A Borrowed Life

by Kerry Anne King

  My back cramps up again, a deep, long spasm. I worm my right hand behind me, pressing against the unhappy muscles. I hear new voices in the coatroom, and then Geoff, Pastor Steve, and Felicity all come in together in a flurry of gift bags and food trays. Rosie is right behind them. She sees me battling gravity and the chair and comes over at once to give me a hand up.

  “You okay?” She surveys my face, and I work hard to plaster on a smile to hide my discomfort.

  “Fine. Just sat too long.” Now that I’m on my feet, my back is easing, but the low, heavy pressure in my pelvis continues.

  “You’re sweating.” Her cool hand brushes my forehead.

  “It’s warm in here. Shouldn’t have put that last piece of wood on the fire.”

  “Warmed up a bit outside,” Rosie says, collecting an armful of coats. “Just enough to make for freezing rain.”

  “Turning into a skating rink out there. I hit the brakes and nearly slid off the road.” Geoff settles into a folding chair with a plate already loaded with goodies. “If I hadn’t been closer to here than home, I might have gone back.”

  “Sleepover!” Bernie sings out. “And no work tomorrow. Hope we brought enough beer.”

  “Roads like that, nobody’s drinking,” Tara objects. “I mean it, Bern.”

  Everybody exchanges looks.

  “Maybe we should go back now before things get worse,” Steve says. “Although I’d hate to miss your party, Mrs. L.”

  Lance switches on the scanner, something he bought me soon after I moved out here. Everybody this far out of town needs one, he’d said. In the summer I can check for fire news. In the winter, road conditions. With a crackle, it immediately comes to life, with the dispatcher calling out ambulances and law enforcement for a multiple car wreck on Highway 395, between here and Colville.

  “Guess us Colville folks aren’t going anywhere for a while.” Earlene sighs. “Kettle Falls you can probably still get to.”

  “You’re here now,” Val proclaims. “Have food. Let Liz open her gifts at least. The sand trucks and snowplows will come out and it will get better.”

  Another pain grabs me. I’m good at denial, but this is rapidly getting real. I’m in labor, I have a house full of people, and the roads are terrible. I need a minute to plan, to decide what to do, to pull Lance aside and clue him in.

  “You sure you’re okay?” Rosie asks.

  I wave her words away, and as soon as I can find my voice, I offer up the best distraction I can think of. “Want to see the nursery first? Lance finished the mural.”

  I’ve uttered words of power. Even though there’s a din of tongues wagging and three different conversations going full steam ahead, the room falls silent and everybody turns to look at me, even Geoff, even Pastor Steve.

  “I’m half afraid to see the standard you’ve set,” Steve says, laughing. Felicity snuggles up against him, and he kisses the top of her head. Her eyes are shining, and she asks, “Shall we tell them?”

  “Your call.”

  But there’s no need now, of course. A hubbub of “Congratulations!” “When’s the due date?” “Is it a boy or a girl?” follows as everyone converges on the stairs.

  Tara is in the lead, but she stops on the first step and turns back to me. “Wait. It’s your nursery. Come on, Liz. Give us the tour.”

  “You all go on up. I feel like the Little Engine That Could every time I climb up there these days.”

  My back is spasming again, the intensity of that deep inner pressure cranking up another notch. I’m not sure my legs are going to hold me upright through this one.

  Lance, at the foot of the stairs, takes a step toward me. Nobody else moves, as if they’ve been given some stage direction that reads: Freeze in place and stare at Liz.

  The pain releases, and I’m about to reassure them all that I’m perfectly okay when I feel an odd little pop and water gushes out between my thighs. Warm wetness runs down my legs, soaks through my pants, puddles onto the floor. Before I can fully register what has just happened, the next contraction grabs me, low and deep, a fist squeezing, twisting, and it’s all I can do to stay on my feet and breathe.

  Hovering over the fear and the pain is a random thought: Water isn’t good for hardwood. I should mop that up.

  And then, finally: Oh my God, my water has broken.

  Abigail is at my side before I can draw another breath. “Clear,” she pronounces, as if it’s a diagnosis. I just stare at her, trying to process, not entirely sure I haven’t just peed my pants.

  “Clear is good,” Abigail says. “No meconium staining.”

  Everybody is still staring. Embarrassment floods me. I don’t even ask what meconium is. All I can think is that the stairs are blocked by onlookers and I need to go up and change my clothes. “Wipe it up,” I tell her. “Before it ruins the floor.”

  “I’ll start the truck,” Lance says. “Get your jacket.”

  “But we’re having a party.”

  “No,” Abigail says. “We are not. Nix the truck, Lance. We should call an ambulance.”

  “It will be faster to get her there in the truck.”

  “And safer in an ambulance. The baby is still early.”

  “What about that wreck?” Rosie says. “I don’t know that you’ll get through.”

  “What do you want to do?” Lance asks me. His face is impassive, but his voice is tight with anxiety.

  “Truck,” I say. “They know you. They’ll let you by.”

  He nods. “Either that or they’ll put you in a cop car or ambulance on the other side of the block.” He vanishes out the door as Abigail takes my arm on one side and Rosie steadies me on the other.

  “How long have you been having contractions?” Abigail demands.

  I think back to what I thought were Braxton-Hicks. “Maybe an hour? But they weren’t so—” I can’t finish the sentence, wracked with another spasm of pain.

  “These are super close. Last one can’t have been much more than two minutes ago.” Abigail sounds more like a frightened child than a nurse. “I’m calling an ambulance. I don’t care what you and Lance say.”

  She’s already dialing.

  “I need to change,” I insist, but Val is already at my side with a clean pair of sweatpants and a hand towel to stuff inside them. “Everybody into the kitchen,” she orders, shooing them like they’re a flock of sheep. “Go eat things. Liz, you can change right here.”

  “I’m sure there’s no urgency,” Earlene says. “Labor takes hours. I was in labor for three days with my first . . .” Her voice trails off as Steve and Felicity propel her away and into the kitchen, taking her stories with her.

  For once, Earlene’s story of pain and suffering sounds comforting, but it’s unlikely that I have three days before this baby arrives. My labor with Abigail was terrifying in intensity, and so short we barely made it to the hospital in time. A nurse delivered her twenty minutes after I was admitted, three hours from the time I felt the first contraction.

  “The floor,” I say to Val, as if it matters.

  “You change. I’ll get the mop.”

  I feel exposed, changing in the middle of the room, but the idea of walking anywhere seems overwhelming and we might as well keep all of the mess in one place. I strip out of my soaking pants and underwear, and another contraction hits before I can get the clean ones on.

  Over the edges of the pain, I hear Abigail’s voice talking to dispatch.

  “How long? There has to be something sooner, the baby’s early and she has a history of . . . Yes, I understand. All right.”

  She hangs up the phone and comes to help me. As soon as the contraction passes, she holds my pants for me. I lean on her bent back and lift first one leg and then the other. “That didn’t sound promising.”

  “Ambulances are all out on calls,” Abigail grinds out between clenched teeth. “Couldn’t even tell me when they could get somebody out here. I guess we’ll go in Lance’s truck after all.”

&nbs
p; Pain slams into me again, and I don’t have the breath to do anything but hold on to the promise that this contraction will end and I’ll have a break.

  “Remember your breathing,” Abigail says, her cool hand on my belly. “In through the nose, out through the mouth.”

  “Fuck breathing,” I want to tell her. Would, if I could speak.

  “That escalated way too fast,” Rosie says. Her usually calm face is tight with concern.

  “I’m not so sure the truck is a good idea,” Lance says, coming in from outside. “The windshield was iced over, and I fell on my ass twice walking back to the house.”

  “Best to just stay put until the roads are sanded,” Rosie says.

  Another contraction hits, and it’s all I can do to keep from screaming. I squeeze Abigail’s hand until I feel the bones compressing, try to breathe, but this time I can’t; I’m just lost in the pain.

  “Do we have that kind of time?” Abigail asks.

  “She can’t have the baby here,” Lance says. “I’ll put chains on the truck. Gil can drive ahead with the tractor, maybe that will break up the ice.”

  “All the way to town?”

  “If needed.”

  I want to tell Lance not to worry. The house isn’t cursed. This baby will be fine, born alive and well, but the pain hits me again and fear comes with it.

  “I don’t think we have that kind of time,” Rosie says. “I don’t think she’s going to make it to town.”

  “That’s not possible!” Lance’s voice is sharp with anxiety. “It can’t happen that fast.”

  Another contraction hits me. All the breathing in the world doesn’t help this time. I scream with the onslaught of agony. My entire belly is being clamped and squeezed, not in a fist anymore but in the jaws of a machine.

  Through my own whimpering, I hear the conversation around me.

  “I’ll check on the ambulance.” Abigail’s voice.

  “She can’t have the baby here.” Lance sounds desperate, panicked.

  And then Rosie again, the soul of reason. “Women had babies at home for centuries. Go put the chains on the truck, Lance. Val, can you get some blankets to put on the floor? She needs to lie down, and we’re not dragging her up the stairs. Abigail, turn the oven on low and put some towels in to warm.”

  Everything becomes a blur. My friends settle me on the floor, hold my hands, encourage me. And then Lance is back, uttering soothing words, but his eyes are full of fear. Another contraction hits me, and when it eases, Lance is there with a pan, holding my hair away from my face while I vomit, and then everything is lost again in an eternity of pain that waxes and wanes but never really goes away.

  “You’re doing great,” Rosie says, her face swimming into view.

  How is the baby doing? That’s the question I need to ask, but I know there won’t be an answer. How can anybody tell? No monitor here tracking the little one’s heartbeat.

  “No ambulance yet,” Abigail reports. “But the snowplows and sand trucks are out.”

  “Hey, honey.” It’s Val now, hanging over me. “You can do this.” She stays with me through a tsunami of a contraction. When it eases, I croak, suddenly remembering the party, “Please tell me everybody left.”

  “Nope. All congregated in the kitchen. Pastor Steve prayed over you and the baby. And then Earlene told God exactly how your labor is supposed to go, in no uncertain terms.”

  A tiny bubble of laughter finds its way out of me, but the truth is, I’ll take all of the prayers right now, even Earlene’s. I add one of my own.

  Please let the baby be born healthy. And let me live to be its mother.

  But then the next contraction hits, and a guttural noise tears my throat as my body bears down, hard, without warning.

  Abigail’s face appears in my line of vision, eyes wide. “Breathe! Pant, like a puppy. Do not push!”

  But my body is doing its own thing now, and I have no control over it.

  “Rosie!” Abigail yells. “I think the baby’s coming!”

  “I’ll be right there!”

  “Oh my God. Come now! I can see the head!”

  My daughter kneels on the blanket at my feet, shoving my knees up and anchoring my feet with her own body to keep them there. I’m in too much pain to even register embarrassment that she’s pulled down my pants and is staring at a part of my body that is definitely not meant for her eyes. My body is pushing again, and now, instead of somebody telling me to pant, Rosie’s calm voice says, “Push, Liz. Push. Harder! Lance, get behind her and sit her up a bit, so she’s leaning back on you.”

  “You do this,” Abigail cries. “I’ve never delivered a baby.”

  “Me neither,” Rosie answers, still calm. “Since your hands are already there, you get to do the honors.”

  Abigail’s eyes are wide, frightened. “I thought you knew what you were doing!”

  “It’s not rocket science,” Rosie says. “I’ve helped a midwife a few times. Delivered plenty of calves. No great mystery about birth. Keep a little counterpressure on the head so it eases out slow. There you go.”

  Lance slides in behind me and lifts my shoulders, pulling me back between his legs so I’m supported by his body. I grab on to both of his hands and squeeze, pushing again, releasing a sound that is somewhere between a grunt and a scream.

  A rush, a slither, my body forced wide open with a flare of pain.

  A sudden easing.

  “Oh my God,” Abigail cries, somewhere between terror and ecstasy.

  She’s holding a baby in her hands. It’s tiny and wet, streaked with blood and smeared with something white and creamy. Vernix, my brain tells me. Like the name of anything matters.

  The baby isn’t crying.

  Lance is weeping silently. I can feel his every intake of breath, the shaking of his body.

  “Slap his little feet, Abigail.” Rosie dashes into the kitchen, returning with a stack of warm towels. She takes the baby from Abigail and starts rubbing it dry, vigorously. “Come on, little guy. You can do it.”

  Now that the pain is gone, that tiny face is my whole world.

  I see the minute it scrunches into a frown. See the mouth open. The intake of air. And then an indignant cry, moving into full-on outrage. The bluish-gray body turns red. The tiny hands clench into fists and wave, the legs kick.

  “There you are,” Rosie says. “Keep crying, little boy. Here, Abigail, tie the cord off with these.”

  My daughter’s hands, usually so steady and competent, are trembling. She’s weeping, has to rub her arms across her eyes to clear her vision as she fumbles with a couple of twist ties and the slippery cord. Rosie cuts between the ties with a pair of scissors, and then she lays the crying baby facedown on my chest with a warm towel over both of us.

  Immediately the baby’s strident wailing protest changes, softens. His body molds to mine. My heart expands, too big for my chest already but still growing. I’m half laughing and half crying, already overwhelmingly in love with this tiny new person. I peel back the edge of the towel so I can get a look at him. A perfectly proportioned face. All fingers and toes present and accounted for.

  “He’s doing great!” Rosie says, beaming.

  “Where is that damned ambulance?” Lance demands.

  “Probably stuck in a snowdrift. Easy there, little brother. Mama and baby are doing fine. Liz, let’s see if the little guy will eat something.”

  At that moment, a new cramp hits me and I gasp.

  “What is it?” Lance’s hand squeezes mine again, too tight.

  I feel a new pressure low in my belly. A gush of warmth between my legs.

  “She’s bleeding!” Abigail’s voice is sharp with alarm.

  “Just the placenta coming, honey. It’s okay. See, here it is.” Rosie’s hand moves to my belly, digging in a little, feeling for something. “There, see? No more bleeding. Her uterus is nice and firm. If we can get the baby to breastfeed, it will help to keep her from bleeding. And be good for the little
guy, of course.”

  She gets up and lays a clean quilt down behind me, covering it with towels.

  “Here, scooch back onto this.”

  A minute later I’m propped up against Lance’s strong warmth again, his arms around me. The baby’s cheek turns toward me, his mouth opens, and I guide him to my breast. When he latches on and begins to suckle, a collective sigh goes up from all of us.

  “He’s gonna need a name,” Lance murmurs.

  “I guess I can’t call him Munchkin forever.”

  Abigail, her face tight, is busy bundling up bloody blankets and towels.

  “I think Abigail should name him,” Lance says.

  She freezes in the middle of shoving the placenta into a trash bag. Her eyes meet mine. I wonder if she remembers all of her demands for a baby brother when she was a child, the ridiculous names she came up with, some half nonsense, some completely made up.

  When the laughter rises into her eyes, and then her lips, I know she does. “Very brave of you,” she says. “What if I name him Yertle?”

  “He’ll be mercilessly teased. Lance was bad enough growing up.”

  Rosie steps out of the room with her phone pressed to her ear. She returns a moment later. “The wreck is cleared. Road’s been sanded. Ambulance on the way.”

  “Do I have to go?” I ask. “Why couldn’t we just stay here?”

  “So long as it’s safe, you should go get checked out, you and the baby. He seems fine, but he is a little early.”

  Abigail comes to sit beside me. Her fingers reach out to stroke the baby’s tiny cheek. “He’s doing awesome. I can’t believe I . . .” She chokes on the next word. “Just so you know, if you . . . if I needed . . . it wouldn’t be a burden to take care of him.” I hear the love in her voice. Not even an hour old, and already we are all under this little boy’s spell.

  “You want to hold him?”

  She hesitates, then lifts the tiny body into her own arms. His eyes are wide open, staring up into hers. “Oh,” she breathes, as if she’s just obtained enlightenment. And then, a minute later, “He looks like Lance.”

  “I think he looks like you.”