by Lou Cadle
“If he doesn’t make it,” she began, and then she gasped and rode her way through another contraction.
Bash moved to her side, ready to help her sit or do whatever she needed. He realized while he’d napped, she’d been dealing with this herself.
She was left panting. “I’m so alone.”
“I’m right here.”
“I mean in my life,” she said. “We moved less than two years ago. I lost my close girlfriends. Email just isn’t the same.”
Bash understood that all too well. “Do you have family?”
She got a stubborn look on her face.
Bash knew there was something there. Should he pry at it?
From behind him, Mr. W’s voice came. “She has a father.”
“I had a father.”
“You still have one, honey. And I think — “
She said, “I know what you think.”
“It’s time to forget and forgive.”
“I can’t forget.”
Bash had backed off a couple steps to watch both of them. It was like a tennis match but much more interesting.
She jerked her head. “I need to go to the toilet again.”
“I’ll help you,” said Bash.
“No, I’m fine, if I hurry over there before another contraction comes.” She walked away.
Mr. W. yawned and stretched.
“I brought you a soda,” said Bash, pointing under the chair.
“Thanks.” Mr. W said. “She hasn’t spoken to her father for nine years.”
Bash was curious and nodded encouragement.
“She was married before.” Mr. W leaned down and picked up the soda, cracked it open and took a long pull. “Good. Thanks.” He shook his head. “He was an asshole.”
“Her father?”
“No. The first husband. And everyone could see it but Melba. Or maybe she could — she’s smart. But she was being stubborn.”
Not terribly difficult to imagine.
“And her father paid the guy twenty-five thousand dollars to leave her. With the promise of another twenty-five five years later if he stayed away.”
“Wow. And did he? Leave, I mean?”
“In a New York second,” said Mr. W. “I’m sure it cost Melba’s father most of his retirement savings, but it worked.”
“Would you do that for your daughter?” asked Bash.
“Only if I could keep myself from killing the guy first.”
“It was that bad?”
He nodded and said softly, “She’s on her way back. But I want her to call her father. He should see his grandbaby. And if I pass, she needs someone.”
Bash agreed. He wondered if he could say anything about it. Probably not. It really wasn’t his business. But he’d think on it, come up with something subtle, plant another seed in her mind. If only his mind were working better, this is the sort of thing he usually could do quite well. “A master manipulator,” Gale called him, not meanly, and when Bash pointed out that he only used his powers for good, Gale didn’t contradict him.
Ms. W. was back. “I think it’s getting closer,” she said. I’m starting to feel different. There’s a heaviness, or something. It’s hard to explain.”
Bash said, “I’ll go get someone.” He hoped the new administrators had remembered that a real delivery nurse or midwife was needed. They might have forgotten, as busy as the place was.
He hunted down Sonja and told her he wanted someone to check Ms. W. “And where are we going to do this? Is there a stretcher or a table or something free?”
“That’s our worst shortage. We have volunteers out looking for cots and blankets and so on.” She patted his arm. “But we’ll get your lady something. I’ll send over an internist in a minute.”
“We have an internist now?”
“Yes, a volunteer that flew in on the first helicopter run.”
“Bless his heart. Or hers.”
“Hers. A Doctor Duell.”
“You’re doing great,” he said. “Thanks for taking over.”
“Thanks for starting everything,” she said, touching his arm. She turned to go.
The Witherspoons were sitting together, holding hands. He stopped several yards from them, not wanting to interrupt what looked like a tender moment. He glanced over his shoulder and saw a big panel van pulling up at reception. The driver and passenger went to the back doors and opened them up, pulling out a big bundle. Bash realized it was a tent of some sort. About time. They could get all the patients and supplies under cover. If rain came — though it didn’t look like it would today — they could still treat people. He thought, if it rained, they also needed something to keep all those cardboard boxes of supplies off the ground, pallets or bricks or something. Should be plenty of spare bricks lying around town, that was certain. He’d remember to mention it to Sonja. Or he’d go down to the hospital and gather some bricks himself. No, they needed him to treat patients. He could send McKenna and Haruka, maybe, if McKenna’s mom didn’t show up.
Two hours later, Bash was gloved and gowned and assisting the birth of baby Diana. Or Anja, whoever won the naming battle. The way Ms. W was cursing at her husband, he’d not bet against her getting her way. She was tough, though, and a good thing, because she was doing this 100% natural. She had insisted Bash be her nurse, and neither he nor anyone else could talk her out of it, so here he was, getting his hand crushed.
Sonja walked by, detoured towards him, and said, “you have a message up front, from a Gale?”
“Thanks,” he said, and went back to encouraging Ms. W. She grunted as she pushed, and he thought she might break his metacarpals. Strong woman.
“You want to see this, Dad?” said Dr. Duell “She’s crowning.”
Mr. W went down to the end of the table and said, “Oh gee. Honey, there’s our baby.”
“I know that, you fool. I can feel her trying to tear my twat in half.”
Bash gave her hand one last squeeze and said, “I’ll be right back.”
“Fine, y’all just leave me now. Everybody get down there and watch the show.”
“I’m here, honey,” said Mr. W, moving up and reaching up for her other hand.
Bash went down to help the doc. A dark head of hair was pressing its way out. So cool. “You need anything?” he said quietly to the doctor.
“I want to avoid an episiotomy if I can. We’ll wait a few seconds for some stretching. Get ready with the syringe and the towels.”
“Opening those now.” He had left it until the end, trying to keep the sterile towels perfectly free of contamination. He glanced up to see they had something of an audience, a dozen gapers looking on, and he waved people back. Fools. Did they have no empathy?
“Oh God,” moaned Ms. W.
The baby came slithering out, gooey and moving. The doctor transferred her to the mother’s belly.
“Is she okay?” said Ms W, straining to sit up.
“She’s gorgeous,” said Bash, toweling the baby off. The doctor cleared the mouth and stuck a hand out for the syringe. Bash passed it over, and soon the baby’s eyes and mouth were clear. It hiccupped and started to mewl, but quietly. Quickly, the doc pressed a stethoscope to its chest.
The doctor nodded to Bash, and smiled, saying, “She’s a healthy little girl. Good job, both of you, Mom and Dad.”
Bash finished cleaning the baby, and then carefully, nervous as a new father about breaking it, eased her up Ms. W’s body to her chest. “Hang on to her, Daddy,” he said to Mr. W, who was looking at the baby with tears in his eyes.
Bash kept half an eye on the three of them and tidied up what he could. “How long to the placenta?” he asked Dr. Duell.
“A few minutes, no more than fifteen.” She smiled at the parents, then at Bash. “This was your first delivery?”
He nodded. “First hands on.”
“You did fine.”
“Well, she had to do most of the work.”
“That’s the truth,” said the doc
. “Okay, here we go.” The placenta was coming.
Ten minutes later, the doc was gone to attend to arriving patients, and Bash was finishing cleaning up. He wished he had a pretty baby blanket to wrap the baby in, but that hadn’t been among the supplies that that found their way here, nor was a hat. He had stuffed a small surgical bootie with gauze and was going to pop it onto little — whoever’s — head. Luckily, it was another warm day, warm for late October, but the new baby needed to be kept warmer than adults.
He took a second to enjoy the sight of the new family. They didn’t have what most women in American had at such a time — a baby weight, a baby picture. Oh, wait. He took out his cell phone and powered it on — still no signal — and took a picture of the three of them. He moved up. “You want a baby picture?”
“Thank you,” she said, showing him the first real smile he’d seen on her face. “For everything.”
“I only watched. You did the hard part.” He took several close shots of the baby, then saddled her with the ridiculous bootie-hat.
“Man. I had no idea it was going to hurt like this,” she said. “However does the human race keep going?”
“At least we’ll be able to give you a little pain med now.”
“I’ll still be able to nurse?”
“We won’t give you anything that will hurt little — Diana?”
“Yes, Diana.”
Mr. W. looked proud and happy. And very, very tired.
“I’m going to find you some place to stay. Someplace safe, and someplace with a roof, if there’s a safe roof in town.”
“We don’t know about our house yet,” Mr. W. said. “It may be fine, but we never got back there after getting discharged from the ER.”
“Give me the address, and I’ll get it figured out through the fire department,” Bash said. “For now, you three enjoy each other. I’ll have the pediatrician come over in a little bit and talk about nursing. Since it’s your first, and all.” He’d also have him double-check little Diana.
The couple smiled at each other and Bash backed off.
He bundled up the dirty paper sheets and put them one of the sealable red medical waste bags that had gotten flown in. He turned to walk it over to the dumpsters — they had two now, one for medical waste, one for regular — and was surprised to see McKenna come toward him out of the dispersing crowd.
“That was pretty amazing,” she said.
He looked at her face. She seemed much better than last night, but he wanted her out of here. Babies were a happy ending, but there’d be more blood and pain to see as people were still being pulled out from under collapsed homes. He heard a male patient yelp in pain.
“Have you found your mother?”
Her face fell. “No. We’ve been walking around my neighborhood, looking for her. And we made sure the notes to her are still up at the house.”
“Keep thinking positive,” he said, hoping he wasn’t giving her false hope.
“Can I help you with that trash?” she asked.
“No, I have it.” He made his way to the dumpsters, and Haruka came out of a patch of visitors and fell into step with them. Bash felt like a mother duck with two ducklings — or rather geese, or puppies, considering his expertise with teenage girls—who had accidentally imprinted on him. He threw away the trash. “Okay, let’s find you something to do.” Something without blood and painful moans.
He looked around and increasingly organized field hospital. Two men were being assisted by several visitors in getting up the big tent. They needed something like pallets, he reminded himself again. Reception was busy with the walking wounded. Triage was going smoothly. And, it was no longer his job to make sure it was. His gaze drifted further, out into the street where an ambulance was pulling up, and further still. Aha.
“I have a really important job for the two of you,” he said.
“We’re ready,” said McKenna, straightening up. Haruka nodded. McKenna said, “What’s the job?”
“Feeding us,” he said, and marched them over to the reception area to check if the job was already taken. It wasn’t. He grabbed the message from Gale and scanned it.
The two girls followed him across the street. The sandwich shop key had been hidden inside a drainpipe, and the word of its location spread around to the staff last night. Bash opened up the door and led them inside, sniffing. It was musty, but so far there was no odor of rotting food. With a big industrial refrigerator and freezer, as long as people hadn’t been opening it and closing it all night, the food could stay good for a while. Maybe one more day for the fridge, and maybe two or three for the freezer. By then, he hoped that roads would be open and more food would be arriving via truck.
He found paper and pen and set them to an inventory of the front room first. He thought it through, wondering what sort of danger he was putting them in this time. Looters? Could be. He’d find an adult male to work alongside them if he could, someone big and tough. What if the owner came back? He wrote a note to the owner or cops or anyone who might challenge the girls, explaining the situation and signing his name.
In the front room he said, “Next, do the fridge, but don’t leave it open. We’ll lose the cold air and the food will spoil.”
“I have a cell phone,” said McKenna. “I’ll take some pix, close it, and we’ll use the pictures to make a list, then check it out to make sure we were right. How’s that?”
“Great idea. I’m running across the street for a minute, and I’ll lock you in. Be right back.”
He hunted down Sonja and explained to her about the arrangement he had made with the sandwich shop manager, told her he’d have sandwiches ready to serve over there in an hour or so.
“Good. I’d like to get these visitors out of the way if I can. We just don’t have the space.”
“That’s going to be a challenge. Everyone is so upset.”
“If they have food, that’s something to do. It’ll distract them.”
Bash considered. “All the tables from the restaurant are over here, but there’s some stools and a high counter.”
“They can sit on the floor there or eat standing up, too. No biggie.”
“And I was thinking. If it rains, all the boxes need to get up off the ground. So we need wood palettes or we can build platforms with bricks. I can do that.”
“No, I’ll get it taken care of somehow. We need you for medicine. Or, rather, you need to sleep. You still haven’t?”
“I slept for nearly four hours. It’ll do me for today, but I’d like a full night’s sleep tonight, if possible.”
“Sure. I’ll put you on days. We’re going to have medical problems all week, especially as people run out of meds.”
“Days are great, thanks.”
“In a way, days are harder.”
“Why’s that?”
“At night, no evacuation. And fewer people will be getting themselves into trouble crawling around debris.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t have done any surgery last night. Waited for evac instead.”
“From what I can tell, you did what had to be done. We’ll be doing some surgeries tonight, too, I imagine.”
“Let me take an hour to eat and get the girls set up with the sandwich thing. And then I’ll report back, okay?”
She made a note on her clipboard. “When you come back, bring me a veggie sandwich if you can.”
“Cheese okay?”
“Yes, thanks.”
Bash ran back across the street and let himself into the shop. The girls had made good progress in that short time. They were pulling a stuffed trashcan back into the kitchen.
“We decided to throw away some of the salads. Either they were wilted or they had mayonnaise in them, and my mom says to never eat warm mayonnaise.”
Actually, it didn’t matter — commercial mayonnaise wasn’t going to contain salmonella, but he didn’t say so. He hoped they wouldn’t regret tossing out edible food. From the look of the trashcan, though, there hadn’
t been that much of it.
He helped them do a quick estimate of what was in the freezer, and then they sat down to make sandwiches, covering each with white paper and labeling them. He ate a turkey and Swiss and put together a half-dozen vegetarian sandwiches, putting one aside for Sonja. In forty-five minutes, they were nearly ready for customers. He praised the girls, and asked them to clean up after people had been served.
Then he got back to work, getting assigned to a suture station.
At three, Gale showed up and he took a twenty-minute break, sitting in Gale’s car in the sandwich shop lot and talking. They were both exhausted. Gale said he’d meet him at home no later than nine and took off again.
Bash got home just after 8:00 p.m., looking through the house with a flashlight and mourning lost items. He was tired. He wanted a shower, but he’d ask Gale first if they could afford to do that. He started cleaning up the kitchen while he waited for Gale, put drawers back together, looking for food that would rot — potatoes, probably they had a week before those would go bad. The fridge was almost empty, which he assumed had been Gale’s work. He wanted to do the dirty dishes in the dishwasher, but again, he wasn’t sure if they could spare the water. He retrieved the box of antibacterial baby wipes they kept in the bathroom and wiped every dirty dish then put it back in the dishwasher. At least they wouldn’t be smelling of rotting food now. He added the dirty wipes to the trash bag of broken crockery, tied it up, and took it out to the garage, making sure to seal the trashcan well. Who knew when they’d get trash service again?
Then back to the kitchen to clean up scattered utensils and cutlery, giving everything a wipe with a fresh dishtowel before adding it back to the drawers. Might not be perfectly sanitary, but good enough for now. It wasn’t as if he’d be doing any gourmet cooking any time soon. He doubted he’d found every item. In the daylight, he’d go looking in corners and behind the fridge for the stragglers.
He was using garden gloves to pick up broken glass in the living room when Gale came home, carrying a paper grocery sack. Bash met him in the kitchen.
