“Damn …” she muttered softly. All the women she knew went into labor gently. They had mild pains for hours and wondered if what they were feeling was even labor, instead she leaped into it with both feet. But as she sat up in bed she remembered what both Teddy and her English doctor had told her. She knew she had to hurry if she didn't want to have another baby in her bed, and this time there was no one to help her. She got out of bed as quickly as she could, but she suddenly felt very awkward, the baby had dropped even lower in the past few hours, and she felt severely encumbered as she walked to the bathroom for some towels. As soon as she got there she had another pain, and she had to pant softly in order to bear it. She straightened up then, grabbed a dress off a hanger, pulled off her nightgown, slipped on the cotton dress, slipped her feet into sandals, and grabbed her handbag. She began to laugh softly to herself, feeling excited as she had almost nine years before. To hell with Vasili. She would leave him as soon as she had the baby. All she had to do now was wake Vanessa and get to the hospital. It was the maid's night out, and she couldn't leave Vanessa alone in the house with no one there with her. Particularly not with Vasili drifting in and out. She would never leave her alone with him.
She made her way gingerly down the stairs and walked into Vanessa's room. She shook her gently by the shoulder, bent to kiss her, smoothed her hair, and then gasped suddenly as she knelt beside the bed, but when Vanessa woke up, the pain was over.
“Come on, sweetheart, it's time to go.”
“Time to go where?”
“To the hospital to have the baby.”
“Now?” Vanessa looked startled and when she glanced out the window, she saw that it was still dark outside. Serena only wished that she could have waited until the arrival of the two uncles. Vanessa would just have to come to the hospital with her. They would set up a cot for her in another room if they had to. And she knew that Teddy would be there by Tuesday.
“Come on, love, get up. Just hop into some clothes and take a nightie. And a book,” she added as an afterthought, and then she gasped as a horrifying pain ripped through her.
“Oh, Mommy!” Vanessa leaped out of bed, unprepared for the agony she saw on her mother's face. “Mommy, are you all right? Mommy!”
“Shhhhh … darling, I'm fine.” Serena gritted her teeth and tried to smile. “Be a big girl and call a taxi … and hurry!”
Vanessa ran downstairs in her nightgown, carrying blue jeans and a T-shirt with her. She dressed while she waited for the cab company to answer, and when they did, she explained that it was an emergency, her mother was having a baby.
The taxi was at the front door less than five minutes later, and Vanessa helped Serena into it. She felt very grown-up as she helped her mother, and less frightened than she had been when she had seen the first pain, but she winced when her mother had another.
“Do they hurt that much?”
“They're just strong so they can push the baby out.” Vanessa nodded, but she still looked worried. The pains seemed to get harder as they approached the hospital, and when they arrived, Vanessa took the money out of her mother's bag and paid the driver. He smiled at them both and wished Serena luck, and two nurses came out to help Serena into a wheelchair. She was smiling wanly at Vanessa and waving one hand as they wheeled her away, and Vanessa settled down in a corner of the waiting room, assuming that her little brother or sister would be born a few minutes later.
When nothing had happened an hour later, she asked a nurse, but they brushed her off, and by midafternoon she was panicked. Where was her mother? What had happened? Why hadn't the baby come? “These things take time,” a nurse told her. When the shift changed at four o'clock, the nurses were kinder to Vanessa. No one understood why she was in the waiting room all alone, but finally someone realized that no one was coming for her and the poor child hadn't even eaten. She had complained to no one for fourteen long hours, and when finally one of the nurses brought her a sandwich, she burst into tears.
“Where's my mother? What happened? Why didn't she have the baby?” And then with huge eyes, “Is she going to die?” But when they smiled and told her that that was nonsense, she didn't believe them. When they left her alone again, she wandered off and began to drift down the halls, until she came to an ominous room with a smoky glass door marked LABOR. As though she sensed what she would find within, she straightened her shoulders and slipped inside, and what she saw there made her gasp sharply. It was her mother, lying on a white table, her legs strapped onto what looked like boards high in the air, her face contorted with pain, her hands restrained, her blond hair matted, and her mouth open in a scream.
“Mommy!” Vanessa was instantly in tears as she came toward her, and there was no one in the room with Serena. “Mommy!” She instinctively began to free her hands and Serena looked at her blindly. It took her a moment to recognize her own child and then she began to cry as hard as Vanessa.
“Oh, my baby … my baby …”As her hands were freed she touched the long golden blond hair, and then suddenly she clutched Vanessa's shoulder. The child nearly screamed out with the pain, and sensing it, Serena freed her, but she was unable to restrain a horrible groan.
“What's wrong … oh, Mommy, what's wrong?” Vanessa's eyes were huge with terror. Her mother was drenched with sweat and she was a ghostly color.
“The baby's … turned … around …” And then, as though she suddenly had a thought. “Vanessa … ask them for … my bag … I have money … call Teddy. Do you know … the number?” Vanessa nodded, still desperately afraid. “Tell him—” But she couldn't go on then, the pain was too ferocious. It was several minutes before she could start again. “Tell him the baby's breech … breech. Understand?” Vanessa nodded. “They tried to turn him and they couldn't. They're giving me a few more hours and they'll keep trying … go on …” Her eyes looked desperately at her daughter. “Tell him … tell him to come now, today. And hurry.” Vanessa nodded again, and hesitated, but after the next pain her mother begged her to get her bag, find a phone, and call Teddy without waiting another minute.
Vanessa had a difficult time getting the nurses to let her have her mother's handbag, but when they realized that she didn't even have money to eat, they finally relented. She then stealthily went to a phone booth down the hall, closed the door, and put the money in to call the operator and make a collect call to Teddy. It was seven o'clock at night in London by then, but in New York it was only one in the afternoon and she knew that she would find him at his office.
“Dr. Fullerton?” The nurse sounded surprised. “Yes … his niece? I'll get him.” Teddy was on the line a minute later, the call was accepted, and Vanessa almost got hysterical as she tried to tell him what she had seen and what her mother had told her.
“She's all tied up, Uncle Teddy, with her legs up in the air, and we've been here since five o'clock this morning, and she says … she says … the baby's beach, and they tried to turn him and can't, and—” She began to sob into the phone and he tried to calm her.
“It's all right, sweetheart, it's all right. Just tell me what she said.”
“They're going to give her a few more hours and keep trying to turn the baby. She wants you to come right away, and she said hurry.” At his end he almost burst into tears too. A breech birth three thousand miles away. Even if he caught the next plane, it would be anywhere from twelve to eighteen hours before he got to her. She needed a Caesarean section done immediately, and waiting useless hours to continue trying to turn the baby could kill her and lose the baby.
“It's going to be all right sweetheart,” he told Vanessa, wishing he believed it. “Do you know her doctor's name?” At least he could call him, but Vanessa didn't. “The hospital?” She gave it to him quickly. “I'll call them and we'll see if we can't get things moving.”
“Can't you come, Uncle Teddy?” It was obvious from her voice that Vanessa was beginning to panic.
“I'm going to catch the next plane, sweetheart, and with any luc
k at all I'll be there first thing tomorrow morning, your time, but maybe the baby will come before that.” It would only be twenty-four hours by then, but he knew that for Serena, strapped to a delivery table, her legs in stirrups, with a breech birth, and a possibly unsympathetic staff continually trying to turn the baby, he could mink of no worse torture for her to endure. “Can you get back to Mommy, sweetheart?”
“I'll try. I don't know if they'll let me.”
“Tell her I'm coming. Do you know where Vasili is?”
“No, and I don't want him to come. He's crazy.”
“I know, I know. I just wondered. Did you leave him a note at the house about where you are?”
“No.”
“What about his brother?”
“Mommy said he can't come until the end of the week because his wife is sick.”
“Okay, tiger, then you just hold the fort until I get there. Think you can do that? It may be a long night, but I'll be there, and pretty soon it'll be all over.” He was already making notes for his secretary. He wouldn't even go back to his apartment. He could buy what he needed in London when he got there. All he would take with him was his medical bag and a briefcase. “I'm very proud of you, Vanessa darling. You're doing great.”
“But Mommy—”
“She's going to be fine too. I promise. Sometimes it's a little hard having a baby, but it isn't always like that, and when it's all over and she has the baby, she won't even mind it. I promise.”
“She looks like she's dying.” Vanessa's voice broke on a sob, and Teddy prayed that Vanessa was wrong. But she might not be.
Five minutes after they hung up he called the hospital, spoke to the nurse in charge, and was unable to speak to a doctor. Mrs. Arbus, according to them, was doing fine. The baby was indeed breech, but they felt no need for a Caesarean as yet. They were going to wait until, at the very least, the following morning. And no, they had been unable to turn the baby, but they had every confidence that subsequent efforts would set matters aright. Subsequent efforts would mean that when Serena was in midpain, a nurse or an intern would shove both hands as far in as they could get them and try to turn the baby upside down. The very thought of it was almost more than he could bear when he thought of Serena. He went straight from his office to the airport and checked in at Idlewild at two thirty. The next flight to London left at four, and he called the hospital again. There was no change, but this time they sounded slightly more impressed. Not all of their patients had attending physicians flying in from New York.
The four-o'clock flight was due to reach London at two o'clock the next morning, which was eight o'clock in the morning in London. He assumed that with any luck at all he could reach the hospital by nine or nine thirty. It was the best he could do, and once he was on the flight, he explained to the steward what he was doing. He was flying to London to deliver a baby by Caesarean with complications for a very important patient. What he needed was a police escort or an ambulance to take him as quickly as possible from the airport to the hospital. The steward spoke at once to the captain, the message was passed along once they established radio contact with London, and when they arrived, Teddy was whisked through customs, out a side door to a waiting ambulance, the sirens were put on, and they sailed through the streets on the way to London. Luck had also been on their side, the flight had arrived half an hour early. It was exactly five minutes after eight when Teddy stepped out of the ambulance into the streets of London. He thanked the ambulance driver, gave him an enormous tip, rushed inside, inquired for the maternity ward, and ran up the stairs, his bag in his hand, to emerge into a large unfriendly waiting room, where he saw Vanessa asleep in a chair. He hurried to the desk, spoke to a nurse, and she looked extremely startled.
“From America? For Mrs. Arbus?” She immediately went to get the head nurse, who in turn found the doctor on duty. Mrs. Arbus's physician had not actually been at the hospital for several hours, but of course if Dr. Fullerton had the proper credentials with him, perhaps if a Caesarean was indeed needed in due course, he would be able to assist the British surgeon. Teddy immediately presented the papers they would need, washed his hands, and asked to see Serena. And with a large entourage behind him he was led to the door where Vanessa had found her thirteen hours before. She lay almost breathless, semiconscious, drenched in sweat, and so stunned by the pain that she seemed to be barely breathing as Teddy got to her. He looked down at her, took her pulse, listened to the baby's heart. There seemed to be no sign of recognition from her. Her heartbeat was frantic and faint, the baby's was beginning to fade, and her blood pressure was so low that he wondered if they could even save her. Without thinking, he gave rapidfire orders to prepare her for surgery. He wanted to kill someone for not doing it twenty-four hours sooner. When he examined her to see how low the baby had come, he saw what they had done to her by continually trying to turn the baby, and it horrified him to see the condition she was in. He wanted to sweep her into his arms and carry her away from the nightmare she had suffered, but as he unstrapped her legs and laid her gently flat on the table and they began to wheel her away, she stirred and looked at him strangely.
“You look …”It was the barest of hoarse croaks. “… like … Teddy.”
“I am Teddy, Serena. Everything's going to be oaky. Vanessa called me, and we're going to take the baby by Caesarean.” She nodded, and then a moment later she was screaming with the pain again. They rolled her directly into the operating theater, a young doctor appeared, a little flustered by the unusual procedures, and without further ado the anesthetic was given, and after scrubbing up and returning in operating-room garb, Teddy began to make the incision on Serena. The anesthetist and two of the nurses were keeping close tabs on her failing heart. Teddy felt himself working steadily against the clock as he could see her dying rapidly beneath his fingers. And a moment later he had the child, a perfectly formed, beautiful little baby girl, but as they brought her out of the womb there was no cry, she wasn't breathing, and he knew that he was about to lose both the baby and Serena. He gave terse instructions to the nurses who stood by as he continued the surgery on Serena. Every effort was made to keep her alive, and a pediatrician was summoned to help the nurses and the young doctor with their attempts to get the baby breathing. It seemed an eternity before they heard the first cry, but suddenly the room was filled with her lusty sounds, and at almost the same moment the anesthetist reported that Serena's blood pressure was rising slowly and her heartbeat was finally regular. He wanted to give a whoop of joy, but he still had work to do, and when it was all over, he looked down at the sleeping woman he had loved for so many years, and in a most unprofessional gesture he leaned down to her cheek and kissed her.
The operating-room staff congratulated him on his brilliant and speedy maneuvers, and he followed them slowly out of the operating theater. Both Serena and the baby were going to be all right, but he still had to see Vanessa. The poor child had been through an ordeal of her own, and when he reached her side at ten fifteen, she was still sleeping. He sat down beside her and as though she sensed him, she looked up with a puzzled frown, and he smiled at her. “Hi, kiddo. You have a big fat baby sister.”
“I do?” Vanessa sat up, stunned. “How do you know? Did you see her?”
“I sure did. I delivered her myself.”
“You did?” She threw her arms around his neck. “Oh, Uncle Teddy, you're terrific!” And then with an anxious look in her eyes, “How's my mom?”
“She's alseep.” And then he explained about the Caesarean section.
“It sounds awful.” She made a grim face. “I don't ever want to have a baby. They had her all tied up, and”—her voice drifted away as she remembered—”she was screaming … I thought she was going to die.…” He put an arm around her shoulders.
“But she didn't. She's fine. And the baby is so cute. Do you want to see her?”
“Will they let me?”
“If they won't, I'll tell them you're my nurse.”
Vanessa giggled, and after a hushed conversation with the head nurse they led Teddy and Vanessa down the hall to a big picture window. There were at least two dozen babies there, but they held up “Arbus, baby girl” for Vanessa to see, and as she looked into her sister's face, she saw exactly what Teddy had seen when he delivered her. “She looks just like Mommy!” Vanessa looked stunned. “Except she has black hair.” But she did look exactly like her mother. She was a tiny perfect mirror image of Serena. “She's so pretty, isn't she, Uncle Teddy?”
He put a hand on Vanessa's shoulder and looking at the baby with a small tired smile, he nodded. “Yes, she is.”
44
Andreas arrived, as promised, at the end of that week and found Vasili in a stuporous state in his bedroom. He hadn't bathed in a week, his skin was broken out, his hair was matted to his head, his eyes were sunken and darkly ringed, and he was wearing a filthy bathrobe. Andreas tried to urge him to clean up before they left, but he was nodding out, and he saw with distaste and despair the hypodermic on the table. He also noticed a yellowish tinge about his brother's face, and feared that he had hepatitis. In the end he had to get his driver to help Vasili out of his chair, and they led him, just as he was, to the car and drove him directly to the hospital. He had not been to see his wife, recovering slowly from her ordeal and the emergency surgery. He had not seen his daughter, and he was barely aware that the baby had been born, when Andreas left him at the clinic.
“He's in bad shape this time,” he told Serena bluntly when he came to see her. “But he should be all right soon.” He didn't mention the serum hepatitis they had confirmed at the hospital and for a long moment she said nothing. And then she sighed. She was still in a great deal of pain, and the truth of what she had to do about Vasili had been nagging at her all morning.
“I think I'm going to divorce him, Andreas.”
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