One Pink Line

by Dina Silver

  Some time around two o’clock in the morning, Dr. Pearl came in and declared that he was not happy with her fluctuating heart rate, and they needed to get her out as soon as possible.

  “Great, isn’t that why we’re here?” I asked wearily.

  “Yes, but you haven’t progressed much and I can’t wait any longer for you to dilate. We need to get her out now,” he said, as nurses scurried around the room behind him, tapping monitors and folding sheets.

  My mom dragged herself off the recliner and over to my hospital bed. “Dr. Pearl, is everything okay?”

  “I’m worried about the baby’s heart rate, it’s dropped below where we like to see it, one too many times, so we’re prepping for a C-section.”

  “A C-section?!” Mom and I said in unison.

  “Yes, I’m afraid we need to get the baby out right away. Don’t be concerned, everything will be fine, but you can only have one person accompany you in there,” he said to me. “The nurse will provide that person with scrubs, and I will meet you in surgery.” And with that he was gone.

  Peyton approached us and took note of our shocked expressions. Kendra was snoring on the daybed. “This happens all the time, so just take a minute and try not to worry, like Dr. Pearl said. I will get a set of scrubs, and I’m sorry to rush you, but we do need to get you out of here in the next few minutes,” she said and left the room.

  I gazed into my mother’s eyes, like a shocked, frightened six-year-old girl about to get a flu shot. I didn’t want that flu shot. Nobody mentioned I was getting a flu shot today, it was supposed to be a routine check-up with a lollipop chaser. Why did the doctor just say I need to get a flu shot!? Why, Mommy?

  My eyes begged my mother for some immediate comforting. “A C-section? Mom, I don’t want a C-section!”

  She held my hand and came through for me. “I’m sorry, my dear, but it doesn’t look like you have a choice,” she said, our fingers entwined nervously. “You are in the very best care and all that matters is getting our little girl out safely, and if Dr. Pearl thinks this is the best and only way to do that, then we can’t disagree.”

  “I don’t know anything about a C-section, I didn’t read up on them at all, I didn’t study the effects, or the pain, or the after effects. I have no idea what I’m getting into,” I slapped my forehead and the move tugged on my I.V. cord.

  Kendra staggered over to us as my mom continued talking.

  “You will have a quick lesson I guess, and like I said, the baby’s safety is everyone’s first and only concern at this point,” Mom said with authority.

  “What’s up?” Kendra asked.

  “She’s having a C-section,” Mom whispered as if I might freak out having it repeated to me.

  Peyton entered the room with one pair of scrubs. “Who’s coming with us?”

  I began to sob.

  “Only one of us can be with her during the surgery,” my mom informed Kendra.

  Kendra exchanged glances with everyone in the room. I’m sure she would have liked to ask me what my preference was, but just as Kendra did on most occasions, she took control and made the right decision for the group. “Don’t even think twice about it,” she said to my mother. “Go ahead. I wouldn’t dream of battling you for this honor, Mom,” Kendra said, and my mom glowed with delight. “Besides, if I see even one drop of her blood or bodily fluids I’ll vomit.”

  My mom looked like she was dressed up as a surgeon for Halloween when she followed my bed down the hall as it was wheeled into surgery. I was so drugged up and loopy by then that all I can remember concentrating on was keeping my own vomit at bay, and spitting into the shallow little tray my mom held next to my face. Besides that, I felt nothing. I knew that I was naked from the waist down, and that my legs were spread and strapped to the table, but I felt none of it. Modesty has never been much of an issue since that day.

  “Is that her?” I heard my mom ask someone, then turn to me. “I think she’s out, oh, Sydney, I think I saw her!” she was giggling and crying.

  “Where is she?” I said, amid my acid trip.

  “I don’t know, yet,” she craned her neck, then called out to the staff. “Is she okay?”

  I never heard an answer, but my mom eventually came back to my face. “She’s fine, they had to clean her lungs out, she’d apparently inhaled something she shouldn’t have.”

  “Misbehaving already,” I mumbled.

  My mom was bobbing up and down next to the bed, her priorities forever shifted. She was desperate to be with the baby.

  Dr. Pearl walked over with a large pink burrito in his arms and handed it to me. I reached up to grab it, and immediately started to throw-up. Peyton grabbed the tray and Mom grabbed the baby from Dr. Pearl.

  “Can I see her?” I asked once the coast was clear.

  “She’s beautiful, Sydney, just perfect,” my mom squealed.

  And she was.

  Her head was perfectly round, and covered in a fuzzy layer of caramel colored hair. Her eyes were closed, but her cheeks were pink and smooth, and she was as quiet as a mouse.

  “Do you want to hold her?”

  “Okay,” I said, trying to keep my eyes open.

  My mom tucked her in between my arm and my right side because I was in no condition to be cradling a baby, so she rode there in silence as the nurses pushed my bed out of surgery. I saw my mom give Dr. Pearl a giant bear hug and wipe her eyes as she thanked him over and over.

  It was seven a.m. by the time Cinnamon and I were cleaned up, vaccinated, foot- printed, and checked into a new hospital room. Kendra had gone home to change and told my mom she’d be back to the hospital by eight o’clock with scones and coffee for everyone.

  I was wearing a new green sheet and my hands were so swollen they looked like a pair of blown-up rubber gloves. “I’m the jolly green giant,” I said to my mom, but she was oblivious to me. Spinning around the room holding the baby and feeding her a tiny bottle of formula.

  “Okay, my dear,” she sang, addressing me but smiling at her pink bundle. “It’s about time we name this little angel, so what’s it going to be? I refuse to refer to her as a spice for one moment longer.”

  I looked up at my daughter, tightly swaddled and secure, and thought back to the day I took a pregnancy test during finals week. I’d wished so hard for that test stick to produce one pink line. All I’d wanted was to see one pink line, get back to my studies, and get on with my life. But I did not get my wish that night.

  A wave of pride and contentment came over me as I reminisced about my twist of fate. I smiled at my mom knowingly. “Her name is Grace.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  grace

  Once my hopes of reuniting with my bio-not-so-logical father on an all-expense paid trip to California were shattered along with Nana Lynne’s left hip, my dad stepped in to save the day.

  “What’s so great about the west coast anyway?” he asked me one morning as I was eating a bowl of cereal, and then he handed me three tickets to New York.

  I grabbed the three pages of printer paper from his grip, and wiped milk off my chin with the back of my hand. “What’s this?”

  “It’s three tickets to New York.” He took the stool next to me and leaned on his forearm. “One for me, one for you, and one for Chloe. Unless of course you’d rather Patch come along?” he smirked. “We won’t make it for spring break obviously, but we’ll go the first week after school gets out in June.”

  The tickets glistened in my hands like they were covered in Swarovski crystals. I hugged my dad, put my self-pity on a shelf, and called Chloe.

  She screamed into the phone and accepted my invitation to tour the big apple without even checking with her mom first.

  “There isn’t anything she could possibly have planned for me that could trump this, so count me in!” she exclaimed.

  I ran downstairs to tell my dad that Chloe would be my plus one, and to thank him again.

  “It’s my pleasure, I’m happy that I
can do this for you,” he said, sitting at his desk in front of the computer. “Gracie, I know how upset you were about the trip to Los Angeles being cancelled, and you’ve been walking around here with a really crappy attitude because of it.”

  I looked away, ashamed, because he was right. One day I had accused Patch of stealing my phone and screamed at him for fifteen minutes, only to have my mom call and say it had fallen out of my pocket and into the back of her car. She then yelled at me for taking my anger out on Patch, for which I felt badly, but never apologized.

  “The reason I did this for you is because you deserve it, not because anyone around here feels sorry for you.” He paused to make sure I understood him. “It’s because you got great grades, you made captain of the volleyball team, and Mom and I are immensely proud of the things you’ve accomplished and the young woman you’ve become.”

  “I know. Thanks, Dad.”

  “I hope so, because if you want to waste your time feeling sorry for yourself when you’re alone, that’s fine. But you’re not permitted to take things out on the rest of this family, okay?”

  “Okay.” I twirled my hair.

  “Your mom and I know what you’re going through is tough, and if there was something I could do to change things…well, I wouldn’t,” he said. “You are a beautiful, smart, fortunate girl, and I don’t want to see you acting out and being defensive about the hand you’ve been dealt. You’re too good of a person, and I expect more from you than that.” He stopped to make eye contact. “You’re way too sweet to harbor all these grievances.”

  He used to say I walked around with a chocolate chip on my shoulder.

  And from that day forward, I was able to put my insecurities about my height, my genetic mysteries and my jealousy towards Patch behind me. Not the ‘behind me’ where I toss everything in a tall kitchen garbage bag and walk away from the curb. But, like, in my back pocket ‘behind me’ rather than front and center where those things tended to distract me from what really mattered. All thanks to my Dad.

  Our summer trip to New York was nothing short of memorable and amazing. We stayed at the Le Parker Meridian on West 56th street, and Chloe and I truly felt like two of the hippest girls in town. The hotel room was ultra modern, like nothing I’d seen before, decorated in a charcoal grey color scheme with accents of bright orange in the form of towels and accessories. The sink was a sleek slab of polished concrete, and the toilet flusher took me five minutes to locate. Outside our window were more windows. We looked straight into offices and coffee shops and apartment buildings so close we could almost touch them. The television in our room was positioned in the center of a half wall, and spun on an axis so that you could watch it from the bed or the couch. Dad slept on the bed, and Chloe and I shared the pullout. After we unpacked, we headed out to some proper tourist locations, but not before grabbing a cheeseburger wrapped in paper from The Joint in the lobby. I can still smell that glorious greasy creation to this day.

  My dad, Chloe and I spent three days touring delis, museums, shops, landmarks and theatres. He’d surprised us with tickets to Wicked our last night in town.

  I was so grateful for that trip and the experience he’d given me. I thanked him as well as any sixteen year-old could thank someone for anything, but I hope he realized how much it meant to me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Sydney

  The C-Section bought me five days of hospital stay, where all I had to do was push a button to call the nurse and she’d come in and change Grace’s diaper. My dad came that first afternoon, after I’d woken up from a nap, and brought a dozen pink roses with him.

  “She’s a looker, Syd, just like her mom.”

  “Thanks, Dad, sorry about turning you into a grandpa at the ripe old age of fifty-two.”

  “It’s my pleasure.”

  I handed Grace over to him and he held her tightly wrapped in her blanket and cotton hospital cap. My father hardly had any grey hair and didn’t look like anybody’s grandfather, so it was easy for me to picture my own infant self in his arms twenty-two years before.

  “How’s she behaving so far?” he asked.

  “Hasn’t sassed me once.”

  “Just you wait.”

  My mom walked in with a tray of brownies and an enormous fruit bouquet. “More deliveries for little Gracie!”

  I grabbed a brownie as she held the tray in front of me. “I mean, this is just rude, don’t people realize that I’m now in weight loss mode? Who had the decent sense to send the fruit?”

  My mom gave me a funny smile. “It’s from Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds,” she said. “And I also wanted to tell you that I spoke with her, Caroline Reynolds, last night. She called the house to see how you and Grace were doing. Wasn’t that lovely of her?” Mom asked my father and I. “She wanted me to give you a kiss, and let you know that she sends her prayers and well wishes. I must say, Sydney, she was very kind in her concern for you.”

  I looked at the fruit and felt shame. Ethan’s mom was a wonderful, smart, sophisticated woman who knew the importance of die-cut fruit, and probably breathed a huge sigh of relief when she found out I wasn’t carrying Ethan’s baby. “That was very nice of her,” I said to my mom.

  Mom sat on the edge of my bed as my father walked into the hallway with Grace still cradled in his arms. “We’re going for a stroll,” he said over his shoulder and adjusted her cap.

  Mom turned to me with a serious expression. “Honey, she also told me that Ethan is coming in to see you.”

  “Why?!”

  “Because he cares about you, and wants to meet your daughter I assume,” she said as if I should’ve known.

  “Oh, I’m sure Mrs. Reynolds is thrilled about that.”

  “She didn’t seem to be bothered, if that’s what you mean.”

  I wriggled myself up, higher against the pillows. “I’m not ready to see him. He’s going to look at me weird and I just don’t know if I can handle it.”

  “Look at you weird? What does that mean?”

  “I mean, he’s going to take pity on me, or wish things were back to how they used to be, or, I don’t know…wish I didn’t have a baby. He’s the last person I want to visit us right now,” I told my mom, but I was lying. I did want to see him, in fact I’d thought of him so much over those few days in the hospital, I almost cried when I called home for my messages and heard his voice.

  Congrats Sydney, hope you’re feeling well. You are going to be the most amazing mother a girl could ask for. I can’t wait to meet her.

  I called my machine over and over before calling him back. I’d tried him on his office phone the next day, but reached his voicemail.

  Hi Ethan, I got your message last night, still in the hospital; we’re both doing well. Thanks so much for checking in.

  It was short and simple, but what I’d wanted to say was:

  I wish this was our daughter, and I wish you were here with me gazing at her puffy lips and tiny hands for hours on end. I wish it were you pacing the floor with this little pink bundle, and fielding phone calls from adoring friends and relatives. I wish you were sleeping in the room with me on the horrid, cramped daybed they have reserved for new dads… ideally ones who are less than five feet tall. And I wish that I didn’t have to go this alone, and I miss you so much it gives me a stomachache when someone mentions your name. And I love you.

  Mom leaned over and grabbed a daisy shaped pineapple slice. “He’s not going to pity you. Don’t act like you don’t know how much he still cares about you. It would be very cruel for you to ask him not to come. You’ve kept him at bay long enough and I won’t stand for it,” she demanded.

  “You’re sounding like a grandmother.”

  “I am a grandmother.”

  “He can come,” I relented.

  “You should call him. Kendra said he tried to reach you all day yesterday, even called her at home,” she informed me.

  “I left him a message at the office, but I will try again.”

/>   “Why don’t you try again now?”

  “Why don’t you chase down my daughter from her easily distracted grandfather and maybe I can have a moment to myself,” I made a fake smile.

  My mom lifted the phone off the side table, placed it on the mattress next to me, gave me a kiss on the head and left the room.

  Ethan answered on the second ring. “Hello.”

  “Hi, E,” my voice cracked, and I pulled the thin, knit blanket over my still bloated belly.

  “Hey, Momma,” he said. “So how does it feel to be a parent?”

  “At the moment, not too bad. I can finally breathe. That little monkey had been crushing my lungs for the past few weeks in a bad way,” I told him.

  “You can punish her, you know.”

  “I was going to, but she’s pretty darn cute.”

  We had a few seconds of silence before Ethan spoke again. “Well, I hope it’s okay with you, but I’m coming in sometime in the next two weeks, and I’d like permission to see you, and meet Grace.”

  I closed my eyes and smiled. “Permission granted. How did you know her name?”

  “My mom talked to your mom yesterday.”

  “Ah, yes, and she sent the most gorgeous fruit bouquet, each in their own geometric shape,” I told him and we chuckled, like two people do when discussing one’s mother. “How are things with you?” I asked, and had only one agenda with my questioning.

  “Things are pretty good.”

  “How are things with Robin?” I couldn’t resist; it just came out. I’d been thinking about her almost as much as I’d been thinking about Ethan, and I was desperate to hear that she’d fallen off a moving train, or moved to Hong Kong.

  He laughed quietly through his nose. “She’s fine.”

  My mood took a left hook to the jaw. I swallowed hard.

  “You just worry about yourself and Gracie, alright?” he said.