by Neta Jackson
“All right, all right. I get it.” She rolled her eyes at me. “As far as I know, everything is fine. So my blood pressure is elevated.What’s to worry? I can’t feel it. But salt I have to give up.What’s food without salt? Like sex without love. But . . .” She fluttered her other hand. “For the baby, I give it up.” She winked. “Salt and sex.”
“So the baby is . . . ? ”
She kissed the tips of her fingers. “Good, good. They hear the heartbeat. I told my doctor I didn’t want any of those tests, but here, they insist. The heartbeat they must hear. Everybody wants to listen—the nurse, the doctor, another nurse, another doctor—”
A knock on the door was followed by Stu’s face and red beret. “Aha. I guessed right. Come on in, Flo.”
I looked at my watch. Ten fifty. Church wasn’t over yet. “What are you guys doing here? ”
“Same as you.” Florida bounced into the room, pecked Ruth on the cheek, and swiveled her head, taking in the cheerful hospital room done in pastel colors. “Mm-mm.Nice crib.How long you get to stay up in here, Ruth? ”
“We saw Denny and the kids come in without you,” Stu said to me. “Figured you must be here. Florida and I decided to skip church too. Hang out with you two. Cheer up Ruth in case she needed cheering up.”
Nice timing, I thought. Ruth was just beginning to open up. But by the rosy blush on Ruth’s cheeks, I could tell the visitors were good medicine.
We had schmoozed—as Ruth called it—about ten minutes when two white coats with stethoscopes came in. There the similarity ended. The female doctor looked to be late thirties, pallid skin with no makeup, no-nonsense hair tucked behind both ears. The male doctor was dark in comparison: jet black hair combed straight back, black eyes, smooth coffee-no-cream skin, maybe Indian or Pakistani. The woman held out her hand to Ruth. “Mrs. Garfield. I’m Dr. Kloski. This is Dr. Anand.” She looked at the three of us. “Do you ladies mind? ”
“I mind.” Ruth’s tone was mild, with a dash of horseradish. “Unless it’s a matter of national security.”
Dr. Kloski shrugged. “All right. It’s just a bit crowded. We’d like to check the baby’s heartbeat with the fetal Doppler.” She took a small instrument from her pocket. Stu, Flo, and I crunched ourselves into the corner by the window.
I caught a flicker of anxiety in Ruth’s eyes.My own heart caught in midflop. “Again? ” Ruth said. “Half the hospital listened to it last night.”
Dr. Anand spoke for the first time. A gentle voice. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Garfield. The reports say there’s a good heartbeat. But your case is a bit, ah, unusual. We would like to check it again.”
Ruth looked resigned. “Be my guest.” She pulled up her polkadotted hospital gown. “Belly up.” Florida poked me in the side with her elbow; I didn’t dare look at her or Stu, or one of us might start giggling.
Without benefit of bedsheet or clothes, Ruth was definitely starting to look pregnant. Dr. Anand squirted some clear gel on Ruth’s rounded tummy, then holding the monitor in one hand, he moved the Doppler wand here and there, concentrating on Ruth’s left side.We all held our breath, trying not to make a sound.
Then he nodded to his colleague. “Got it,” he said. “Now over there.”
What was going on?
Now both doctors were using the small monitors, one on each side of Ruth’s belly. Dr. Kloski nodded and finally straightened. “Definitely.Two heartbeats.”
“Two? !” Ruth actually choked on the word.
Dr. Anand nodded, a slight smile on his lips. “That’s right, Mrs. Garfield.Twins.”
11
For a nanosecond, the doctor’s pronouncement sucked all the air out of our systems. Then Florida screeched, “Twins? Two babies in the cooker? Oh, Jesus. Glory hallelujah! Ain’t God somethin’. Your cup just runnin’ over, Ruth. My, my.”
I found my voice. “Ohmigosh. Ruth! That’s amazing!” —or something like that. All I heard was babble.
Dr. Kloski glared at us. “Ladies, please.” She turned back to Ruth, whose mouth hung open in a state of shock. “Mrs. Garfield, I’d like to say congratulations. But, medically, this actually presents us with a challenging situation, which I’d like to discuss with you privately.”
Little red flags sprouted in my brain. But Ruth fluttered her hand at us. “All right. But don’t go far away,” she croaked. “And don’t call Ben. Yet.”
“Huh,” Flo snorted as the door closed behind us. “What they gonna talk at her about? She needs some armor bearers in there— Jesus! Put a hedge of protection ’round that sister right now. Don’t let her get bowled over by all that doctor-speak. An’ we wanna pray for those two little babies in there. Oh my Lord. Put a hedge of protection ’round them too.”
Florida had her eyes fixed on Ruth’s door, so it took me a second or two to realize she was praying. “Amen to that,” I murmured.
Stu seemed unusually quiet. “Stu? You OK? ”
She shrugged. “Yeah. Just thinking about . . . David.My baby.”
Florida and I exchanged quick glances. Stu rarely mentioned her baby, the baby she’d aborted almost four years ago, not since that weekend last spring when she’d almost taken her own life, crushed by the burden of trying to pretend she had everything under control. She’d never told her family; had just disappeared out of their life. Most of the Yada Yada sisters didn’t know about it, either, but Florida and I had been there last spring, stayed with her night and day to make sure she didn’t do anything drastic. Encouraging her to talk about it. Cry. Grieve.We’d even named the baby together: David. Beloved.
That’s why Stu going to a family reunion had seemed so significant. “Stu? What happened at the reunion? Did you see your parents? Talk to them about . . . you know.”
She shrugged again. “They didn’t come. I was relieved, I guess. I could just relax; enjoy my cousins and their kids. But disappointed too. It took a lot of courage for me to go to a family get-together. Thought it might be easier to relate to my parents in a crowd. Wouldn’t get too personal. Now . . . I’m not sure what—”
The door opened; the two doctors came out. Dr. Kloski swept by without a glance, but Dr. Anand tipped his head pleasantly at us. “Ladies.”
“Later, OK? ” I whispered to Stu as we piled back into Ruth’s room.
“Girl, what them two doctors have to say, anyway? ” Florida scolded.
“Sit me up,” Ruth mumbled. Stu pressed the buttons that raised the bed and found another pillow to stick behind Ruth’s head. Ruth’s frowsy hair clung damply to her pasty forehead. She still seemed in shock.
“Ruth,” Stu urged. “What’d they say? ”
The patient fluttered her hand in the air. “The usual. Pictures they want to take.Test this, test that—”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Stu cut in. “They’ve got great technology now to monitor the babies’ progress. Ultrasound pictures, stuff like that.” She grinned. “Bet they could even tell you the sex of your babies.”
“I said no.” Ruth pressed her lips into a determined line.
“No? ” we chorused.
“No. No pictures.No sonogram.No amnio . . . whatever.” Ruth threw out her hands and leaned forward. “What for do they need pictures? I eat right, I don’t smoke, I don’t drink, I sleep too much, I take my prenatal vitamin with folic acid, I give up salt. I even walk around the block like a dog on a leash. I do everything they say except fetch.” Her voice hiked up a pitch or two. “‘Oh, but Mrs. Garfield, there might be problems. We need to take tests.’ What am I, a dimwit? I know about Down syndrome, birth defects, blah blah blah. So? If I miscarry, God’s will be done. If I don’t miscarry, what does it matter if the babies aren’t perfect? Perfect is overrated. I’ll take my babies however they come—even if they look like Ben.” She smirked. “Big hair, big nose, big mouth . . .”
We couldn’t help snickering. Poor Ben.
Ruth’s eyes suddenly widened, and she pawed the air for Stu’s hand. “Oy vey.Did they really say . . . t
wins? ” She smacked her forehead and fell back against the pillows. “Ay-ay-ay. A heart attack Ben will have.”
STU FUSSED ALL THE WAY TO THE PARKING GARAGE. “I’ve met stubborn fools before, but Ruth Garfield takes the blue ribbon. Why not get a sonogram? It’s just a picture! It doesn’t do anything. It’s just a way to monitor the babies, tell if anything is going wrong.”
“What they gonna do if something’s wrong!” Florida laid it out like a statement, not a question.
Stu opened her mouth, then closed it.We all knew the answer. Continue the pregnancy—or end it.Which Ruth obviously had no intention of doing, no matter what.
“Look,” I said. “Didn’t we just pray with Ruth for protection for her and her babies? So do we believe God can do it or not? ” Ha! I sounded like Avis. Well, Avis wasn’t here. Somebody had to do it.
We parted at the elevator. “You guys going back to the church? I’ve got to pick up Denny and the kids.”
“And Carla and Cedric,” Florida added.
“What?
”
Florida beamed. “Stu gonna run me by a house she saw for rent. Realtor meetin’ us there at one o’clock. Your Amanda said she’d watch the kids for me till we done.”
I didn’t ask the whereabouts of the Hickman daddy and big brother. Back home in bed, probably.
“Hey!” Florida called after me as the down elevator arrived and I stepped in. They were waiting to go up. “Think those twins really might look like Ben? ” Our laughter stretched between us like shared taffy even as the door closed and the car sank down the elevator shaft.
CARLA SEEMED GENUINELY EXCITED to be going home from church with Amanda; Cedric less so. “I wanna play with my friends,” he whined. “Why Mama hafta go look at a stupid ol’ house, anyway? ”
Josh had gone off “somewhere,” but we took Becky Wallace and Little Andy back to the house, too, so she could get there by her check-in time.We all ended up in the backyard grilling hot dogs and bratwurst, which I found miraculously still in the freezer. Amanda got out an old soccer ball from the garage and played keep-away with the three kids, who ranged in age from three (Andy) to twelve (Cedric).Willie Wonka got excited and tried to play, which mostly meant getting in the way and tripping every-body up, easy to do in our shoebox of a backyard. Even Becky joined in. Falling down amid squeals of laughter seemed to be the highlight of the game.
I did a quick inventory of the serving tray.Hot dog buns,mustard, melon slices, potato chips, lemonade—that oughta do it. I put the tray down on the small rickety table on the back porch and sat down on the porch steps. “It’s twins,” I said as Denny nursed the hot dogs and brats on the grill.
“The Reilly twins? ” Uptown’s youth leader and his wife had ten-yearold twins. “What about them? ”
I shook my head. “Ruth’s twins.”
Denny dropped the barbecue tongs he was using to turn the food. He grabbed for them before they hit the ground, but they bounced off his hand and went sailing into the flower garden. Muttering, he fished them out of the bushy marigolds and wiped them off on his shorts. I was enjoying this. Finally, he stood in front of me, pointing the tongs at my face, like a prosecutor cross-examining a witness. “You’re kidding, right? ”
I grinned big. “Nope. Our Ruth.Twins.”
“Twins.” Denny sank down on the steps beside me. “How’s Ben taking it? ”
“Don’t know. She hadn’t called him yet when we left the hospital.”
“Oh, Lord, help us,” he groaned. But the smell of charred meat soon launched him off the steps. “Uh-oh!”
We’d pretty much finished eating the charred hot dogs and brats when Stu and Florida arrived to pick up Carla and Cedric. “Might as well take Andy back home now too,” Stu offered as Florida gathered up her kids.
“That house ain’t his home,” Becky huffed before disappearing up the stairs to get Andy’s things. Stu and I exchanged glances. Andy’s paternal grandmother was likely to give Becky a fight when she tried to get custody back.
We’d agreed not to say anything about “twins” in front of our kids until we got an OK from Ruth, but Florida had plenty to say about the house they’d looked at. “Not only does it got three bedrooms,” she gushed, “but the back of the second floor got a nice little apartment—a studio kind of thang.We could rent it out, help with our own rent. Not that far from here either—half a mile, wouldn’t you say, Stu? Close to Adele’s Hair and Nails. Gotta get Carl up here, see if he like it.”
“Hope he’s handy.” Stu pulled off her red beret and twisted her straight hair into a single braid to get it off her neck. “Needs a lot of repairs and a lot of paint. But the price is right—say, you got any of those burned hot dogs left? I’m starving.” She took a shriveled, blackened hot dog, dipped it into the mustard jar, and munched on it without benefit of a bun. “What happened at church, Denny? ”
“Why should I tell you backsliders? ” he smirked. “Oh, but one thing you need to know. Pastor Clark announced that Uptown and New Morning are going to have another joint worship service next week. He’s suggesting we do it the last Sunday of each month as long as New Morning is using our building.”
“Well, thank ya, Jesus. That’ll get Carl up here on a Sunday morning.” Florida raised her voice. “Carla! Cedric! Leave that dog alone! We gotta go!”
I’D BEEN PATIENT ENOUGH. Denny had been offered the job of athletic director four whole days ago. Didn’t he need to give them an answer?
After running Amanda over to the Reilly home for youth group, I marched into the living room where Denny was cooling off in front of the fan and a Cubs game on TV. “Denny? Can we talk about this job offer? Don’t you need to give the school an answer? ” I knew I was breaking one of the Baxter Ten Commandments: Don’t start deep discussions in the middle of a baseball game. Or any other sport, for that matter.
Denny reluctantly hit the Mute button on the remote. “I’ve got two more weeks of sports camp to finish out. Couldn’t start till the beginning of August anyway. They can wait a few more days.”
I sat down on the ottoman. “But . . . what are you thinking? It seems like a wonderful promotion. You could develop a really fine athletic program at West Rogers. All your good ideas the other AD kept scrubbing. And we could certainly use the money.” I almost added, “After all, Josh will be going to college soon” —except he wasn’t. Not yet, anyway. That was another discussion for another day. Or another year.
Denny sighed. “I know. It’s just . . . I need to find some peace about taking this job, Jodi. Or get a vision for it. Feel like I’m being skipped over two grades instead of one. Not sure I’m ready to be AD. Like I said before, I’d love the job of head coach. Don’t know if I want to end up behind a desk.”
Frustration niggled at my gut. “But you’re not being offered the job of head coach, Denny! If you don’t take the AD job, you’ll still be an assistant coach. Is that what you want? ”
Denny scratched the back of his head. “No. Not really. But if I don’t take it, maybe they’ll offer it to Kramer, then the head coach position would be open . . .” I gave my husband a look, and his voice trailed off. “Yeah, yeah, I know.Wishful thinking.”
“Right. If they wanted Coach Kramer for AD, they would’ve asked him.”
Denny snorted. “He’s not going to like getting passed over either. Could get touchy—oh, hey! Homer! Homer!” Denny hit the sound and the roar of Cubs fans at Wrigley Field filled the living room as Sammy Sosa rounded the bases with clenched fist in the air. “Can we talk later, Jodi? I’d like to, you know . . .” His eyes glued once again to the TV.
“Sure.Later.” But I felt unsettled as I headed toward the kitchen to find something to eat that might qualify as supper.Why didn’t I just tell Denny that I was worried about my job? Well, for one thing, Jodi Baxter, you don’t know anything for sure. I pulled open the refrigerator and stared into it blankly. Still hadn’t asked Avis outright. But I should. I had a right to know, didn’t I, if my
job was going to get cut?
I shut the refrigerator door and picked up the phone.
12
I hung up the phone ten minutes later.Well, that was fruit-less. I came right out and asked Avis if I was going to lose my job. I knew she felt put on the spot. I mean, Avis and I had a rather complicated relationship. She was my boss at school—all business, authoritative but fair. But on weekends she was my Yada Yada sister and fellow church member—my spiritual mentor, if I was honest about it. And here I was calling her on a Sunday night with school business.Which hat was she supposed to wear?
“Jodi,” she’d said, “I simply don’t know how the school board is going to handle the proposed budget cuts. Yes, we might have to reduce staff. But that’s not a foregone conclusion. There’s also talk of closing a couple of schools.”
“No!” Might as well have stuck my finger in an electric socket. “Oh,Avis.They wouldn’t close Bethune Elementary, would they? ! ”
Avis sighed, like air squeezed out by a heavy weight. “I don’t think so, Jodi, but as I said, I don’t know. I think we both need to trust the Lord here. I know it’s hard, but this is the time we need to claim God’s promises.”
“Like what? ” I hated the challenge in my voice, but right then what I wanted was answers, not promises.
“Like Psalm 138, the last verse. ‘The Lord will perfect that which concerns me.’ Also Proverbs 3:5. ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart . . .’ Both of those scriptures have been a resting place for me the past couple of weeks—not just with the budget uncertainties, but the stuff going on with my daughter too. Look them up.”
“OK. Sure.” Jodi, you jerk. You’ve only been thinking about yourself. Avis has her own worries . “How is Rochelle? And little Conrad? They still at your house? ”
There’d been a brief hesitation. “No. No, she went home. Peter had a talk with her and Dexter.Told them to get counseling. They promised they would. So maybe Rochelle leaving him for a few days was the wake-up call Dexter needed to realize they should get help. But please keep them in your prayers.”
