English major in college and later returned to work on his Master of Professional Writing at The University of Southern California. He has emerged from a dark and violent childhood to roam around the United States, looking for experiences that would make his art real. His muse has always been the kind of author he grew up on, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and John Steinbeck: authors that create characters that jump out alive from the page with all of their imperfections. He also knows that you have live what you are trying to write about. All of his work reflects the realities of his life. He actually ran the cemetery in Paris, Illinois that he describes in this book. And he loves to entertain.
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