Bring Your Baggage and Don't Pack Light

by Helen Ellis

  On my way to the hospital, Michelle had asked me to swing by her place and pick up her eyeglasses.

  “Oh,” she said, “but you don’t have the keys.”

  I said, “Don’t worry about it, I’ll get in.”

  People stationed at doors and gates don’t question me because I look like I’m someone’s executive assistant. Or mom. I’m nice. And I lie. Very easily. Because my lie isn’t going to do anyone a lick of harm. And my southern accent don’t hurt none.

  I said to the doorman, “Hey, I’m Helen! Michelle’s in the hospital. She havin’ her baby! She needs me to get her eyeglasses. Would you please give me her keys?”

  He handed them over faster than a valet.

  At the hospital, Michelle was not in the computer system yet, so I convinced a security guard, a complete stranger, to let me get past him to go into a place where I did not belong to see someone who did not exist. I found Michelle in what I’ll call triage. A floor where there were many closed curtains, and once I got behind hers, I found out that she can lie as well as I can.

  She told the nurse who was taking her blood pressure: “This is my sister.”

  And I lied: “Mom’s pissed.”

  The nurse didn’t question us.

  When the nurse left, Michelle thanked me for coming and confessed why she’d chosen me to be her backup plan. She said, “You don’t have a day job, so I thought you’d be available. But it’s mostly because I know you’ll be a cheerful, calming presence.”

  I felt so proud of this description, I made it my mantra. I’m a cheerful, calming presence. I’m number two! I’m number two!

  * * *

  ————

  It’s amazing how quickly hospital decisions are made.

  A doctor, wearing scrubs and a diamond eternity band on a chain around her neck, pulled back the curtain. She had the body of a woman who sprints for fun. Short hair, don’t care. She was born ready to get on with it.

  She said to Michelle, “I don’t need to wait another four hours to see if your blood pressure spikes to know you have gestational hypertension. Baby is thirty-seven weeks and in perfect health, so your options are: we induce for vaginal delivery, but if Baby goes into distress, we do a C-section; or we skip the next twenty-four to thirty-six hours of labor that could end in a C-section and do a C-section now.”

  Michelle chose option one.

  She told me my job was to make sure she got an epidural and the umbilical cord for stem cell research.

  I imagined a nurse offering the cord like a boiled lasagna noodle. I asked, “Do I just hold out my purse like a trick-or-treat bag?”

  “No,” Michelle said, laughing. “I have a kit for it at home, I should have asked you to get it.”

  “Don’t worry about it, I’ll get it.”

  I called Tal’s husband, Scott, who will always give you his time and do you a favor. The man is generous.

  I said, “The umbilical kit’s in a purple-and-white box in her living room.”

  Scott said, “On it. Need anything else?”

  “A Subway sandwich, please and thank you.”

  “Text me your order.”

  When it came to the epidural, Michelle’s choices were to first get Pitocin (a drug that’s piped into your veins to induce labor like charcoal lighter fluid starts a grill fire) and then get the epidural (a needle to the spine to make way for a fishing-wire-wide tube of painkiller that numbs your vagina, surrounding areas, and legs so you can’t get out of bed until your baby is born; which means you also get a catheter to pee in a bag); or Michelle could get the epidural first, then the Pitocin, feel no pain, and sleep through the night.

  Michelle chose option two.

  We moved into a private room, and I made myself useful. I unpacked Michelle’s bag, changed the TV channel to The Bachelor, and group-texted her birth plan to Tal, our close friends, and Michelle’s parents, who had booked a flight to arrive tomorrow afternoon.

  When Scott showed up with my sandwich and two dozen doughnut holes, I knew from my husband’s grandmother’s hospital stay with pneumonia to take one doughnut hole and give the rest to the nurses as a bribe. From Mama’s cancerous colon polyp removal, I knew how to turn a second hospital gown into a robe to cover the gaping slit of the one that exposes your butt. When Papa had open heart surgery, the only thing he asked for was a good pillow because hospital pillows feel like unpopped bags of microwave popcorn, so I brought Michelle one from home.

  Michelle said, “Oh, thank you. I’ll dry-clean it and return it.”

  I said, “It’s my gift to you. When you leave, have them throw it in the incinerator.”

  This is my idea of taking one for the team. The B Team. I am shameless, organized, and I take copious notes.

  At 9:14 p.m. a nurse with cat eyeliner and a high pony found a vein for an IV in Michelle’s arm after sticking her for twenty minutes. At 9:43 p.m. a tall drink of a resident reiterated that a C-section was possible and had Michelle sign documents that swore she wouldn’t sue the hospital if something went wrong. At 9:57 p.m. the anesthesiologist walked in and was so flawlessly good-looking, I felt the same sense of safety I feel when I walk onto a spanking-new airplane. Yes, I know this is a false sense of security, but I’ll take what I can get when I’m handed a blue surgical bonnet and mask.

  Michelle was positioned to sit on the side of the bed with her legs hanging off. The nurse stood between her legs and braced her shoulders. I held Michelle’s foot, the one part of her body I could reach, and petted the top of her hot pink fuzzy ankle sock.

  I locked eyes with her and through my mask said, “You’re doing great.”

  I could not see what the anesthesiologist was doing behind her back, but I imagined the spinal-tap scene from The Exorcist.

  Don’t faint, I told myself. Don’t you dare faint. Be a cheerful, calming presence. You’re number two! You’re number two!

  Michelle didn’t flinch. The anesthesiologist did whatever he had to do to her on his first try. It was over in less than five minutes.

  “You’re amazing,” I told Michelle.

  I asked the anesthesiologist and nurse, “Is this how it normally goes?”

  “No,” they both said.

  The anesthesiologist said, “There’s usually a lot of screaming and crying because people are scared and don’t understand how to curve their lower backs so I can get the needle in.”

  I asked, “Do you mean women don’t understand?”

  “Yes.” He blushed.

  Michelle said, “I take Pilates. I know the C curve.”

  At 10:23 p.m. another resident, this one with a Matthew Fox five-o’clock shadow, arrived to insert a balloon in her cervix. The balloon would mechanically inflate to three centimeters overnight, then roll out like a gumball. The resident asked her to lay back and sit crisscross applesauce. And then he proceeded to shove his hand wrist-deep into my friend while looking directly at me.

  I found this more disturbing than the epidural. It took him forever.

  He said to Michelle, “It’s a good thing you had the epidural, otherwise you’d hate me.”

  I said, “You shouldn’t say that to her.”

  But Michelle didn’t mind. She was an excellent patient. Everyone said so, including this guy, who finally got the balloon in and then got out of the room.

  Michelle said she doesn’t complain or make a fuss, that she’s easygoing with the maternity ward staff, because at our age she’s experienced pain. She’s had surgeries and medical procedures, plus the everyday aches of being fifty years old. So pain is not unfamiliar to her. She knows that pain will pass. And the pain of childbirth and all that comes along with inducement is a pain that she has chosen. For Michelle, this pain is better than the agony of never having a child.

  She was fearless. And her co
urage made me less afraid.

  So I steeled myself. I silently took an oath that I would hold Michelle’s knee while she pushed (apparently stirrups are a thing of the past) or brave the operating room if that’s what she wanted.

  * * *

  ————

  At 8:00 a.m., there’d been a shift change, so there was a new crop of nurses and doctors to get to know. A statuesque silver-haired ob/gyn detected my southern accent (see, I told you it don’t hurt none) and said that she had a daughter at the University of Alabama.

  I asked, “Why would a New York City kid go to Alabama?”

  The doctor said, “She likes to party.” She pulled out her phone and showed us a video that her daughter had sent after a flood in my hometown of a friend waterskiing through a parking lot off the back of a pickup truck.

  “Roll Tide,” I said.

  The doctor said, “The other patients aren’t as fun as your room. We’ve been so busy, people haven’t had a sense of humor.”

  Michelle said, “I’ve waited a long time for this, I don’t mind waiting a little bit more.”

  The doctor got down to the business of breaking Michelle’s water. She moved Michelle’s numb legs as a unit. She said, “Young girls fantasize about being a mermaid, and this is pretty much what it’s like.” Then she sat her crisscross applesauce and ruptured her amniotic sac with a pin on a stick.

  Pop. Then liquid.

  The doctor said, “Looks just looks like Mountain Dew. It’s a mess from here on out. Welcome to the house of pain.”

  FYI: you still feel contractions with an epidural, but not as badly as you’d feel them without an epidural. Whatever the case, Michelle took these pains in stride. But they hurt her. I could tell that they hurt her. Michelle likes to chitchat, but when the pain seized her, she went quiet. Still, her face looked more surprised than upset. She was eager and excited because it was all finally happening.

  Every three to four minutes, she puckered her lips and said, “Oh.”

  Like I might react to a cupcake in a nest of barbed wire.

  Her folks arrived with lunch. Broth for Michelle, and bagels and pastrami for the rest of us.

  The room was instantly over capacity. We clumped like carolers.

  Michelle’s dad sat in the one chair, a recliner the same size as the hospital bed, which was positioned next to the hospital bed. He pulled out his Kindle, making it clear that he was happy to bide his time, be present for his daughter, and divert his attention every time Michelle was examined.

  “Dad, don’t look.”

  Michelle’s mom was a force. She’s a swimmer, and her boat-neck shirt exposed the tan and freckled neck and shoulders of a woman who is happiest outside. First impression: she’s a mover and a doer. Ladies and gentlemen, the alpha is in the house.

  She gave me a big hug, then looked me straight in the face and said, “We’ve got it from here, thank you for your help.”

  I said, “Yes, ma’am!”

  And I was out the door.

  See, that’s the thing about being the backup plan. You’re in, then you’re out. You have to accept that, embrace that, and be grateful for being someone’s number two.

  * * *

  ————

  Michelle’s daughter was born late that night. No C-section. That baby came out in a game of tug-of-war with a nurse and a bedsheet. Michelle had such an easy delivery, she sneezed out the placenta. I wonder if her doctor, drenched in the Miracle Whip of life, contemplated sending a selfie to her daughter at Bama. Talk about Roll Tide.

  I did not go back to the hospital to see Michelle and her daughter because that was her parents’ time. I was not the first of her friends to see the baby once Michelle got her home, because that was her best friend Tal’s time.

  I met Bella Madeline when she was six days old. She was perfect and precious and swaddled in hot pink. I painted my nails to match the mother/daughter team color. The two of them are a family. They may not have come together in the traditional way, but sometimes the backup plan works out for the best.

  The Last

  Garage Sale

  Papa’s ad in the Birmingham News, June 16, 2018

  Garage Sale: 50 years of great stuff. Like-New Hand & Power Tools. New deep sea fishing tackle. Kitchen: New deluxe espresso/steam/drip coffee maker & Cuisinart “Griddler Deluxe” short order grill. Vintage Clothes: women’s mink shawl, fur jacket & nice dresses in small/medium; men’s suits & sports coats in medium. Art: Hand-made pottery, paintings & prints. Collectables: Xmas china, linens, never-worn casino & team ball caps, vintage medicine bottles, vintage European dolls. Books: home repair, woodworking, gardening, poker, gambling & computer. Like-New Toddler Bed & Mattress. Lightly used kids toys for ages 2–8. Cash ONLY. No Early Birds.

  The Early Birds showed up at 6:30 in the morning because they wanted the Christmas china, but Mama had already pulled it because my forty-something-year-old little sister had laid claim. Elizabeth had Googled the Christmas china and discovered it was the most valuable thing we had for sale in our driveway. Besides, it was sentimental. How many pieces of red velvet cake had we eaten off that mint-condition service for twelve?

  Mama also pulled her father’s collection of vintage medicine bottles. The five boxes of more than a hundred green, blue, and brown bottles had been professionally packed thirty years ago when my family had moved from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham, and they had been parked in Mama’s walk-in closet ever since. I was in college when they’d moved, so strange men in coveralls had boxed up my teenage bedroom.

  Mama’s instructions to the movers had been: “Pack everything and don’t ask questions.”

  Years later, when I opened a box marked “Older Girl’s Bedroom,” I found two full beer cans I’d hidden. The beer cans were each rolled in two sheets of brown paper and padded with the same care as Great-grandmama Lulu’s centuries-old cut glass.

  We were not selling Lulu’s centuries-old cut glass at this garage sale.

  My parents were planning to downsize from their four-bedroom house, where I’d never lived, so I had few sentimental attachments. I am attached to my parents, but when it comes to their stuff (and their parents’ stuff, and their parents’ parents’ stuff), I can take it or leave it.

  My sister is more of a saver than I am. She loves my parents so much she wanted to move them to California into a tiny house in her backyard. All their stuff wasn’t going to fit in a tiny house, so I had arrived in Alabama from New York City to help in the purge for what was meant to be the mother of all garage sales.

  Papa said to me, “I tried to sneak in a couple of Lulu’s vases, but your mother pulled them. Some stuff’s too good for the garage sale people.”

  The Garage Sale People are people who want to profit from your poor life decisions. They’re grifters out to pull your gigantic plastic bin of red-sauce-stained Tupperware right out from under you. They want to resell your prom dress when metallic lamé comes back into style.

  To test your faith, they show up in church T-shirts and Jesus jewelry. To play on your sympathies they point to their arthritic mother-in-law, who they’ve left cooking in the car with the windows cracked. They drive an unmarked van up to your curb an hour and a half early with a couple of weight-lifting “nephews” and the hubris to bring a checkbook. They want you to think that they’re doing you a favor.

  But they don’t fool Papa. Papa has always been ready for them.

  He prices everything higher than what he’s willing to take for it. Shoes are eight dollars, when he’s willing to take five. A ladder is twenty when, after he fell off it and nearly broke his neck, he’d give it away. He bundles. A book is a buck. Five for three bucks. Fill a grocery bag for ten. If you can walk across the front yard with a stack balanced on your head, you get them for free.

  Papa is a big proponent of Ya
gotta make your own fun in life, which explains why he told me when I was a kid that Long John Silver’s fried fish was great white shark meat, and he plays rock, paper, scissors with me as an adult at restaurants to see who gets the check. But the most fun I’ve ever seen him have is hosting Let’s Make a Deal at our garage sales, which when I was a kid we seemed to have every year. His favorite game: $5 Mystery Box.

  A Garage Sale Person would ask: “What’s in the box?”

  “Five bucks, you find out.”

  “Can I shake it?”

  “Nope.”

  “Can I pick it up?”

  “Nope.”

  Some people circled the box. Some laid their ear against the masking-taped seam.

  “Can I get a hint?”

  “The hint is: it’s either worth more than or less than five bucks.”

  Somebody always paid that five bucks. What was inside? I could not tell you. I never forked over my allowance to see. But I can say this: nobody ever asked for their money back. Pretty cool, right? Hey, some girls grow up idolizing their fathers like Walter Cronkite. To us, Papa was Monty Hall.

  My sister and I have been lifetime contestants on his show.

  The best deal I ever made with Papa was when I was in middle school. I’d bought Eddie Murphy’s first album, the one where he wears a red carnation behind his ear on the cover and sings about putting stuff in his butt. You know: Put a tin can in your butt! Put a little tiny man in your butt! Mama deemed this inappropriate and confiscated the record. I didn’t see it again until Papa put it in a box of eight-track tapes at our next garage sale.

  But he made me this deal: “If it doesn’t sell, you can keep it.”

  It didn’t sell because I hid that record better than future me would hide two beer cans. And I kept hiding it, moving it from behind a wobbly bookshelf to underneath a box of outgrown coats, to inside a fish cooler in Papa’s fiberglass bass boat. Was this cheating? Some people would say so. But Papa, a poker player, knew it for what it was: shooting an angle. And, despite Mama’s protests, he honored the deal.