{“On the other hand, however, as even they will attest, certain parts are absolutely right-on. Therefore, when one accepts certain parts as accurate, one must expect that the rest may well be, also—such as when He says, ‘Things which are seen were not made of things which are visible . . .’
{“When one takes Jehovah at his word, all things are possible. And, He tells us to choose this day whom we will serve.”}
Rosie’s daddy was very proud of his little girl . . . humming as he rubbed the small, old desk, chair and file cabinet with oil, thinking that, if Rosie agreed, the pool money would, probably, pay for a nice rocking chair.
*
The residents, nurses, aids and staff at the home had planned to hold the baby shower in late afternoon. They thought it would be nice to commence their party in daylight, but have its finale in the nighttime, somewhat more romantic. Since the little girl and her dad lived just down the road, they wouldn’t have far to travel. The older folks wanted pretty music playing on the record player, twinkling lights and crepe paper swags, balloons, candles on the tables and small flower arrangements. Rosie’s daddy was greatly touched and delighted when they two arrived to see the care and attention the residents put into the affair. It was resplendent.
Presents were opened first. Rosie had never been to a baby shower before, felt a small amount of timidity, initially. However, when she saw the great pleasure the seniors derived as they presented their gifts, she soon overcame all fear, enjoying the unwrapping of beautiful paper and ribbon, showing everything to her dad—the sheets and blankets for the baby bed, bibs, wash cloths, towels, diapers, diaper bag, a silver spoon and fork set, a miniature comb and brush set, a deep, hollow ceramic baby food dish whose inside cavity could be filled with hot water to keep the food warm, books to read to the baby, rubber sheets and pads, tiny socks and bed caps. But, they didn’t forget Rosie—a beautiful quilt for her own bed in yellows and white, some house shoes for her stay in the hospital, a warm, snuggly housecoat and pajamas to match, a lovely brush and comb set.
Rosie’s daddy was overwhelmed with their love and generosity. They had thought of so many things he had not. If the preacher and Lizie hadn’t been sitting there on his other side, he may well have broken down. Now and then he felt a firm, muscular hand on his shoulder accompanied by a familiar, hearty laugh. That and Lizie’s bright, effusive chatter kept him from total melt-down.
Then, suddenly, for no explicable reason, Miss Clara’s sweet face, her lovely white hair, little Benjamin, the snow-white Persian tabby wafted across his mind. His heart clutched and palpitated. He thought it would surely break for the unfairness of life’s turns as he remembered the dear woman’s own humble celebration for her beloved child. How he would like for her to be there with them, for she, surely, would have derived immense joy in that moment. She would have loved his Rosie. But, Miss Clara and Bennie had long since gone to be with the Lord and Savior. For now, he would rejoice with his little girl over their own great day.
With grandiose flair, the residents brought out the gifts they’d been keeping on the sun porch—the vanity and stool, the mirror and vine garland, the framed, pressed floral pictures, scrapbook and baby toys. Rosie’s eyes grew as big as saucers. They gleamed with excitement. By this time, the sun’s setting cast lovely hues of pink and orange, gray and blue through the sitting room into the large dining room. The twinkling, sparkly lights had come on. Beautiful, old music played on the record player. Candles were lit, bouncing thousands of tiny prisms off the crystal water goblets set in place on the tables for dinner, arousing a stunning dance of light off highly-polished silverware and squeaky-clean china plates. They had brought out their best; they were dressed in their best—men in suits and ties, women in their Sunday dresses, hose and heels. Nurses and aids brought husbands and boyfriends. Rosie’s daddy and pastor were in suits and ties. Lizie wore one of her really nice suits, as did Rosie, a clever little straight, maternity skirt and matching over-jacket she and the pastor’s wife found some days before in the department store. It had required adjustments, but, when all was done, fit quite nicely. She looked stunning and, especially so, after Lizie applied some lipstick, rouge and a brush of powder very sparingly.
Everyone at Favored Acres settled down to a grand dinner. Rosie had never been to anything so fine. Her daddy was sure he had, although he couldn’t remember when or where. Ok, maybe he’d never been, but he was truly enjoying himself, now—now that dinner was on and he could settle back to wonderful fare served without any work or concern on his part. He was so used to being the one to “do”. It was indescribably wonderful
just to sit and be waited on. The home had told him that they would hold all the gifts, covered, until the next day, keeping out a few for the sun room for the times when child and baby came to visit.
“Don’t need to worry about getting everything home that night,” the director had said. “Besides, it’ll be like getting them all over, again, for Rosie—to see them the next day, pick them up, take them home, arrange them in their places in the light of day.”
When everyone finished their desserts and coffee, the old folks invited Pastor and wife, Dad and Rosie to move into the parlor with them. Rosie’s dad took her in his arms to start off a slow dance to the record player. After a few bars of music, everyone else joined the two on the dance floor. The ball continued into the night, long after Rosie had tucked herself in under her new yellow and white quilt, cuddled her pillow, said her prayers and dreamed blissfully of playing with all the new toys.
*
It started with a pin-prick. That’s what it seemed to the little girl . . . a pin-prick down deep. And, then, warm water began seeping over her thighs. She hadn’t been long in bed for the night when it began—her and her baby’s first, big birthday together. She didn’t really know what was happening, other than that it had never happened before. So, she called to her father. The beautiful, little night light, one of the gifts the seniors had
given her, came on as her dad entered the room. It was a nice little light, not too bright, to wake up to when one’s eyes are bleary, still sleepy. They had packed a small suitcase some days earlier, per doctor’s instructions. Rosie changed out of her wet nightgown into some street clothes. Her daddy put her and the suitcase in the truck and they took the short drive to the hospital.
When his daughter was settled into her room, Martin called his wife. He didn’t want to, but, at the same time, feared giving her and her attorney cause to criticize. Had it been later than 9:30, he might have gotten away with postponing the call due to the lateness of the hour, but that was not possible. He hadn’t told Rosie that her mother would be there or that Uncle Marlon would, probably, accompany her for the baby’s birth. It might all be over by the time the two arrived from Applecarrie.
But, no such luck. They had, evidently, gone straight away to Marlon’s old truck and commenced the journey, immediately. They were there when the hospital doors opened for visitors the next morning and Rosie wasn’t anywhere near delivering the baby. It was slow go for the little girl. Contractions were weak and far between. The doctor said first babies could be like that, and, with the mother as young as Rosie, there was no telling, really, when the contractions would become intense enough to propel the infant into the birth canal.
Rosie wasn’t in a great deal of pain. In fact, she was thinking she was going to be able to handle this delivery problem, didn’t know why people made such a big deal of it; however, the baby was a healthy size. It was only a matter of time before the contractions would be more than Rosie would want to bear.
Meanwhile, outside in the lobby, her mother was wanting, demanding to be in the room with her child. Martin had been told to stay in the room with Rosie, not to worry about the goings-on on the door’s other side, that the nurses would be by as often as it took to well-monitor the child’s progress, that his presence would be a great comfort to Rosi
e.
“Stay in the room.” the head nurse told Martin emphatically.
They’d bring him coffee and sandwiches, whatever he needed, but . . . stay in the room. When Martin started to question the “what-ifs” of the situation, the nurse, simply, said,
“Doctor has very broad shoulders. Depend on him.”
The head nurse told Martin’s wife they would have to wait for the doctor to arrive, that she and the other nurses had been given strict orders to let no one other than Rosie’s father in the room, for the health and welfare of their patients. Martin’s wife couldn’t understand that, wouldn’t accept it as a plausible reason for keeping her out of her own daughter’s room. She threw quite a scene, trying to get Marlon to intervene.
The man did put up a half-arsed attempt, but it was poor and feeble, at best. He was out of his clime. They were in the realm of doctors and nurses, in a place he tried hard not to visit—just the sight of a syringe made
him faint, literally—and he wasn’t about to pull his biological-father card. The smells made him want to throw up and the nurses in their stiff-starched and oh-so white uniforms looked like they had a broom handle up their hiney-ho’s. Nope. He could wait.
Meanwhile, things were revving up in the delivery room. Contractions were coming faster, harder. Rosie didn’t know a belly could get so hard or why the object within moved around so much. One minute it was bunched up on one side. Next minute, it was rolling around, bunched up somewhere else and a knobble was forever traversing her abdomen—side to side, across the diagonal. The pressure on the pelvic bed grew so intense, Rosie was convinced in her own mind there was no way anything and, especially, a baby would pass through—ever.
{“Soon,” Mr. Bill admits, “she was whimpering like a little puppy, telling her daddy she really, really needed to go to the bathroom.”}
When the nurse came around, Martin told her what Rosie had said.
The nurse replied, “If you need to go to the bathroom, just do it in the bed.”
Well, Rosie was only half listening, eyes glazed with pain, but “do it in the bed” came through loud and clear. All she needed was permission. And, she wasn’t crazy about the smell coming from down-under, like nothing she’d ever smelled before. It wasn’t the worst, but, certainly, not complimentary for a lady.
About 10:30 the doctor arrived to make his rounds and be nearby for Rosie’s delivery. The nurses had kept him apprised through the night and early morning of developments. He was pretty sure the baby would present itself, soon.
As he turned the corner on the maternity wing, he ran straight into Rosie’s mother. She wanted to know if he were her daughter’s doctor and, if so, why she was being kept out of the delivery room. He informed her that her daughter’s blood pressure had been very unstable through the night, a great concern to them all for the mother and baby’s welfare, that it had continued to rise during the last several hours, and only the doctor, nurses and one family member, would be allowed in. He suggested to her that they two go to the coffee shop, relax after their long trip and they’d be notified, periodically, of the progress.
This was the best idea Marlon had heard since he sat down to watch wrestling with a cold beer the night before in Applecarrie.
*
Rosie’s daddy was so proud of his little girl. She’d come through in grand style and the baby was big, robust, healthy, whole . . . and most boyish.
“I’ve never had a boy!” he flustered to the nurses, at a loss for adequate words to describe his happiness. But, mostly, he couldn’t stop looking at the two children, marveling over the new life given to him. Later, he barely remembered thinking, wondering to himself how he could remain angry at his big brother for what he’d done to Rosie when he, now, had a marvelous little being to love, hold and raise up. He felt selfish, guilty for not wanting Marlon around.
Pastor and Lizie reminded him that Marlon had acted outside God’s and man’s laws. He was the guilty party. It was Martin who was coming behind, mopping up after his irresponsible and ruthless brother. He should remember that . . . just as Martin himself believed a little contempt abiding in Rosie for her uncle would, over the years, prove beneficial.
Rosie’s mom and uncle were permitted to look at the baby through the nursery glass. However, they were never permitted down the hall or into Rosie’s room. The nurses kept assuring them Rosie’s blood pressure was still alarmingly high. But, it seemed to Martin, as he stood beside the two adults at the nursery window, that the nurses sometimes held up the wrong baby. His wife was puzzled but unable to prove anything from such a distance and Marlon’s all-consuming desire was to get back home to his lounger, beer and TV—maybe a little bowling. On the seventh day, five days after Marlon and Rosie’s mother gave up trying to be in the same room with Rosie and baby and left for Applecarrie, Rosie’s daddy took the two children home.
It was so lovely to cuddle her baby into all the soft and warm places Rosie had prepared for him in her little bedroom.
“I knew it was going to be a boy.” she told her daddy. “I just knew it was.”
Martin helped his daughter to her knees, baby in her arms. He knelt beside her and blessed his child, her baby, their room, the lifetime they three would share together trying to be as authentic in his blessing as Abraham was over Isaac, as all the Jewish fathers had been for so many thousands of years . . . even though his own charge was female.
26
Mrs. Widon watched the monitor in the nurses’ station with considerable interest—a bit befuddled, a bit amused. She had seen Margaret’s vital signs take similar turns in the past—once, when the dear woman invited her to go out for bar-b-que sandwiches across the street. She would look in on her patient but expected nothing serious to be going on.
The ceiling fan whirred languidly; the sun shone politely through the window casting a gentle ray across Margaret’s sheet. Indeed, patient was prone upon her bed per expectations; however, such heavy breathing aroused considerable commotion—Virgie’s current floral arrangement with its fresh ribbons and bows, the baby’s breath, moved erratically before its ragged flow. The woman’s brows knitted to and fro upon her forehead. Her fists commenced clenching and unclenching the sheet as her body took on a rocking motion up and down the length of the hospital bed. Mrs. Widon had seen that movement many times throughout her long career of tending patients—people whose challenged minds were temporarily or forever imprisoned within a less-than-able body.
In Maggie’s mind there was definitely, reason to be upset: an old dream had returned. The most beautiful little lady who’d helped her and her sons in their attempts to build a house of their own was, again, in desperate straits. Margaret saw herself walking up to a woman in clinical attire who sat behind a metal desk. Rosie was already in the examination room . . . too late to stop experiments being performed behind the steel door.
When Maggie turned, she faced a cold, metal examination table. The blonde clinician stood behind it as a small, white male approached in a hospital gown. He was a much older man with a square-like build, approximately five feet tall with thinning, white, wispy hair and sweet, round face. His mouth was wide, lips heavy with the faintest hint of a smile. His look at the clinician was one of entreaty, a pleading—apprehensive, fearful—as a child might. A kind, little man who already lacked full senses. The woman informed Margaret—as though the latter were another nurse or student—that the little gentleman functioned on the third grade level and was to be sterilized.
The blonde woman calmly instructed the man to get upon the table. While half mounting the table, wanting to oblige her as a child would his superior, but fearful, the man quietly, courteously declined and got off, again. The woman showing no emotion in particular, once more instructed the little man to get on the table. He did so but only partially, then, politely verbalized to the negative and dismounted. This on and off occurred once more b
efore Meggie noticed two very large, muscular men approaching, moving in on the small man.
*
Ribbons and bows, baby’s breath settled back into Virgie’s vase, once again in their normal place among the irises, carnations and rabbit’s-foot fern. Margaret had come to some kind of peace.
27
The pall that fell upon that special Sunday when the old folks gave Martin and Rosie their pool money was produced by the knowledge that the girl’s mother and uncle would be at Martin’s house after church to collect furniture, possessions and both children. Had it not been for his minister and Lizie who vowed to be with him the entire time, Martin would have surely broken down. Had it not been for the promises from ministers in Applecarrie to look in and after Rosie, and the sure and certain legal counsel from his attorney, Martin would have despaired. In fact, Martin’s attorney said he could count on the children being back in his house before the infant’s first well-baby visit to the doctor.
Rosie’s daddy assured her it would not be for long, that legalities had to be finalized. He promised her they’d get all the things back where she wanted them when she and the baby returned very soon. Rosie was used to doing as she was bidden. But, she was not happy. Afraid . . . she was. Tormented . . . she was. And, she broke down in huge sobs. A lovely, little girl holding her precious and beloved baby boy in her arms looking so beseechingly at her daddy, telling everyone present—it
seemed like the entire church and nursing home had turned out on Martin’s small lawn—she didn’t want to go.
No one could bear seeing her depart without at least a kiss and a hug and some few words of encouragement. Marlon was getting more and more nervous, sweating profusely, exhibiting a face as red as a beet. He had been given the job by Rosie’s mom of fetching all the belongings and putting them in the bed of the truck. After about twenty minutes of carting, of one return after another to Martin’s house, he was in such a hurry to be off, he began tossing stuff in. Didn’t matter whether it was breakable or not. He wanted out of there. And, it didn’t go without his notice that certain folks had placed themselves at strategic points along the way and inside the modest house. He probably thought he was running a gauntlet . . . and they weren’t smiling.
Camp Matigua: The Lost And Forgotten Page 15
