She loved him to pieces. Couldn’t help it. Even if he was sopping his beurre blanc with a chunk of bread and licking a bit of the residue off his pinky.
“I am so full,” Tammy said. “My belly is really complaining.” She rose from her seat and whispered to Savannah, “Darn. I’m going to have to go to the bathroom again.”
That was the fourth time in less than an hour. “Are you okay?” Savannah asked, rising to go with her.
“Yes, I just have a little problem,” Tammy said as she shuffled along to the ladies room with Savannah close behind.
Once inside, Tammy remained in the stall so long that Savannah was beginning to get seriously concerned. When she finally exited, her face a delicate shade of pink, rather than its usual golden, Savannah said, “What’s the matter, sugar? A case of what Granny calls the ‘green apple quick-step’?”
“Heaven’s no. I wish I did have a bit of that. I’ve got the opposite problem. Savannah, I have never been so constipated in my life! It’s awful. I’ve been needing to go every ten minutes or so, but I can’t. It’s been going on for hours.”
Another woman walked in, washed her hands, and fussed with her hair. Tammy waited until she left to continue. “It’s so embarrassing. I just sit there and try and try to go, but nothing comes out except”—her cheeks reddened even more—“except a little pee.”
Savannah listened with ever-growing concern. “Are you telling me that for the past few hours, you’ve been coming in here every ten minutes or so, sitting down and pushing, and water’s been coming out?”
“Yes. It’s getting worse and worse, too. Oh, I think I have to go back in there again.”
“Tammy.” Savannah caught her by the arm. “Honey, I don’t think you’re constipated. I think you’re in labor.”
“But I can’t be. It doesn’t hurt horrible like they say labor does. I just really need to—Oh . . . oh . . . This feels really weird. Look, my stomach is like tightening up. How strange. It’s never done that before. Feel, Savannah. It’s like a rock.”
She tried to place Savannah’s hand on her abdomen, but Savannah was too busy making a phone call to Dirk. “Ask Captain Mitchell to alert sick bay. We’ve got a lady in late-stage labor coming down.”
Tammy grabbed Savannah’s sleeve. “Wait! Wait! Tell the captain to please come down there, too! Waycross and I, we aren’t married yet! We want to be married when the baby comes!”
Savannah stared at her, incredulous for a moment, then snapped to attention. “And something else, babe,” she told Dirk. “Bring the captain with you, kicking and screaming if necessary. Apparently, Tammy wants to get married.”
* * *
As Savannah sat on the edge of her best friend’s bed, rubbed her back, and timed her contractions, she thought, I’ve seen some unusual things in my life, but this here takes the cake.
Of course, there would be no cake, no bride’s bouquet, a hospital gown instead of a wedding gown, a sick bay instead of a chapel, and a ship captain who had explained that, although everyone is under the impression that captains of ships can marry people, they can’t. Fortunately, however, he was also a notary public, so they were in business.
Captain Mitchell stood at the foot of Tammy’s bed, and behind him, crammed into the small room, was the entire Moonlight Magnolia entourage.
It had to be the most crowded labor room in history.
But then, Savannah thought, Tammy and Waycross were truly extraordinary human beings, so was it really so surprising that their wedding would be unorthodox?
Tammy was huffing and puffing, her beautiful hair hanging in sweaty strings around her flushed face. Her groom sat on the other side of her bed, opposite Savannah, holding his laboring bride’s hand and whispering words of love and comfort into her ear.
Captain Mitchell cleared his throat and said, “Shall we begin?”
“Yes! Begin!” Tammy said between huffs. “Hurry!”
The captain looked down at their hands. “Do we have any rings?”
“No,” Waycross said. “Just her engagement ring.”
“Wait a minute. Yes, we have rings.” As Granny pushed her way through the crowd to the captain, she was removing the wedding ring from her own finger.
Savannah gasped. Not once in her entire life had Savannah seen that simple gold band off her grandmother’s hand. She knew that it hadn’t left Gran’s finger since the day Grandpa Reid had put it there over sixty years ago.
Savannah’s eyes filled with tears to see such a loving gesture. Then, as if that weren’t enough, Gran reached inside her collar and pulled out a necklace chain. Hanging from the chain was a larger version of her own band. It was Grandpa’s. She had placed it on that chain and worn it next to her heart from the day he had passed.
“Here’s one for the groom,” she said, taking the ring from its chain and offering it to Waycross.
Savannah thought her brother was going to burst into tears, but he managed to contain himself and gratefully accepted the rings from his grandmother. When he did, he lifted her hand and kissed the back of it lovingly. “Thank you, Granny. We’ll give these back to you once we’ve—”
“Shush and get on with it,” she barked. “I’ve seen plenty of babies born in my day, and I’ll tell ya that your gal ain’t got far to go.”
“Okay,” Captain Mitchell said. “Let’s do this. Normally, I ask the man first. But since the bride has some pressing business to attend to very soon, we should probably let the lady go first.”
He paused, then said, “Do you, Tammy Hart, take this man, Waycross Reid, to be your lawfully wedded husband? Do you promise to—”
“Yes!” Tammy paused to huff, to puff, and to try her best not to push, having been informed by the sick bay nurse and Dora that it wasn’t time yet. “I do! I do! I take him. I so-o-o do! Next?”
Captain Mitchell laughed. So did the crowd behind him.
“Okay. We have a definite yes from the bride.” He turned to Waycross. “Do you, Waycross Reid, take Tammy Hart to be your lawfully wedded wife? Do you promise to love her and honor her and—”
“Ow-w-w-w-w! Oh, this is a really . . . strong . . . one!” said the bride.
“Come on and breathe, sugar,” Waycross said, gazing lovingly at the flushed and sweaty face of his almost wife. He told the captain, “Yes, I do take her. I sure do. Hurry up, sir. We ain’t got time to dawdle here.”
“Slip this ring on her finger and repeat after me: ‘With this ring I thee wed and join my life to yours.’”
Waycross did as he was told, and Tammy did the same in turn.
“Then by the power invested in me as captain of this ship, but more importantly, as a notary public, I pronounce you husband and wife. Mrs. Tammy Reid, would you like to kiss your groom? If you’re too busy, I’m sure he’ll understand.”
Tammy reached up, grabbed Waycross by his curly hair, and pulled his face down to hers. She planted a quick but passionate kiss on his lips and promptly went back to panting.
“Okay, that’s it,” the sick bay physician said, shooing the captain and the Moonlight Magnolians out the door.
“Wait!” Tammy said. “I don’t want them to go. Let them stay if they want to. How often does a person get to see a baby born? I . . . oh, oh, oh, whee!” More panting, more huffing.
“They aren’t all staying in here, Mrs. Reid,” the attending nurse said. “You can have two people. Your husband and one other. That’s all we have room for.”
“My husband and two others,” Tammy demanded. “Savannah and Granny.” She paused, breathed, and moaned.
When the contraction subsided Tammy gave the nurse an evil eye and said, “If I can’t have both Savannah and Granny and my husband in here with me, I’m not having this baby. That’s all there is to it. Take it or leave it.”
“We’ll stay out of your way,” Granny told the nurse in her softest, sweetest, grandma voice. “I promise. You won’t even know we’re here.”
“They can sit in the corner
s and watch,” the doctor said, ending the argument. “But we need to get ready. I think this little stowaway is just about to be born.”
Dora was the last of the gang to leave. “I’ll be right outside the door if you need me for anything. Anything at all,” she told Savannah on her way out.
“Thank you, Dora. That’s so good to know,” Savannah told her, and gave her a hug.
As the doctor and the nurse removed all sorts of supplies from cupboards and drawers, Tammy smiled at Gran, looked down at the ring on her finger, and said, “Thank you, Granny. I’ll never, ever forget what you did today. Not if I live to be a hund-oh! Oh, woo-hoo! This one’s a doozy!”
“You best lay back and conserve your strength, darlin’,” Granny told her. “You got some hard work ahead. They don’t call bringing another soul into the world ‘labor’ for nothin’.”
* * *
Thirty-eight minutes later, Mrs. Tammy Reid delivered a beautiful baby girl with big sapphire blue eyes and bright red curls, just like her father’s. The infant screamed with great enthusiasm the moment she entered the world and was instantly placed on her mother’s tummy by her adoring dad.
The doctor allowed Waycross to cut the cord.
Waycross kissed his wife and his new daughter, then turned to his older sister and grandmother. “Get out of those corners and come over here. You gotta see this. She’s the prettiest baby ever born in the whole world. Just look at her.”
Savannah laughed. “You sound like a man in love.”
“I am!” he said. “After meeting Tammy, I didn’t think I could ever fall in love with another woman again. But I think I just did.”
A very tired but happy Tammy laughed. “I can’t blame you. I’m smitten, too. Just look at her teeny hands. Oh, Waycross, she looks like a little fairy. Our own tiny, red-haired pixie.”
Savannah looked down into the sweetest face she had ever seen and instantly knew she would love this child for the rest of her life. “May I touch her hand?” she asked.
“Of course you can,” Tammy said. “Waycross, wrap her up so that she and Granny can hold her.”
“Wrap her up?” He looked slightly panic stricken. “How?”
“Like this.” Gran took the receiving blanket the nurse offered and within seconds had the wee one lovingly, efficiently swaddled. Then she held her close to her chest and said, “Welcome to my family, sweet girl. I’m your great-grandmother, and I have all sorts of wonders and miracles to share with you.”
A few moments later, Gran handed the baby to Savannah, whose heart melted on the spot.
She had held babies before. She had even delivered her sister’s twins. But this child . . . this one was special. Savannah looked into the blue eyes, so like her own, and felt she and this baby had known each other forever.
“What’s her name going to be?” Savannah asked, gently kissing the tiny forehead that was softer than anything on God’s green earth.
Tammy looked at Waycross and they smiled at each other.
“Funny you should ask, Sis,” he said.
“Yes,” Tammy added. “Because we decided long ago that if she was a girl, we knew exactly what we’d call her.”
Waycross looked at Savannah with more love than she could possibly imagine and said, “We’re gonna call her Vanna. But her name will be Savannah Rose. If that’s okay with you.”
Is it okay? Is it okay? Savannah thought as the purest joy she’d ever known, like a golden, life-giving flame, warmed her spirit and every cell of her body. No, it wasn’t okay. It was the most glorious honor she had ever received in her life.
She wanted to tell Tammy and Waycross how much she loved them, how deeply, wondrously happy they had made her.
But for once, Savannah Reid couldn’t speak. All she could do was laugh, cry, and hold her new niece, this magical little copper-haired sprite, close to her heart . . . a heart that was positively overflowing with love.
Every Body on Deck Page 26