by Gina Holmes
Fatimah scrunched her nose like she smelled something rancid. “Why do you say her name like that?”
I glanced over at her. “That’s how you say it.”
“Her name is like yours. You must say it right.”
“Penny?” I offered.
“Peh-eeny,” Fatimah said slowly, coming closer than I’d ever heard her to pronouncing it correctly.
My stomach began to tighten, and I pushed the baby into Fatimah’s arms just in time. A tidal wave of pain crashed over me and I doubled over.
When it passed, I opened my eyes to see Fatimah looking at me with alarm. “You are in labor, true?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t think—” Another contraction stole my words.
Fatimah set the baby gently on the carpet and led me to the couch. “I think yes you are.”
“The contractions are all over the place,” I said as the pain subsided. “The doctor says the real thing will be regular, and get closer together.”
She didn’t look convinced. “Do you have water?”
“You want me to get you a drink?” I was more than a little irritated that she couldn’t do for herself, with me hurting the way I was.
“No. You have water from this baby?”
When I finally realized she was asking me if my water had broken, I shook my head.
She eyed me suspiciously, then picked up little Penny and sat in Trent’s easy chair with the baby against her chest. “You give birth by tomorrow morning. Place a bet with me and I will be rich.”
I twisted my mouth at her. “I don’t know. I’ve been having these contractions for days, and I’m still early.”
She shrugged. “By tomorrow. You make relations tonight, and Manny will come.”
I smiled, imagining you wrapped in blankets like Fatimah’s baby. “I’m not too keen about the relations part, but I sure would love to meet my son.”
Right on cue, your father’s car roared into the driveway, and my insides tightened. “Trent,” I whispered.
Fatimah gave the door a dirty look.
I stood, intending to meet him outside to warn him she was there and beg him to behave, but before I could take two steps, liquid gushed from me. It was such an odd sensation that I gasped.
I tried to smile. “I think I’ve got water.”
“There is blood,” she said, looking down at the puddle beneath me.
Trent barged through the front door, so drunk he couldn’t walk straight, and sneered at Fatimah. “What’s loudmouth doing here?”
“Your wife is in trouble. I take her to hospital.”
He stumbled backward. “What’s—?” he looked down at the floor and his eyes widened. “What is that?”
Fatimah held her baby tight against her chest as she stood. “Bring your wife to my car, now.”
He stood as still as a wax exhibit.
“Now!” Fatimah yelled.
Snapping out of his trance, he slurred, “I’ll take her.”
Holding her baby with one arm, Fatimah grabbed my elbow with the other. “You will not. You will kill her, the baby, and yourself.” She nudged me toward the door.
His eyes drooped into bloodshot slits. “Don’t you tell me what to do in my own house.”
I felt myself wanting to pass out, but was afraid of what would happen to you and Fatimah if I did. “Back off,” I said to him. A constant stream of warm liquid trickled down my leg, and I was scared.
Not waiting for his reply, I followed Fatimah to the front door. As I stepped onto the porch on Fatimah’s heels, Trent shoved me in the middle of my back. I fell into Fatimah. In horror, I watched her clutch her bundle as she stumbled down the steps. Her right shoulder bore the impact on the sidewalk as she screamed. Safe in her arms, the baby cried.
I looked back at him in disbelief. With a look of utter shock, he stared down at her. “I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t mean—”
He hurried down the steps to help her up, but she ripped her arm from him. Still on the ground, she examined the baby, then allowed me to hold her while she got to her feet. Without looking back, we hurried to the car and Fatimah clumsily strapped the baby into the car seat.
“You will go to jail for that,” she yelled from the window as we peeled out of the driveway.
THIRTY
FATIMAH’S CAR screeched to a stop in front of the emergency room. Red from the neon sign shone through the windshield, making me wonder if the liquid drizzling out of me was as bright-red as it appeared, or if maybe it was just a trick of light. My ears rang so loudly I could barely hear what she was saying as I drifted in and out of consciousness.
I opened my eyes to commotion and determined faces, only to fade out again. When I came to, a female voice was screaming, “Don’t push!”
But I couldn’t help myself. The pressure was unbearable. I vaguely wondered if I was dying when someone swiped something cold across my arm, then shot a needle into it. Warmth rushed through my veins, and I drifted off again.
When I opened my eyes, the room was a blur of color, and the sounds surrounding me were as muffled as if I had wet cotton in my ears. I tried to lift my head, but the room began to sway and shift. Laying my head back down managed to calm the sudden wave of nausea.
It was disorienting to find myself lying in a hospital bed surrounded by pink-papered walls, and it took me a few seconds to remember where I was and why. The scent of flowers hung heavy in the air. When I turned my head, I learned why. A bouquet of roses sat on a square table at my right. I didn’t have to read the card to know they weren’t from Trent.
An IV jutted from my forearm, allowing a bag of liquid attached to a pump to drip into my vein. A brunette in white scrubs pressed buttons on the machine, making it beep with each adjustment.
I could breathe way too easily, which told me that you probably were no longer inside me. The thought both exhilarated and terrified me. I looked down at my hospital gown to verify it. My belly was still round, but only half the size it had been. My gaze ping-ponged around the room, but I saw no bassinet. What felt an awful lot like a contraction made me groan.
“After-pain,” the nurse said sympathetically.
When I tried to sit up, my head throbbed. I laid it back down on the pillow. “Is my baby . . . ? Where is he?”
“He’s in the nursery with the pediatrician,” she said. “We can bring him out to you when the exam is done.”
I realized then that I was shivering. “Is he okay?”
She put two fingers on my wrist, right above my thumb. Her mouth moved as she counted my pulse in her head. After a few seconds, she let my arm go and pulled up a second cover that had been draped over the end of my bed. “He seems to be just fine. Thank God you got here when you did. Most babies end up in the NICU with your condition, if they live at all. You don’t know how lucky you are.”
The words “if they live at all” filled me with dread.
She picked up the plastic water pitcher from the bedside table and held it up. “I’ll go fill this. Are you hungry? If you want, I can get you some Jell-O.”
My teeth chattered as I shook my head, wondering what Jell-O would do for me if I was hungry. Before I could ask her to turn up the heat, she was already on it.
I pulled the covers up around my neck. I was so cold. “What happened to me?” I barely recognized my own voice. It sounded as raspy as a longtime smoker’s.
She looked over as she adjusted the thermostat. The sound and smell of forced heat poured from the vents. “You had a condition called abruption. A little longer, and you and your baby might both have died. You’ve lost a lot of blood. We had to give you three units.”
Might both have died, I repeated in my head, feeling the weight of that horrible possibility.
“You should’ve been sectioned, but your baby came before we could cut you. Feisty little bugger.”
I must have given her a disapproving look, because she quickly added, “But just as cute as he can be.”
&
nbsp; The relief I felt brought tears to my eyes. You were alive and well. “Can I go to the nursery to see him?”
She took off her glasses, rubbed them against the hem of her scrub top, and slid them back on. “No, sweetie. You’ve lost a lot of blood, and your pressure’s still low. You’d probably pass out on us. Besides, they’ll be done soon. Then I’ll bring him out to you, all clean and polished. Promise.” She left with my water pitcher, bringing it back a few minutes later. “Take it slow,” she warned, pouring the first cupful.
As soon as she was out of sight, I refilled that plastic cup and slammed down one after another until the pitcher held only crushed ice. I set the cup on the bedside table and peeked at the card on the bouquet—Congratulations, Mommy. Love, Callie Mae, Fatimah & Edgard.
Of course they weren’t from Trent—I’d known that before even looking—but still, disappointment filled me. After putting the card back in its envelope and setting it beside the flowers, I noticed a phone that resembled an old-school TV remote. I dialed my parents’ number. A recorded message told me long-distance phone calls required a credit card.
Hanging up, I pushed the call bell for the nurse, but it was Callie Mae and Fatimah who walked through the door.
Static sounded from an overhead speaker, followed by, “Can I help you, Mrs. Taylor?”
“Never mind. Thank you,” I said to the voice.
Fatimah and Callie Mae grinned at me. Callie Mae carried a blue gift bag with a giant teddy bear on the side. Fatimah, dressed in a colorful skirt and matching head wrap, held a covered dish.
“How’s our girl?” Callie Mae asked. She wore no makeup for a change, and her hair had been brushed back into a tight ponytail at the nape of her neck. She almost didn’t look like herself. Fatimah could still pass for six months pregnant with her protruding belly and full face. Baby Penny wasn’t with her.
“I’ve felt better,” I said. “They’re going to bring out Manny soon. I haven’t even seen him yet.”
Fatimah set down the casserole dish on my bedside table and lifted off the cover to show me some sort of tomato-based stew. “You eat this. It give you strength.”
I couldn’t make out a single ingredient in the casserole, other than the sauce, and didn’t want to ask. It smelled a lot like stinky feet. The hospital food would have to be pretty bad for me to dig into whatever this was. Still, I appreciated the love behind it. “Thanks.” I took her hand. Her knuckles were ashy from the dryness of winter. “For everything.”
She shrugged. “It was nothing you would not do for me. You look white as a coarse.”
“A corpse,” Callie Mae corrected. “And I’d have to agree, though I would have put it a little more delicately. I guess that’s to be expected when you lose as much blood as Fati said you did.”
“How’s your arm?” I asked Fatimah, feeling the weight of Trent’s guilt.
She clicked her tongue in disgust, then slid off her jacket and pulled down the shoulder of her blouse. I figured she was trying to show me a bruise, but her skin was too dark to really see it.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Alcoholism is a terrible disease.”
She pulled her sleeve back up. “It is your husband that is terrible disease.”
Callie Mae sighed. “Ladies, this is a happy occasion. Let’s enjoy it and put that behind us for the time being, shall we?”
Call bells and phones sounded from the hallway, along with laughter and a parade of what I assumed were family members filing by to visit the newest members of their families.
“Callie, did you bring your phone?” I asked.
“Are you wanting to call Trent?” she asked hesitantly.
Fatimah sneered.
“No, he’ll come when he’s sobered. I want to call my parents.”
Callie Mae dug in her oversize purse, and her hand emerged holding a flip phone. I thanked her and made the call I’d been dying to for months. As soon as I heard my mother’s voice, though, a cart with a middle-aged nurse grinning behind it entered my room. “Oh, Mama, I’m sorry. They just brought in Manny, and I haven’t even seen him yet. Please come when you can.” I heard her squeal in delight as I handed the phone over to Callie Mae to fill Mama in on the details.
My eyes fixated on the blue crib card taped to the top of his clear plastic bassinet.
Baby Boy Taylor.
Five pounds, four ounces.
Nineteen inches long.
I pushed the arrow button on the side of my bed to bend my mattress forward a bit more so I could have a better look at you. They had swaddled you as tight as a burrito in a pink-and-blue-striped blanket. Your hair was hidden underneath a baby-blue cap, and your eyes lay closed. You didn’t look all bruised and misshapen like Fatimah’s baby. You were perfect and pink, with a dimple just like your grandpappy’s in the center of your little chin.
“Look who’s here,” the nurse practically sang, wearing the type of silly grin normally reserved for young children. She parked you close enough that I could see your sweet, sleeping face, but not close enough for me to pick you up. She insisted on rattling off a bunch of instructions I would never remember, first, and showed me a blue gadget in your crib I was supposed to suction out your mouth with if you started choking.
Choking. The word sent panic through me. I hadn’t even considered that possibility. She continued her spiel, droning on about poison-control numbers and car-seat safety facts.
Go away, I thought. Leave us alone so I can hold my baby. But she took her sweet old time. It’s not that I didn’t think the information was important—I just wanted so desperately to hold you.
Even in that dim room, I could see your nose had that same flare to it your father’s did. You were the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid eyes on, Manny. I couldn’t wait to see your eyes and hair.
When the nurse finally left, Fatimah handed you to me. You tried to open your eyes, but then gave up and closed them again before I had a chance to see their color. You weighed practically nothing and felt as fragile as a hollowed egg. When I laid you against me, you bent your knees up against your belly and put your little hands under your head. And I was in love.
As Callie Mae and Fatimah watched, I pulled back your hat, delighted to see you had a tiny tuft of blond in the center of your head. I then checked to make sure all your fingers and toes were there. They were so tiny, but definitely all present. You had one birthmark the shape of a kidney bean on your left heel, but that was the only marking I could find.
I nuzzled against your warm neck, inhaling your baby smell. “I can’t wait for your daddy to meet you.”
Fatimah grunted. “He does not deserve this baby.”
I pleaded with my eyes for her to stop. Now wasn’t the time. I was so emotional already. “He didn’t mean it, Fati. He was just drunk.”
She waved her hand. “He is just drunk every single day of his pitiful life. Drunk is not excuse. He could have hurt my baby, or killed your baby.”
She was right, of course. There was no excuse for what he did, but I knew he really didn’t intend to hurt her. “Forgive him, Fatimah. Please?”
She waved her hand again as if trying to shoo the conversation away. “I cannot stay and listen to this. He hurt me, tried to hurt you, and still you make excuses for him. He deserves to have his hands cut off. He is no man!”
I held you tighter, focusing on your sweet little face instead of her scowl. When she continued her rant, I closed my eyes and nuzzled you. When I opened them again, she had gone.
“You can’t blame her,” Callie Mae said as she sat in the vinyl chair next to my bed.
I kissed your warm cheek. “I don’t.”
She held out her arms for you. It was all I could do in my greediness to give you up. She rocked and kissed on you, but you just kept sleeping away.
After what seemed like no time at all, the nurse returned and asked to take you again, this time for blood work. I didn’t say so, but I wondered why they couldn’t have done everything whil
e they’d had you in there the last time. Taking you away after I’d waited so long to get you seemed unnecessarily cruel. But if you needed it, you needed it.
While she rolled you away in the bassinet, Callie Mae walked over to the dish Fatimah left and lifted up the glass lid. She sniffed it and made a face. “What in the world do you suppose that is?”
I laughed. “No telling.”
“Bless her heart, it smells like gym socks. I’ll bring you some fried chicken tomorrow if you want.”
“You, Callie Mae Johnson, are a real-life angel,” I said. The mention of chicken made my stomach grumble. “I’m starving. The nurse offered me Jell-O, but do you think they might let me have some real food?”
She shook her head. “Already asked. They said liquids tonight, but you can eat tomorrow.”
I sighed. “What sense does that make?”
“Between you and me, I think medical people are secret sadists. You should hear what they did to me during my colonoscopy.”
“No offense,” I said, getting a visual I could have lived without, “but I’ll pass.”
She sat down in the chair beside my bed. “Well, I guess I should tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“Your old man’s in jail for assault.”
I blinked at her a few times trying to process the information.
“Norma?” I asked, unsure.
She gave me a funny look. “No, Fatimah. Who’s Norma?”
I laid my head back on the pillow and stared up at the grates in the drop ceiling. “She pressed charges.”
“Of course she pressed charges. He pushed her down the stairs with a newborn baby in her hands, for crying out loud.”
“He didn’t push her. He pushed me.”
“Oh, well, my mistake. He didn’t assault a woman who just had a baby, he assaulted his wife who was about to have a baby. Much better.”
We sat silent a moment, as I wondered how much his bail would be and how I’d go about getting the money. What he did was wrong—very wrong—but I so wanted him to meet you, Manny.
