A Witch In Time

by Madelyn Alt

  I gaped at him.

  “What?” he asked, all innocence.

  I couldn’t ask him how he did it—not in front of Grandpa G with his big ears all cocked and primed. But let me get Marcus alone for a minute and that would be another story. And I for one couldn’t wait to hear it.

  Down on the main level, we found Grandpa his cookies, then took him for a stroll outside beneath the grand colonnade that had been added to the front of the hospital with the last big-dollar renovation to give it a progressive, trust-Us -with-your-health appeal. The heat of the day was still oppressively present even though the sun had finally sunk to its resting place for the night. If anything, it somehow felt even hotter, as though there were some sort of invisible shield over the town, holding the heat in place beneath the starry evening sky. “Hot,” “damp,” and “cloying” were all words that came to mind. Not to mention the mosquitoes. Grandpa seemed impervious to both the heat and the needle-nosed varmints, but even Marcus seemed to be getting tired of fending off their persistent dive-bombings.

  By then it was nearly midnight, so my dreams of time alone with Marcus this evening had fallen by the wayside. And still no baby from Mel. Girl had better get her baby mama move on.

  We were about to head back in when my cell phone rang in my purse. Mom, the front screen read. I scrambled to flip it open. “Hello?”

  “Maggie, it’s time! They’ve taken her into surgery for a C-section.” She was hyperventilating, her breath puffing excitedly against the mouthpiece.

  I looked at Marcus. “It’s time. Mel’s being taken into surgery.” Grandpa just yawned. “We’ll be right there, Mom.” And no stopping for coffee this time!

  Marcus took over pushing Grandpa’s chair—Grandpa whooped like a boy as we rounded the first speedy corner—and we hightailed it for the elevators for what felt like the umpteenth time of the night. We had just made it back to the waiting room when Greg burst through the door, still covered in the head-to-toe scrubs he’d hurriedly donned before heading into surgery with Mel.

  It was the first I’d seen of him since walking through the hospital doors, hours ago now, and who knows how long he had been there with Mel, but somehow overall he managed to appear the same pristine, well-kempt man he always was. He didn’t even have a five o’clock shadow—how did he do that? The only sign of his lengthy bedside watch was the cobweb of red veins in his eyes and a slight tic at his left temple. He was a handsome guy, though not really to my taste as his style leaned a little too far in the direction of male elegance, which in some men tends to come off as ... effeminate... but Mel didn’t seem to mind, and I supposed it was part and parcel of the controlled, by-the-rules “legal ease” (heh!) necessary in order to command respect and influence in the courtroom.

  Greg’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again, but still mustered no voice. Bewilderment swam in his pale eyes.

  “Well?” Mom demanded, ending on a shrill note in the urgency of her own need to know.

  “T—” Greg choked, then coughed.

  “I’m sorry, dear, what was that?”

  “T—” Greg tried again.

  Mom’s patience left her. “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Greg, get it together!”

  “Twins!” he exploded at last.

  Chapter 7

  With the expulsion of the word, his strength seemed to leave him, along with his equilibrium. He staggered slightly on his feet, then dropped heavily into the nearest seat, looking stunned.

  “What?!” Mom cried. “What do you mean, twins?” My mouth had fallen open. “Oh my gosh.”

  “Hot damn, son!” Grandpa said, shaking his head in admiration. He reached over and poked Greg in the shoulder with a gnarled finger. “How on earth didja do that? Didn’t think you had it in you. I mean, look at you. Did any of you think he had it in him?”

  Leave it to Grandpa G.

  Dad looked at least as stunned as Greg, but his surprise dissipated faster. “Well, that’s just wonderful news,” he said. Mom burst into tears, and he put his arm around her, rubbing her shoulder. “Isn’t it wonderful, dear?”

  Mom nodded. “Wonderful.”

  “Well, don’t just sit there!” I told him. “We need details.

  How is Mel doing? The babies? Are they girls? Boys? One of each? And most importantly, how did this happen?” Marcus arched a dark eyebrow at me, his blue eyes sparkling with humor. “Well, I know how it happened,” I amended quickly, blushing, “but how on earth did she not know about it?”

  Greg just shrugged, at a loss. “I can’t explain it. A miracle of modern medicine, I guess.”

  Some kind of miracle, that was for sure. Mel had received the works as far as medical care went—the best OB/GYN, ultrasounds, vitamins, the best home care when she had experienced problems with her pregnancy...

  Hey, wait a minute.

  I was no expert—obviously, since I’d never actually gone the pregnancy route myself—but weren’t ultrasounds fairly foolproof these days? I’d heard they actually have imagery so high res that you could see actual faces and details in 3-D.

  “Anyway, Mel is fine. She was awake through the whole thing. Doc is stitching her up, and the babies—both girls, by the way, Mel has already named them Sophie June and Isabella Rose—are being run through the battery of tests, but I wanted to make sure you all knew. They’re fine, too. Now I’m going to go call my parents in Arizona, and then I have to get back in there or Mel will have my hide.”

  My mom was beaming, her earlier anxiety for her youngest and most favorite daughter forgotten in light of the relief of Greg’s news. In a moment of sheer grandmotherly pride, she threw herself into my dad’s arms and bounced—bounced!—up and down on her tiptoes. I couldn’t remember the last time she had done anything so uninhibited. “Did you hear that?” she asked, leaning back in his arms and touching his face in a way so intimate that it almost made me feel guilty for watching. “Did you hear? Twin girls!”

  Dad grinned right back at her, years stripped away from his face in the process. In that moment, I could see the young married couple in the two of them. “Two at once. Who would have thunk it?”

  He kissed her several times on her cheek, over and over again until she chuckled.

  “Now, stop that, Glenn, before you embarrass Mr. Quinn.”

  “Mr. Quinn?” Grandpa G squawked in protest. “What do I look like, chopped liver?”

  Even Marcus was swept up in the glow of the enthusiasm and excitement surrounding us. “I would never have thought your sister was expecting twins. She looked so petite when you introduced us last month. You know, you two don’t look like each other much at all.”

  Now, I know he didn’t mean for that to sound the way that it came off, but it still stung. Yes, Mel was my tiny and perfect sister. Yes, she was built like a fashion model, even while pregnant, whereas I resembled a more sturdily built model . . . like a boxy Model T Ford. But every once in a while, it might be nice not to be constantly reminded of that fact.

  He saw my face fall, and backtracked immediately. “I mean, your hair is darker, like the color of honey, or whiskey”—he leaned closer to whisper in my ear—“and you are definitely curvier.” His voice made a purr of the first part of the word; it sent a shiver zipping along my spine. “Which, in case I never mentioned it, I happen to really enjoy about you.”

  I blushed again as I saw my mother’s eyes alight on the two of us, but this time I didn’t let it affect me quite as much. After all, she knew about Marcus now. Later there would be time for questions about what happened to Tom and why we were no longer seeing each other, but for now she knew as much as she needed to know, and she was just preoccupied enough to let me be. For a time.

  And I, for one, was determined to enjoy my momentary peace.

  Mom was itching to go way before the nurse came in to say that Mel was resting peacefully, but that we could all go and look in on her if we wished.

  “Patient registration is fairly light here today,” the red-h
eaded nurse told Mom, “so we’ve put her in a room without a roomie. With her having had twins, I, uh, really didn’t think she’d complain about that.

  “Of course,” the nurse continued, “she’ll be staying with us for at least four days. As long as her recovery goes as planned, she should be released then.”

  “That long?” my mom asked, the frown between her brows returning. “Is anything wrong? She was never held that long before.”

  The nurse explained, “It’s the C-section. Her previous pregnancies were via natural childbirth, if I’m not mistaken. You see, there are more chances for complications following a Cesarean. The lengthier stay helps us to ward off the risks involved with a Cesarean birth. All of this would have been explained to Mrs. Craven by her doctor during her primary care visits. And of course, seeing as how the babies were multiples and they were a little bit underweight—that daughter of yours has a teeny-tiny uterus, I would never have pegged her for a twins mom—well, we’re going to want to make absolutely certain they are starting to gain before we let them go.”

  I could have gone without hearing about my sister’s delicate inner beauty, but that was just me.

  My mother’s concern had only increased with the nurse’s explanation. “Is anything . . . wrong with them? Something you haven’t told us?”

  “No, no. Certainly there is always room for concern with a lower-birth-weight infant. But your grandchildren are only marginally under that, and both scored high enough on their Apgars. Lucky for your daughter, she went nearly full term, almost all the way to her scheduled C-section. The longer in utero, the stronger the babies’ lungs. Now, I’m not allowed to give you any guarantees, but I’d say the odds are pretty good they’ll be going home with their mama. But mind you, you didn’t hear that from me,” she said with a wink.

  “Which room is hers?” I asked.

  “Twelve twenty-three. Down the hall to the T, then turn left. It’s going to be a pretty quiet stay for her; there are only two other new mommies on the whole floor tonight.” She wandered down the hall on silent rubber soles, gazing at the chart she held on one arm as she scribbled away.

  We all filed down the corridor, with a sleepy Grandpa G taking up the middle position. Marcus took my hand and squeezed it. “How are you holding up?” he murmured.

  I squeezed back and smiled at him. “Good. Better than Mel, I’ll bet, despite her teeny-tiny uterus.”

  He laughed. “Are you sure you don’t mean ‘Thanks to her teeny-tiny uterus’? Because I’ll bet right now she’s going to be admiring your figure and wishing she had it.”

  “You don’t know Mel. Give her a couple of weeks and she’ll be strutting her stuff, back into her pre-preggo jeans, complete with prominent hip bones.”

  Sigh.

  “Hm. Just the way she’s put together, I guess. By the way, I hope this doesn’t offend you, but ...” He leaned in and

  whispered, “I’m not certain I’m comfortable discussing your sister’s parts with you. Or with anyone else, for that matter. ”

  I hugged into his arm. “Oh good. I was a little worried for a minute there. I mean, what does that say when your guy is comfortable discussing things like that?”

  He just grinned.

  The door to room 1223 was standing ajar, so we tiptoed inside, peering around the edge of the door as we did. The dim fluorescent over the bed was switched on, casting the room in an eerie half light. Mel was in the bed, tucked in tightly up to her armpits, face wan and pale, blond hair tousled, if not outright mussed, and IV tubes taped along her arm to their connection points in her hand and wrist. I glanced discreetly down at her belly. Just as I suspected. It was rounded, yes, and big by Mel’s standards, but most women would sell their husbands to look even that slim.

  Sigh. Again.

  Greg waved at us from a lounging recliner in the corner. The poor guy. I could almost feel sorry for him. He looked nearly as wiped out as Mel did.

  And there, to the right of Mel’s bed, were two glass bassinets.

  “Oooooh, let me see them!” my mother whisper-squealed. How she managed the two effects together, I cannot understand. And then she half tiptoed, half pranced across the floor, looking like some manic ballerina elf and not the middle-aged grandmother that she was. “Oh, look at the little darlings. They’re so tiny!”

  The four of us, minus Grandpa, crowded around the bassinets. “Tiny” was just not strong enough a word. “Diminutive,” certainly. “Lilliputian” might have worked, if only to drive the point home. They were the smallest human beings I had ever laid eyes on. With their legs and arms swaddled up toward their chests, they couldn’t have stretched more than a foot from stem to stern. Their tiny heads were roughly the size of large oranges. They almost didn’t look real, except they were too exquisite not to be.

  I looked over at Greg. “Are they sure it’s safe for them to be in here, away from the nurses, if they’re under observation?”

  He used his head to silently indicate the monitors that were tracking their every breath and heartbeat.

  Her expression rapt, Mom was obviously itching to get her hands on one, but somehow she resisted picking them up, instead satisfying herself with stroking along a cheek with the back of her index finger. I felt a tug, unexpected and incredibly strong, somewhere around the general vicinity of my heart as even in the midst of a dream the baby turned its face toward the touch and a small, delicate mouth opened.

  “Have you ever seen anything quite so perfect?” she cooed, as close to melting as I had ever seen her.

  “Well . . . Jenna and Courtie were both very adorable babies,” I hedged magnanimously.

  “Well, of course they were adorable. All babies are adorable. But . . . two at the same time . . . and so small . . . !”

  She really was melting. Not Wicked-Witch-of-the-West, bucket-of-water, flowing-back-into-the-ground-from-whence-she-came melting, but still completely all consuming. It made me wonder if that’s how she had been when she had given birth to each of the three of us older O’Neills. Or was becoming a grandmother remodeling her emotional sensibilities?

  “I just want to get my hands on them . . .” Mom sighed. But she wouldn’t, not yet. They were sleeping off the trauma of their arrival to this strange new place, and Mel needed her rest, too. It would be almost criminal to wake them up now. Besides, Greg was shooting daggers at her for even mentioning the possibility of picking them up. Something told me the new papa was stressing, big time.

  “What’s the matter, Greg?” I asked him, quirking a smile.

  He just shook his head, then stood up. “I gotta go. I’m beat. Someone tell Mel for me, would you? I have court in the morning.”

  I froze, not knowing what to say. He couldn’t be bailing on Mel so soon after delivering, could he? Husbands just didn’t do that these days. We weren’t exactly living in the old-school, Donna Reed version of reality, where the man was encouraged to do his thing while the woman just sucked it up with a smile. Not only that, but Greg actually sounded . . . pissy. And I couldn’t see why. Was it postpartum letdown, man style? Surely there hadn’t even been time for that. The babies were just now here, for heaven’s sake. Time for him to take a quick step back, take a few deep breaths, and get himself in the right headspace for new-and-improved daddyhood. In my not so humble opinion, that is.

  Mom scarcely noticed him leaving, but I saw the scowl settle into the furrows on my usually mild-mannered dad’s forehead. Greg saw them, too. He made some bland excuse of a mumbled apology, but that didn’t stop him from leaving, pronto.

  And why was it that Mel chose that very moment to wake up from her sedative-induced slumber?

  “Hm . . . mm . . . wh ... rz ... grg?” she muttered.

  Mom leaned down over her and kissed her on the forehead, then smoothed her hair away from her face. “What was that, Melanie dear?”

  “Grg. Whrz. Grg?”

  Mom still looked confused, but I had been there many a time when Mel had come home from high
school parties three sheets to the wind and unable to get her tongue to function like a normal human being’s, so I had a better grasp of her tendency toward twisted linguistics. “I think she’s asking where Greg is,” I told Mom.

  “Oh. Well, Melanie, darling, he had to go home. He has to work in the morning. He wanted us to tell you.”

  “Greg?”

  “Yes, dear. Hooooooome.” She stretched out the word as if doing so would somehow make it easier for Mel to grasp the concept. It was the same method used the world over when dealing with a person who was exceptionally slowwitted. Which by definition, at least at present, Mel was.

  “Dideeseethuhbabeeeeez?”

  Slightly clearer. No translation required this time. “Yes, dear. He saw them.”

  Mel sighed, happy. “Pretteeebabeeegrlz.”

  At least she remembered that much. Greg had mentioned she’d been awake for the delivery. She’d even been coherent enough to name the babies. No one would ever guess that at this particular moment in time. The meds they had her on must be crazy strong.

  “That’s right. Pretty girls. Just like their mama.” Mom stroked her hair back from her forehead again, the light in her eyes so soft and tender that I felt a pang, sharp as an arrow in my heart. Was it wrong of me to hope that at some point in my life she had looked at me that way? She must have, mustn’t she? I just wished I could remember it.

  “Why don’t you rest now, Melanie. Just close your eyes and rest.”

  Mel didn’t need to be told twice. Not being all the way there to begin with made it easy. Her eyelids dropped like a shot. “‘Kay. Bye.”

  And over and out.

  “Are you going to stay?” I asked Mom. She had moved back to the bassinets and was hovering there. “Someone should stay.”