Twenty Four Weeks - Episode 25 Part One - "Thirty Six Part One" (PG)

by James David Denisson

you’ve been, reminders of a mistake that you made. Yes, the things in that box, they were hard to look at, but I’ve got to let that go and just trust you.”

  “It shouldn’t have to be this hard to trust each other. It shouldn’t be this hard for us to be together.”

  “That’s just the way we are now.”

  “Don’t throw my words back at me,” she says angrily.

  “I’m not. They happen to be true. I don’t care how hard it is. I want you and I’m not going anywhere. Anyway, it will be easier in time. We knew that when we started.”

  “Judd... we just can’t get past what we’ve done to each other. This isn’t going to work.”

  “Is that why you signed the papers?”

  She looks at me sadly. “I signed them because you slept with Penny. That’s right. I know. All this talking doesn’t mean anything because you don’t really want me, you want her.”

  “What? No.”

  “You’re going to deny it?”

  “Sleeping with Penny? Absolutely.”

  “I know you did.”

  “How?”

  “I called you to tell you I was in labour, and who answered? Penny. She told me you were ‘indisposed’. I know what that means.”

  “I was in the bathroom.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I went there to talk to her. She explained the box to me. We didn’t sleep together.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t love her. I love you. I couldn’t sleep with her, because you’re the only one that I want.”

  Quinn face pulls into a grimace and she yells at the top of her lungs: “Son of a...!”

  I remember her first labour, full of pain and no joy at the end. I guess this is different, but she still looks the same. She screams as the contraction seizes her. This is far worse than what she went through the week before. We should have known it wasn’t the real thing. She grabs my hand and squeezes it until I can’t feel my fingers. For two minutes we forget about our past and our failures and our battles and focus solely on Quinn and the pain within her. We even forget that Rachel is in there, coming slowly and surely.

  “Don’t leave me,” she says then, her voice small and cracking.

  I don’t know if she talking about walking out of the room or out of her life. Either way, I’ve made up my mind. I’m scared out of my mind but I’m staying put. I won’t leave the room and her life - no matter what.

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’m staying. Through good and bad. Through thick and thin. Through everything. I love you. I love you now more than the first time I met you, more than when we got married, more than when we found out we were pregnant.”

  “Both times?”

  “Both times. More than when we said our vows. More than when we first made love. More than the last time. This is where I’m meant to be. Not someplace else. Not with anyone else. Just you. Here.”

  She starts to cry and I hold her while we’re in the ebb of her labour. It won’t last long.

  “I’m so sorry I kept those things,” she says through her tears. “I’m sorry I kept the papers. They reminded me of where I came from, what I’d done, how far I fell. They reminded me just how close I came to losing you. And part of me, that part that needed, couldn’t let go. And then I thought I’d lost you again.”

  “You’re never going to lose me. Not again.”

  “But you left me. You went to her.”

  “I need to be sure. And when I saw her I knew. I am sure, more than I’ve ever been.”

  “But we don’t work,” she argues. “Not anymore.”

  “But we do. That’s the thing. We know that we want each other, need each other. We know we have to fight for us, and we do.”

  “It’s just too hard.”

  “That’s what makes it worth it.”

  She shakes her head “Why didn’t you believe me?”

  “I got jealous.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. I guess I should have got jealous a year ago, maybe you’d have seen that I wanted to fight for you and changed your mind. Maybe you’d have seen that I gave a crap about you and us. But I didn’t. But I do now. Now I get jealous and I’ll fight anyone that wants to steal you away from me.”

  She’s still shaking her head, but she’s kind of smiling. Her eyes are still full and overflowing. “You’re crazy,” she tells me.

  “Love makes you do crazy things.”

  “It does,” she says.

  I didn’t think that the word ‘crap’ could be said over the space of one whole minute, but apparently it can. Quinn proved that.

  “Can I suggest something?” I ask her.

  “Whatever you like. I’m not in the mood to argue.”

  “When we get home, when we bring Rachel home, add her to our family, I think we should rip up those papers. I think that we should burn them. I don’t want to see them anymore. And I think you don’t either.”

  “This isn’t fair. You know that I’m just too tired to deal with this right now.”

  “That’s why I’m making the decision for us. That’s why I’m choosing our family, us - you and me, and Rachel. I’m choosing for us to all stay together because it’s the right thing to do, but it’s more than that. It’s right. I know that now - or maybe I’ve always known it.”

  “But you went back to her. You’re always going to go back to her.”

  “I won’t go back there anymore than you won’t go back to Wade. I’ve let her go, and you’ve let him go. We can do this.”

  The fourth contraction that I’ve seen tonight takes her away from me. She doesn’t swear this time - she lets out a groan from deep within her, like she’s gathering herself for something. And she is. I’ve heard that sound from her before and I know what I means. When she returns to me she falls back onto the bed, breathing heavily.

  “Do you feel like you need to push?” I ask her.

  She nods weakly. “I’m just so tired, Judd. I can’t do this.”

  I take her head in my hands. Her skin is hot and moist. “You can,” I tell her. “We can do this together. You and me. Okay?”

  She nods again. Her eyes are closed. She is exhausted, but there is still strength there.

  “I’ll get the nurse,” I say and stand to go.

  She reaches up and takes my arm. “And Jen?”

  I nod. I don’t know where she is, but I don’t think she’s far.

  “You won’t be long?” Quinn asks me, her pleading eyes making me love her all the more.

  “Only a moment.”

  The midwife emerges from between Quinn’s legs with a smile on her face. She pulls off her blue gloves and comes around to us. “You’re fully dilated,” she says. “So, why don’t we birth us this baby, Quinn.”

  My wife nods back with determination in her eyes. The end was near, she could see it and now she had permission for the final push.

  And she pushes on the next contraction, but this is only the warm up round. I remember what I’ve learnt. I rub her back, slowly, firmly. She holds onto me like she’s never going to let me go. Jen holds her hand, tells her she’s doing so well, stealing all my good lines.

  The next contraction is harder, stronger and she lets out a primal growl that almost has me run from the room. The next three were the same.

  The midwife places a hand on Quinn’s belly and feels the strength of what her body is doing. Then she looks below. “You’re going great, Quinn,” she says. “Not long now.”

  The concept of time was suspended then. I know that there was a clock on the wall, and I even look at it once or twice, but the hands and the number don’t seem to mean anything. Time is measured by pain and yelling and squeezing, and breathing.

  I’m behind her now with my arms around her, grasping her hands. She is pushing with all her might, doing what her body tells her to do. Another midwife joins us and they’re down at the business end, watching for signs of a head. Jen mops Quinn’s face with a we
t cloth and gives her sips of water through a straw.

  The Resident comes in on the next push. He’s wearing a blue gown, blue gloves, safety glasses. “How are we doing?” he asks the nurses.

  “Almost there,” they say.

  Another push and Quinn bellows at the top of her lungs. “Here we go,” the doctor says and settles down between my wife’s legs on a chair. All of a sudden there is a tremendous release in her body, but the contraction continues to rack her belly.

  “Here’s she comes,” the doctor says loudly. “There’s the head.”

  “Quinn,” one of the midwives says, “we need you to pant, okay?”

  I start to breathe with her, quickly, shallow. Distract her from pushing. I tell her how proud of her I am, that I love her, that she is doing oh, so well.

  Down at the other end of my wife the doctor is doing something I can’t see. “All good,” he says quickly. “Let’s get this baby out.”

  “Are you ready?” the midwife asks the two of us. “You can start pushing now.”

  And she does. The next contraction and Quinn gives it her all. She stops panting and she starts pushing, pushing hard. She leans forward, her face is screwed up into a ball. I feel the bones in my hand begin the crack.

  And just like that, Rachel is out, though I doubt that Quinn would have thought it that simple, that easy. Jen cries, Quinn cries. I cry. Rachel cries, high and shocked like she’s been pulled from a wonderful, safe place into a cold hard world. Which she has. It’s all over. Our family is complete. We can leave this place and start our new life together, the three of us, at last.

  But we’re not finished in this room. Not yet.

  “Well done,” the doctor says. “No stitches.” I hear the snip of scissors as Rachel’s