Fire and Glass

by Linda Seed

  Lacy was aware that she might be overreacting, given the relative magnitude of Daniel’s offense. He hadn’t cheated on her. He hadn’t emotionally abused her. He wasn’t hiding a secret drug addiction, nor had he turned out to be into deal-breaking kinky sex practices.

  He just hadn’t trusted her, and he hadn’t said he loved her.

  It was possible that her stubborn refusal to forgive him was more about her being hurt than it was about any flaw in Daniel so big that it would make any ongoing relationship impossible.

  Still, he’d hurt her feelings, and she wasn’t quite ready to stop being mad about it.

  “I miss you,” he said, as a way of kicking things off. “Zzyzx misses you. He keeps whining and standing at the front door, like he’s waiting for you. He carries your sweatshirt around. It’s kinda pathetic, actually.”

  “You don’t get to do that,” Lacy said, pointing her ice cream spoon at him accusingly.

  “Do what?”

  “You don’t get to use the dog to make me feel bad. It’s … it’s underhanded.”

  “Fine.” He shoved his plate aside and leaned his elbows on the table. “I miss you. Lacy, if we could just—”

  “You didn’t trust me.”

  “Well, but—”

  “The first time someone spread a rumor around town that I was seeing somebody else, you just … you just believed it. That hurt, Daniel.” She stabbed her spoon into the ice cream and took another angry bite, as though she were somehow trying to kill the ice cream rather than eat it.

  “I know, but I—”

  “And then, you refused to even talk to me. You wouldn’t even take my calls. Do you know how that felt? To think that I could just be dismissed like I didn’t even matter?” She felt the hot pressure of tears building in her eyes, and she squeezed them shut to clear it away.

  “You matter,” he said under his breath, looking at the tabletop rather than at her.

  “What?”

  “I said, you matter.” His voice was louder, clearer this time. He raised his gaze to meet hers. “You matter a lot. It’s just …”

  “It’s just what? What, Daniel?”

  He took a deep breath and straightened in his chair. “I don’t think I ever really believed that you could go for a guy like me. And then when people started talking about you and Brandon … Well. It seemed like I’d been right.”

  Lacy gaped at him in disbelief.

  “What do you mean, a guy like you? What does that even mean?”

  He shrugged. “Just ask your mom. I don’t have a steady job. My income is inconsistent. I don’t have a pension, I don’t have paid vacation. I don’t have a damned 401K …”

  “Those are my mother’s priorities! They aren’t mine!”

  “And,” he continued, “I’m not some hot GQ model, some guy who looks like a movie star.…”

  Neither was Brandon, so she wasn’t sure what the hell he was even talking about.

  And then, suddenly, she did know what he was talking about, and it made her so angry she wanted to stab him with the handle of her spoon.

  “This is about looks?” She stared at him in disbelief.

  “Wait, Lacy, I—”

  “You believe that because I look the way I look, it must mean that I’m so shallow, so vapid, that I couldn’t possibly have feelings for you unless you look like Brad fucking Pitt?”

  “Now, wait, Lacy, I never said—”

  “You know what?” Lacy stood up, the ice cream carton in one hand and the spoon in the other, holding them at the ready, as though she were going to repeat the muffin incident and hurl one or both of them at his goddamned face. “I have fucking had it with people who judge me by how I look. I have a pretty face and a body that’s maybe above average, so I’ve got to be stupid, I’ve got to be shallow, I’ve got to be an object, right, Daniel? If that’s what you think, then you’re no better than that guy in the bar at Eden who tried to haul me off with him like I wasn’t even a person!”

  She slammed the ice cream carton and the spoon onto the table and turned toward the door.

  “Where are you going?” he said.

  “I’m done here.”

  “No, you’re not. We’re not done. Lacy, just let me—”

  “Guys?”

  Rose was standing in the bedroom door, looking pale.

  “You tried, Rose, but I’m done,” Lacy said. “I’m leaving.”

  “Uh, okay,” Rose said, her voice weak and tremulous. “But … if you’re going, could you maybe take me to the hospital?”

  They both turned to look at Rose, who was holding her massive belly, her face lined with pain.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  At first, Daniel thought it had to be a joke. This was Rose, after all. And everybody knew that it was only in sitcoms and soap operas that women went into labor at exactly the most awkward time. In real life, things were much more uneventful.

  At least, he assumed they were. Not that he’d had much experience with laboring women.

  “Oh, my God,” Lacy said, crossing over to where Rose stood. “Are you okay? What’s happening? Is it the baby?”

  “Either that or my uterus is trying to come out through my nose,” Rose said. “Given the choice, I’m rooting for the baby.”

  At that moment, Rose doubled over and groaned. “Ahh, jeez,” she moaned, nearly sinking to the floor as Lacy held on to her to give her support. “ ‘Have a baby,’ people said. ‘It’ll be fun,’ they said.” Rose’s voice was weak and trembly.

  The nearest hospital was half an hour away, in Templeton. That was if there wasn’t any traffic, or anything obstructing the road.

  “But there’s time, right?” Daniel said hopefully. “I mean, usually people are in labor for a really long time before …”

  “Well, I kind of think maybe I’ve been in labor since last night,” Rose said.

  “What?!” Lacy demanded. “And Will went to work anyway?!”

  “Well, he didn’t know. I didn’t tell him. I didn’t—” Rose’s words broke off as she doubled over again, grasping her giant midsection and letting out a low, animal moan.

  “Oh, God. Oh, God,” Lacy said. “All right. Come on. We’ll take my car.”

  Daniel, being the man in the group, felt like he had to do something concretely helpful, so he said to Lacy, “No, I’ll drive. She’s going to need you to ride in the back seat with her, so you can … I don’t know. Hold her hand, or give her something to bite down on, or whatever people do when somebody’s in a lot of pain.”

  “Aaaaaahhhhhh!” Rose yelled.

  “Okay, fine, you drive.” Lacy looked panicked. “Let’s just go!”

  They rushed around, grabbing Rose’s purse, and Lacy’s purse, and everybody’s cell phones.

  “I need to call Will!” Rose said.

  “We’ll call him from the car,” Daniel said. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  They all piled into Daniel’s SUV, with Rose and Lacy in the back. Lacy called Will on her cell phone, and Daniel screeched out onto the road, headed toward the hospital in Templeton.

  Will said he would leave work immediately. He was actually closer to the hospital than they were, so it was likely he would already be there when they arrived.

  With that taken care of, Lacy called the hospital and Rose’s OB-GYN to let them know the situation. Contractions less than a minute apart, the patient thirty minutes out.

  By the time Lacy got off the phone, it seemed to Daniel that the contractions were MUCH less than a minute apart, based on the truly alarming noises Rose was making.

  “How the hell did you not know you were in labor?” Daniel demanded.

  “I … oh, God. My back hurt … and I … I didn’t think … It wasn’t until this morning that I … OH JESUS GOD THAT HURTS. AAAAHHHHHH!!!!!”

  “Jeez, Daniel, could you go a little faster? Maybe not drive like my grandmother?” Lacy said.

  Daniel had his foot on the gas, and the speedometer was inching up
toward eighty.

  “I could, but if we crash, we’re gonna have a bigger problem than Rose being in labor,” he said.

  They hit Highway 46 and headed east, Daniel praying to God that there wouldn’t be any traffic, a deer in the road, an overturned big rig, or fallen trees to hinder their progress.

  “So. Did you … oh, God. Did … you two … work things out?” Rose grunted out.

  “Daniel thinks I’m a shallow, vapid, narcissistic pretty girl, he doesn’t trust me, and he’s too big a coward to admit his true feelings for me, so no,” Lacy remarked.

  “That’s not what I said,” Daniel insisted, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “You might as well have,” Lacy said.

  “You’re twisting my words,” Daniel shot back. “And if that’s what you think of me, then I don’t know why you’d even want—”

  “OOOOHHHH GOD!” Rose yelled. “CAN YOU TWO JUST … AAAAH … JUST ADMIT YOU’RE IN LOVE AND SHUT THE HELL UP?”

  “He’s the one who won’t admit it,” Lacy said. “He’s the one who’s afraid of the goddamned word.”

  “I didn’t—”

  “Ohhh, Jesus,” Rose said. “Uh … guys? You guys? I … aaaahhhh … I don’t mean to interrupt you, but … I think I feel the baby’s head.”

  Lacy looked at Rose in disbelief. “What? Oh, God. Its head? That can’t be right. How can that be? Your water didn’t even break.”

  “Yes, it did.”

  “What?”

  “It did. Before … before we left the house.”

  “Oh, God. Oh, God. How did we not know that?”

  “I changed clothes. I … aaaahhhhh … I didn’t want to … mention it …”

  “Pull over, Daniel! Goddamn it, pull over!” Lacy screamed.

  Daniel swerved to the side of the road and parked the SUV in the scrubby grass on the side of the highway. Lacy and Rose unbuckled themselves, and Rose, looking pale and sweaty, leaned back into the seat. Rose started blowing out puffs of air rhythmically, making a sound something like hee … hee … hee … hee.

  “Is that Lamaze breathing?” Lacy said.

  “Oh, who the hell knows?” Rose blurted out. “We didn’t … take the class … OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD. You have to look,” she told Lacy. “You … ah, Jesus … you have to look. I think she’s coming. AAAAHHHH!”

  Rose wriggled out of her maternity stretch pants and her giant over-the-belly undies, and Lacy steeled herself to take a peek. Between Rose’s legs, a small patch of scalp with swirls of dark hair was peeking out.

  Suddenly, the world went all dark and blurry, and things started to spin.

  “Lacy!” Rose yelled.

  “What’s happening?” Daniel called back to them.

  “She’s … I think she’s about to faint,” Rose said.

  “Ah, God,” Daniel said. “Should I … Is it okay if I come back there?”

  “Jesus! Yes! I need … SOMEBODY FREAKING HELP ME WHO’S CONSCIOUS!”

  So Daniel got out of the driver’s seat and came around to the back.

  Daniel helped Lacy out of the back seat and she walked, on unsteady legs, to the front passenger seat. He handed her his cell phone.

  “Okay, call 911, and just … don’t look back there. Don’t pass out. I need you on the phone with the emergency guys.” He peered into her eyes to see if she was with him. “Okay?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded, looking a little steadier now. “I’m sorry. I just …”

  “Don’t worry about it. Just call.”

  “AAAHHHH! OH, SHIT. SHIT! SHIT! MOTHERFUCKER!” Rose yelled.

  Daniel left Lacy in the front seat and went back to where Rose was lying across the back seat. “Is it okay if I look?” Daniel said, not wanting to violate a woman’s privacy.

  “Goddamn it!” Rose yelled. “Yes! Yes! Get the hell back here and LOOK AT MY VAGINA!”

  So he did.

  He could understand why Lacy had nearly passed out; the sight in front of him was not for the fainthearted. The baby was crowning, and it was coming now whether any of them liked it or not.

  “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?” a voice on the speakerphone said.

  “Is she supposed to push? Should you tell her to push?” Lacy said.

  “How the hell should I know?” Daniel shot back. “I’m not a goddamned doctor!”

  “I’m having a baby!” Rose yelled to the dispatcher. “Right now! In a car! And these two are idiots! Help me!”

  The 911 guy proved to be a necessary voice of calm, walking them through the details of what was happening and where they were located, and then reassuring them that an ambulance was on the way. It was clear the baby wasn’t going to wait for the ambulance, though, nor was it going to wait for instructions from the dispatcher.

  While Daniel was crouched there, waiting to be told what to do, the baby’s head emerged fully, looking alarmingly purple. Amid the fluids and the body parts and the screaming, Daniel could just make out something around the baby’s neck.

  “Ah … the cord. The cord’s around the baby’s neck,” Daniel called into the speakerphone as Lacy held it up over the back of the car so everyone could hear.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no,” Rose moaned. “Oh, God. Please let my baby be okay. Please God.”

  Lacy had started to cry.

  Daniel, surprising even himself, felt a kind of calm wash over him, a certainty that whatever was required, he would be able to do it. He hushed Rose and made reassuring noises, then said to the dispatcher, “Okay, the head is out, but there’s something around the neck. What do I do?”

  “That’s the umbilical cord,” the 911 guy said. “Is it pulsing?”

  “Uh … yeah.”

  “Okay, good. Tell the mother not to push.”

  “Don’t push,” Daniel told Rose.

  “I heard him! I’m not deaf! But I have to push! I have to! Oh, God …”

  Daniel said some more soothing things to Rose, things like You can do this and It’s going to be okay and We’re going to get you through this.

  The 911 guy said, “Is the cord loose enough that you can get a finger under it?”

  Daniel gently slid one finger between the cord and the baby’s neck. “Yeah. I got it. I got it.”

  “Okay, now gently slip the cord over the baby’s head,” the guy on the phone instructed him.

  “Okay, okay. Wait a minute. I think …” Daniel eased the cord over the baby’s head. “I’ve got it. I’ve got it,” he said.

  “You’ve got it?” Lacy said. “Oh my God. Oh my God.”

  Rose, who was pale and sweating, her face contorted in pain, wept with relief.

  “Okay, now you want to gently support the head as it comes out,” the 911 guy said. “Don’t pull it. Just support it. You got that?”

  “Yeah, yeah.”

  Rose pushed with a low, animal growl, and the baby turned slightly as first one shoulder and then the other popped into view. And then the baby, pinched and purple, came sliding out into Daniel’s waiting hands.

  The baby took in her first, shuddering breath and then let out a wail, and that frightening purple color began to change to something much more babylike and much less alien and alarming.

  “Give her to me!” Rose reached for the baby, and Daniel put her gently into her mother’s arms.

  “You did it! Oh, God, you did it! Rose! Daniel, oh my God. She’s beautiful,” Lacy said.

  “Okay, now, am I supposed to cut the cord?” Daniel asked the 911 guy.

  “No, let the EMTs do that. They should be there any time now.”

  And Daniel did hear a siren in the distance, the sweet sound that meant this would soon be out of his hands and under the control of someone who actually knew what they were doing.

  The look on Rose’s face was pure love and blessed relief as she gazed into her baby’s face. “Hi, baby,” she cooed into the small, pinched features. “I’m your mom. Hi, sweetie.”

  Lacy was leaning over the back of the seat strokin
g Rose’s hair. And Daniel felt simultaneously as though he might faint, and as though he were the king of the goddamned world.

  He’d done it. He’d delivered Rose’s baby. And now help was coming, and everything was going to be okay.

  He straightened up from where he’d been crouching just outside the open car door, and the world spun and his knees went weak. He leaned against the car for support.

  Lacy got out of the car to see how he was doing, just in time to see him wobble in his attempts to stand.

  “Are you okay?” She put her hand on his arm.

  “Yeah, I’m … I’m good, actually. Better than okay. I’m good.”

  “You did it,” she said. “You were amazing.”

  “Rose was amazing,” he said.

  Lacy enfolded him in her arms, and he felt, for that moment, like he had all of the things in the world that mattered. He had the pride of having performed well in a crisis, he had the comfort of knowing his friend and her child were okay, and he had the soothing warmth of Lacy as he clung to her, breathing her in, savoring the feel of her body and the smell of her hair.

  Right now, in this moment, he had everything.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  The EMTs had Rose and the baby bundled into the ambulance and headed for the hospital in no time, and once they were gone, Daniel got on the phone to Will to tell him what happened.

  Lacy listened to Daniel’s side of the conversation as he determined where Will was. He didn’t want to shock Will with the news if he was still on the road—that could only lead to sudden swerving and the possibility of a collision with a tree. It turned out that Will had arrived at the hospital moments before, and was just now running around trying to figure out if Rose had gotten there yet, and if so, where she was.

  “Dude, you’ve got a daughter,” Daniel said into the phone, a grin on his face, looking buoyant. “It’s over. Rose gave birth on the side of Highway 46.”

  As Lacy watched, Daniel listened to something Will was saying and then let out a laugh. “They’re both doing great. They’re on their way in an ambulance. We’ll be right behind them.”

  Pause.

  “No, it’s—Look, I’ll tell you all about it when I get there. Congratulations, Dad.”