If the Moon Had Willow Trees (Detroit Eight Series Book 1)

by Kathleen Hall

  By the time Sam reached the maternity section on the third floor, Maggie was already set up in the delivery room. No husbands allowed. Sam asked a nurse if he could kiss Maggie before they began delivery. She curled her index finger and he followed her to the delivery room. It was packed. Three nurses and two doctors were standing in front of a nineteen-inch black and white television set watching Cronkite. Maggie was tipped up on the delivery table so she could see.

  “Hey, Mag, what’s up?”

  “My cervix is only four centimeters and it needs to be ten before they deliver. So, I was given a choice to watch Cronkite or go home and come back.”

  “Why’s the TV in the delivery room?”

  “Sam, we’re heading to the moon. This is a once in a lifetime chance to see the Swiss-cheese moon. We can’t miss it. The moon I mean. Where was I?”

  One of the nurses turned around and nodded to Sam, then turned back to the TV.

  “Mag, you sound a little dreamy and you’re slurring your words. Did they give you something for pain? You okay?”

  “Fine, Papa Tervo. They gave me a little Twilight Sleep. Like moonlight, moonwalking, flying through space. You okay?”

  “I’m fine, Maggie. As long as you’re fine, I’m fine. Baby sleeping?”

  Maggie touched her rotunda, smiled, closed her eyes and was off in dreamland.

  Before Sam turned to watch Cronkite, he noticed the lambskin-lined leather wrist and ankle restraints on the delivery table and the chill air in the room. There was so much he didn’t know about childbirth. Would Maggie be conscious, restrained, exposed to non-medical TV watchers? Sam hoped the moon landing offered enough cover to let him watch the delivery. Scary as it was to be in the delivery room, Sam knew it would be scarier on the other side of the door. According to a black-handed white clock on a mint-green wall, it was 9:14 p.m., one hour and forty-two minutes before landing on the moon, NASA’s Sea of Tranquility. The Apollo 11 crew and NASA had taken over the airwaves and it was hard to hear. Words crackled 240,000 miles from Earth, but the tension and excitement thrilled the listeners. The fuzzy photos being sent from the spacecraft to NASA told a story and transported TV goers to another world, another way of seeing this brilliant universe.

  Walter Cronkite broke in; Sam heard him say something like ‘a no-go means abort the landing,’ as Maggie cried, “Oh god, help me. I can’t do this! No!” The nurse checked Maggie’s pulse and the baby’s heartbeat while keeping an eye on the TV. Dr. Stanley, Maggie’s doctor, was away on vacation. Another doctor would cover his patients—a short, bushy-browed doctor. Sam didn’t catch his name. The doc was a Southern European, maybe Italian, who placed a shoehorn shaped instrument in Maggie’s vagina. The cold, hard steel of the instrument cut through Sam’s solar plexus, but he was afraid to speak, afraid they’d ask him to leave. The doc said, “nine” and pointed to the restraints.

  The nurse checked the slant of the bed and lowered it some, “Maggie, I want you to take deep breaths. Breathe in, breathe out. That’s it. You’re fine. Keep it up. Good girl. Another deep breath.” The nurse repeated these demands and assurances as she slipped the leather shackles on Maggie’s wrists and ankles and said, “The lambskin will keep you warm.” Sam bit his bottom lip, pretended to watch TV and tried not to faint.

  Maggie began kicking her legs against the restraints so hard the delivery table started to walk toward the TV. The doctor ordered the nurse to “up the dose a little and slow things down,” then winked at Sam. What the hell, Sam thought, does this space cadet think I’m on his team? That I’m fucking more interested in watching the moon landing than seeing my baby born?

  “Get me out of this fucking bed. NOW!” Maggie yelled, “the baby’s coming!”

  Dr. Space Cadet walked backward to Maggie, put his hand on her thigh while keeping an eye on the TV, and said, “Mrs. Tervo, you have another centimeter to go. The baby is not coming. It’s too soon. Do not push. Nurse is going to hold your hand and help you through the next contraction. You are not going to push until I tell you. Do you understand?”

  The contraction must have passed because Maggie closed her eyes and fell asleep. The doc winked at him again and Sam thought if he winks one more time I’m going to strangle him.

  Sam heard Cronkite saying, “About six minutes to go. Alarms are going off. At 27,000 feet now and more alarms. Eagle’s computer is still sounding alarms.” Sam looked up as the TV camera began to focus on the engineers at NASA.

  — Eagle we’ve got you now, it’s looking good. Over

  — Rog GTC go

  — Roger copy

  — Eagle Houston—everything looking good here. Over

  — Rog

  Maggie tried to lift her head and said, “Who’s Rog? Where is Rog?”

  — Okay Control, let me know when he starts his yaw here

  “Fuck this. The yaw has fucking started. The baby’s coming.”

  Maggie’s nurse walked backward to the bed and took Maggie’s hand. “Listen to me, Mrs. Tervo, the pain might get a little stronger. I’m going to hold your hand. You aren’t ready to deliver the baby, and I want you to breathe with me through this pain. Do not push. Do you hear me? Do not push.”

  — Stand by. Looking good to us. You’re still looking good at 3—coming up to 3 minutes

  — We’re going flight

  — Okay. RETRO

  — Go

  “I can push?”

  “No, Mrs. Tervo, don’t push. Not now. I’ll tell you when.”

  — It’s going to stop and Eagle Houston we’ve got data dropout. You’re still looking good

  — Rog

  — Standby

  — That’s affirmative

  — Looks like it’s converging

  “The baby is converging? Is it time. Oh god, I can’t take this pain. It’s too much!”

  — Throttle down

  “Now, I can push down now?”

  “NO. DON’T PUSH NOW. Not until I tell you. Breathe. Come’on. Let’s breathe.”

  — Looks good now

  — Ah, throttle down

  — Throttle down on time

  “Now? Push down now? PLEASE, I have to push.”

  “NO. DON’T PUSH NOW. Not until I tell you. Breathe. Come’on. Let’s breathe.”

  “Fuck you. You breathe. I’m having this baby!”

  — Roger

  — Okay, looks like it’s holding

  — Yes, it looks beautiful

  “Now? Push down now? PLEASE I have to push.”

  — Hang tight six and one-half minutes

  — Going to go for the landing

  — Go, go, go

  — You’re go

  “I can push now?”

  “NO, Mrs. Tervo. DO NOT PUSH.”

  — Altitude up AGS, looks good

  — I think we better be quiet

  “Oh god, the pain is gone. I’m going to sleep for a minute.”

  — Rog

  — Rog

  — Stay

  — Thirty seconds

  — Engine stopped, command override off Houston Tranquility

  “The baby’s coming! Oh god. I’m breaking in two. I have to push NOW!”

  The nurse started to check Maggie’s cervix to see if it had hit ten centimeters. “The baby’s crowning. Doctor, the baby’s crowning. We have to move, move, move!”

  “Ready, set. Let’s get this baby out,” said the doc.

  — Roger Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You’ve got a group of guys about to turn blue! We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot

  Sam thought he never loved anyone as much as he loved this bushy-browed doctor. He reminded himself not to faint and grabbed Maggie’s restrained hand and held tight.

  — Very smooth touch down (Alarms still ringing!)

  — Eagle is at Tranquility. Over

  — Yes I heard the whole thing

  — Good show

  — Fantastic

  The doctor caught and then hung th
e baby upside down and spanked it to draw his or her first breath. Sam couldn’t tell yet. The cry was strong and belligerent. Sam thought he might faint until he looked at Maggie and saw the peacefulness and pride of a lioness. They squeezed each other’s hands and communicated without words while the nurse cleaned the baby and wrapped her in a pink blanket.

  “Mr. Tervo, congratulations, you have a beautiful baby girl. The doctor said it’s okay for you to hold her and stay until the astronauts walk on the moon. Then, your wife and baby will need to rest.”

  Tekla’s eyes were open and Sam got the sense she knew who he was. He kissed her cheek and felt love enter every cell of his body. The nurse removed Maggie’s wrist restraints and she opened her arms to hold the baby.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Tervo, but not now. You’re under an anesthetic and it wouldn’t be safe for you to hold her,” said the nurse.

  Sam held Tekla in his arms and rested her on the top of Maggie’s chest so she could nuzzle Tekla’s tiny, red, wrinkled neck, and touch and reassure her while everyone else’s attention was fixed on the TV.

  — See you coming down the ladder now

  — Armstrong at the foot of the ladder. “. . . surface very fine grain, like a powder”

  Cronkite held excitement in his voice, “There’s a foot coming down on the moon—Armstrong is on the moon—Neil Armstrong a thirty-eight-year-old American standing on the surface of the moon.”

  — Armstrong stepping off the ladder. “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”

  Cronkite repeated Armstrong’s statement and Maggie heard someone say, “Ain’t that something?”

  Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, dressed in Jacques Cousteau adventure suits, placed a plaque on the moon. Cronkite read:

  HERE MEN FROM THE PLANET EARTH FIRST SET FOOT UPON THE MOON

  JULY 1969, A.D. WE CAME IN PEACE FOR ALL MANKIND.

  NEIL ARMSTRONG

  MICHAEL COLLINS

  BUZZ ALDRIN

  Maggie smiled at the thought of men from outer space finding the plaque. Would they speak English? Would July or A.D. mean anything to them? What about the names—is that an Earth thing, unknown on other planets?

  After two astronauts attempted to secure a framed U.S. Flag on the dusty surface of the windless moon, the camera shifted to the White House where President Nixon was ready with a prepared statement. Nixon spoke as if the entire world was listening—like some twentieth-century Sermon on the Mount, he said, “The heavens have become a part of man’s world.”

  Maggie looked up and said, “Screw you, Nixon, you sorry son-of-a-bitch. This is not a man’s world!”

  Dr. Space Cadet smiled at Sam and said, “Don’t worry, it’s the medication talking. It removes all inhibitions. She’ll be back to normal in no time.”

  Sam thought if he hadn’t been holding the baby, and if he weren’t concerned about Maggie’s care for the next three days, he’d tell this dickhead Maggie was just getting started. Sam took it all in—he and Maggie holding Tekla while the nurse removed the ankle restraints, the porter lining up a gurney next to the delivery table to transfer Maggie to her room. In the corner, a small plastic bassinet was fitted with a pink card reading Tervo. Tekla would sleep in a strange bed, under bright lights, in an air-conditioned room. There was something so god-awful wrong with this plan that Sam considered putting Tekla in Maggie’s arms on the gurney, then making their escape. But Maggie, under the influence of narcotics, and the imagined headlines in the paper, weakened his resolve.

  Cronkite said, “Seems like a dream and it is a dream come true,” before his usual closing, “and that’s the way it is.”

  When Sam walked out of the hospital, he looked up at the moon and felt the beam like some kind of baptismal glow. After seeing the surface of the moon in communion with human beings, the godliness of the cosmos seemed more real. Sam resisted an impulse to drop to his knees, or lie on his back and bathe in moonshine, because he didn’t want someone rushing out with a gurney thinking he was having a heart attack, or god forbid, fainting.

  A slip of paper under the driver’s side windshield wiper caught his eye. He pulled it off, started his car and turned on the interior lights. The paper was from a steno tablet. The note written in pencil:

  I’m the last person you want to hear from. I get it. You must think I’m a total slut and crazy as a loon. You can’t trust me. I get it. How do I know your car was here? Easy. Your side porch light was on and it’s always off at 10. You are a good man. I will help when I can. You are being watched. Bore them to death but stop being so predictable. C.

  Sam tipped his head against the top of his steering wheel, amazed at how quickly his perspective moved from heaven to hell. Aunt Jo’s plea for him to keep his core would become his battle cry. Whatever the threat, he gets to choose his thoughts, ideas and attitudes. Thanks to Carla, he’d become less predictable and more aware.

  Before he turned off the overhead light, Sam noticed a small pink envelope on the passenger seat. He lifted it and recognized Maggie’s handwriting in ink on the front. For Papa Sam. Inside, Maggie wrote:

  An Ode to Baby Tervo

  No quantum ripple signals a minute shift in awareness, not this time. This time the cosmos collided and expanded in shouts and waves. You showed up with new words to be written, poems to be read, adventures to be salvaged from memories so ancient we can only trace the outlines left inside pyramid walls before they turn to sand. And, once again, ‘know this place for the first time.’

  —Maggie Soulier Tervo, with thanks to T.S. Eliot

  On his drive home, Sam took Six Mile Road and stopped at the house, or lair, Ben wanted to sell them. Three willow trees were cast in moonlight.

  end

  Acknowledgments

  Heartfelt thanks to my Unpaid but Illustrious Editorial Staff, Sandra Whitener, Kirsten McLean, and Frank Cooley, who hung in there through multiple drafts for the past two and one-half years. Grateful appreciation to friends, colleagues and muses, including beta readers from the Vino Libra Book Club, who provided invaluable feedback. Many thanks to my ex-Detroiter peeps who generously shared their stories. Among them, Shirley Hosmer who inspired Maggie’s adventure in Chapter One. Like Maggie, Shirley worked at a Detroit pizzeria and studied at Wayne State. A natural storyteller, Shirley’s uncommon experiences brought life to the pulse of a city under siege.

  A special shout-out to Judith Helburn and Dianne Wesselhoft who held my hand, read, edited and gently prodded me to see my work in new ways. Cheers to Don Knight for his historical memory/knowledge of Detroit sports and the Hail Mary editorial catches at the end zone. A rousing hallelujah to Randy Smith, Mississippi, who shared his genius of dialogue and cadence. And, merci beaucoup, dear poète Marcelle Kasprowicz, for editing my awkward French.

  Once again, I had the remarkable good fortune to work with Danielle Hartman Acee, copy/content editing, social media consulting and publicity; and with Kenneth Benson for interior and cover design and printing/technology support. Wicked in their expertise, both are strong enough to stand up to me when I’m wrong-headed.

  Like all stories, this one could not have been written without the love and coaching of friends and mentors who taught me about grace, acceptance, equality, oneness and otherness. Black, white, multi-racial friends and relatives, who had the audacity to speak their truth. Without doubt, each of them breathed life into my characters and helped me find my voice.

  Then there’s this man behind the scenes. The guy I live with. Loren. On-call editor, hugger, dog walker, cat groomer, hunter-gatherer, poet, psychotherapist, humorist, looks past the third-day-pajamas-and-crumbs-to-tell-me-I’m-beautiful kind of guy. Can’t imagine life without him. My husband. Love of my life.

  The Author

  A native Michigander, Kathleen Hall co-authored the award-winning non-fiction The Otherness Factor. A writer, poet, lawyer, mediator and workplace investigator, Kathleen’s lifelong activism has been devoted to championing equal rights and pr
omoting the power of diversity. She lives in Austin, Texas with her husband Loren, Emma Dog, Ms. Ming Cat and Sasha Cat. If the Moon Had Willow Trees is Kathleen’s first novel.

  The Preview

  Turn the page for a preview of Book Two of this exciting new series by

  KATHLEEN HALL

  featuring Maggie, Sam, Loretta, Stella

  “What the hell Maggie? Really? You’ve got the chance to move to the burbs and see what the other side is all about. It’s not like you have to hang there forever. Sam said you guys could afford a second set of wheels. I don’t get it,” said Stella.

  “I’ll move, just not now.”

  “Why not now? What’s the hold-up?” asked Loretta.

  “Sanity, well-being, happiness.”

  Loretta threw her arms out and looked around before she said, “Girl, have you lost your mind? This train-wreck of a house is ready to collapse when the next eighteen-wheeler trundles down Grand River. I don’t get the sanity, well-being or happiness angle.”

  “SistaHood, this is home. We rent it, but it’s our home. All my friends are here. I know my neighbors; Buddy at the lunch counter at Cunningham’s is like family.” Maggie looked at Loretta then Stella. They weren’t buying it. Maggie shook her hands like silent castanets to break the spell. With a raised and deliberate stage voice she said, “Okay, I get it. The house is decaying and the hood’s about to explode in gang warfare, but this is where I feel safe. The burbs are like the other side of the friggin’ moon. Another planet. They might as well speak a foreign language. I don’t understand people who want to live in a place where everyone looks alike, talks alike, dresses alike, acts alike. It’s death-by-sameness. Did I miss anything? What’s so funny?”

  Both Stella and Loretta were slapping their knees and cracking up. Loretta said, “Oh my god, Maggie. You’re one crazy, mixed-up white chick. Every black sister I know is looking through that invisible barb-wired fence at the city limits and thinking they want to be Donna Reed. But you, you’ve got your nose turned up like this sorry ass little house is in high cotton. You are out of your mind!”