“Oh, princess, you are so spoiled, sobbing like that and making me all sad.” He carried me over to the tree and said, “Look into those branches, right there, princess.”
I looked through the branches, and draped over one bough was the Seiko watch, next to it, glittering on a twig, was the ring.
“See, you big baby? Daddy didn’t forget. But you’re so spoiled I had to give them to you now. I wanted to give them to you at midnight, and ya know, you sort of ruined that, ya big baby.” He put me down on the floor and reached into the tree and put the watch on my wrist, slid the ring on my finger. “Well, you big baby, are you happy?”
He was smiling as he said it, and I threw my arms around his neck. We had a long kiss. “Ya know, princess,” he said as our lips parted, “I thought about not giving them to you after the way you acted, so you had better enjoy them.” Then we headed down to enjoy cocktails with the rest of the family.
***
The rest of the evening was wonderful for me; I felt loved. I kept looking at my hand and watching my ring glitter; checking what time it was, just to look at that new watch. Throughout the evening I heard talk between Sterling and Shay about trucks and cattle, something about four days, and leaving before noon. I really didn’t know what they were talking about, and I didn’t give it much thought until, after a hot lovemaking session that night, Shay told me he was leaving on the 27th for a four day cattle auction in Kansas.
“But what about going with Karen and Kevin to ring in the New Year at the club?” I said.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll be back for that.”
Why didn’t you tell me when you found out you were going?”
“Because I know you, and you wouldn’t have enjoyed Christmas if I’d told you.”
He was right about that.
“Why do you need your car if they’re taking their trucks?”
“Because I like my independence, princess. Now go to sleep, my spoiled little brat.” He kissed me good night and it was lights out.
The Arrival
The next day I helped Shay pack his suitcase. I noticed he was packing nice jeans, shirts and sweaters.
“Why do you need all these good clothes if you’re just going to a cattle auction, Shay?”
“Don’t worry your pretty little head about what I’m wearing, princess. I’ve been going to these cattle auctions for years without your input, so I think I know what I want to pack.”
“Are you planning to go out to bars?”
“Of course. All the guys get together and go for supper and drinks.”
I didn’t want to know anymore. I had no doubt women would be involved.
“Well, while you’re gone,” I said, “I think I’m going to go stay at my parents’.”
“Oh no you’re not! You’re not leaving this property while I’m gone. There is nothing you need or have to buy; you’re way too pregnant to be driving. So, missy, just give me your car keys.” He put out his hand. “Now.”
I went and got them and handed him my set.
“And don’t even think of having your dad come and get you and Kelly,” he added. “If I find out you left while I’m gone, well, you’ll be dealing with me when I get home, and you won’t like that, princess. Now is everything settled?”
I nodded. Of course inside I was thinking: I’m not a child. Who does he think he is, ordering me around like that? But after the checkerboard incident at the Westover Bar, I thought maybe I should just cut my losses and be good. Plus, I reasoned, I was eight months pregnant. Maybe he was just being protective.
***
Of course Shay woke me up real early the next morning; there was no way he was leaving without ravaging my body for a couple of hours, but that was fine with me. I loved making love with Shay. He knew his way around the bedroom, and my body. He was never selfish in the lovemaking department. No matter how long it took me, Shay absolutely wouldn’t climax without me, or until I had. Where he got the stamina, I can only imagine. Seems God had blessed the man.
***
Well, Shay was gone and I was grounded—hell of a deal. I spent most of my time with Cookie, who was baking all kinds of goodies for a church bake sale. Oh, we ate our share of cookies, cake, fresh-baked bread, brownies, fudge, and at least six different kinds of pie. We were in heaven. Cookie did most of the work, but the two of us just giggled and giggled. She told me old family stories, while we drank cup after cup of tea to the smell of rising bread or baking pie. Cookie let Kelly lick the frosting off the spoons and play the part of little helper.
Well, that took up the first two days that Shay was gone. On the third day I decided I’d just clean our suite. Kelly got up about 7 a.m. and crawled into bed with me. We sang some nursery rhymes in bed for a while, and then I called downstairs to Cookie and asked if she might look after Kelly while I took a long soak in the tub; my back was still killing me. Well, that suited Cookie just fine.
I must have soaked at least forty-five minutes. The warm water felt great. When I got out and started drying off, I looked down at the wet floor and thought: Wow, I really spilled a lot of water. Better be careful not to slip. Well, what the heck? I kept drying the water as it ran down my legs, but it just kept coming. Suddenly I realized what was happening: my water had broken.
I was determined to remain calm. I prided myself on my ability to handle physical pain, so I dressed and placed a pad between my legs to catch the water. (I must have changed it about four times in a matter of minutes, but it was starting to slow down.) Okay, I thought, I think I have it under control. I wanted to leave the room nice, so I stripped the sheets off of our bed, got Kelly’s sheets and went to the kitchen. I gathered Kelly up and headed for the basement to do laundry.
I washed two loads of clothes, made the beds, dusted, vacuumed the bedrooms, and ran the polish mop over the hardwood floors. While I was polishing the bathroom fixtures, I heard a knock at our door. I opened it, and there was Cookie standing with a grin on her face and a tray in her hands.
“Kathrine,” she said, “I thought maybe us three girls could have lunch together today to break up the boredom for you. I know how much you miss Shay.”
“How sweet!” I said and took the tray.
After a lovely lunch and a little girl talk, Cookie gathered everything up and headed downstairs. All this time I was having strong contractions, but I hadn’t let it show. I went downstairs and asked Maggie if she would give me a ride to the hospital.
“What? You’re not in labor, there’s no way!” she said. “You don’t even seem like you’re in pain.”
Well, I convinced her that I needed to go and she called Sterling in from the shop. He showered fast and got dressed. Then the four of us went to Hudson, stopping at Mom and Dad’s to drop off Kelly and grab my overnight suitcase. Maggie kept saying, “I know this is false labor, they’re not going to keep you, Kathrine.”
I have to give Sterling credit, he put the pedal to the metal and we made good time. I know they thought I was crazy, since I showed no sign of discomfort, but I was having severe contractions; I was just determined to prove I was no weakling.
After checking in, we were taken to the fourth floor—no elevator for me. Maggie and Sterling took the elevator while I walked up the four flights of stairs, in hard labor with a little nun behind me saying, “Honey, I can’t let you do this, I just can’t let you do this!!”
Sterling and Maggie waited in the room next to mine, (Maggie still saying they would send me home) and the nurse came in for the cervix check.
“Good grief!” she said, “Get the in-house doctor, she’s a ten and crowning!”
They wheeled me on a gurney into the delivery room, and a doctor I didn’t know arrived shortly.
“Don’t push, don’t push,” they kept saying as they tried to strap my wrists into the handles.
“Stop it,” I said, “I don’t need these.” But they did it anyway. Well, two could play at that game. I made my hands real narrow and sl
ipped them right out of the straps. Hell, they were so busy they didn’t even notice.
Finally, I heard, “Push, push, Kathrine!”
I pushed hard.
“Well, we have us a head,” the doctor said, “now we need another big push and we’ll have us a baby.”
Us? What’s this ‘us’ stuff about? Where was he when that little sperm swam through my body, grabbed the arm of an egg and danced her up into my womb? Don’t remember seeing him there. All these little thoughts kept me from thinking of the pain.
One more big push, and I heard a cry.
“Is my baby a girl or a boy?” I asked immediately.
“You have a son, Mrs. Westover,” the doctor said.
They gave me a peek at the baby before whisking him off to the nursery, where he would be weighed, measured and bathed.
***
About half an hour later I was back in my hospital room. This was so exciting for me; soon I would be nursing my son, something I’d been cheated out of with Kelly, as she was allergic to breast milk (we’d had to put her on goat’s milk.)
At this point the door opened slowly and Maggie and Sterling crept in with big smiles on their faces. Maggie’s smile was sheepish.
“I can’t believe it,” she said. “You were in labor. And I didn’t believe you. I’m so sorry Kathrine. Can you ever forgive me?”
“Of course,” I said tiredly, smiling.
Sterling was grinning from ear to ear. “Well, here he comes,” he said as the nurse walked in holding my baby. “The little man of the hour.”
Maggie rushed over and intercepted, grabbing him—so Maggie was the first family member to hold him.
Sterling looked at me and said, “Kathrine, would you mind if I call Shay and tell him he’s got a son?”
I could see how important it was to him, so I said, “Sure you can.”
Sterling got the number out of his billfold and used the phone in my room to call the hotel. The guys had already gone to the dining room, so they connected him there. I could tell Shay was shocked, and Sterling was having so much fun giving him all the stats.
After about a minute of “yeah,” “uh-huh,” “very handsome,” “we had no idea! She was very brave,” and, “four pounds, ten ounces,” Sterling turned around and said, “Shay wants to talk to you, Kathrine.”
I took the phone and said, “Shay, I left the property, are you mad?”
“What are you talking about, Callie, are you alright? I love you so much. I can’t believe I missed the birth of my first child!”
I could hear the sadness in his voice. This was an important event in a man’s life. And this was the second time I’d given birth without a husband in the next room, coming in afterward to hold my hand. Still, I didn’t want him to feel any worse, so I didn’t let it show in my voice. I just said:
“Well, when are you coming home?”
“Tonight!” he said. “I’m leaving right now. I’ll be there in about five hours. I love you, princess.”
Maggie and Sterling said they would leave so I could rest, which was fine with me; I wanted to call my parents. I told Kelly she had a baby brother—meant nothing to her. But Mom and Dad were elated, of course.
Well, Maggie and Sterling left and we were alone at last. I looked at my beautiful baby boy. He had lovely, olive-toned skin and enough light blond hair to make a tiny curl on top of his head. He looked like me in baby pictures. As I was looking him over and admiring him, a nurse came in with a bottle.
“No, no,” I said. “No bottle. I’m going to breast feed him.”
“Well, the order sheet says bottle-feeding.”
“Who gave you those orders?” I cried.
The nurse gathered the baby up out of my arms. She could see I was getting hysterical.
“I’ll send in the head nurse,” she said.
Moments passed; seemed like an eternity. When the head nurse arrived she had a form with her and she explained to me that my husband had requested the baby be bottle-fed.
You could have knocked me over with a feather. Back then the husband did have that kind of power. I was devastated, and began crying profusely. The nurse explained to me that I had no choice now anyway; I had been given two shots in delivery to dry up my milk glands.
“It’s too late, dear,” she said with kindly detachment.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. After they got me settled down, I bottle-fed my baby boy, but I told the head nurse:
“My husband will be here in about four hours and under no circumstances is he allowed in my room. You put a No Entrance sign on my door. I don’t want to see him ever again. If you let him in here, I will go to the director and file a complaint against this hospital.”
***
I was resting when I heard Shay’s voice outside my door. “I don’t care if she doesn’t want to see me, she’s my wife and I’m going in there! You just try and stop me.”
The door burst open.
“Get out, Shay,” I cried. I began shaking. “I hate you. How could you? How could you do that to me!”
He walked over to the bed, bent down and hugged me. I stayed stone cold.
“Callie,” he said gently, “what’s wrong? What happened? Is the baby alright?”
“You know what’s wrong. Don’t play innocent with me.”
“Callie,” he said wearily. “I made it here in three and a half hours. I outran two state patrolmen by ditching them down a dark road. I can’t even think. What could I have done, princess? You need to tell me. I don’t like seeing you like this.”
“You told the doctor I couldn’t breast feed, so they gave me shots to dry up my milk and now I have to bottle-feed. You knew how important that was to me.”
“What in the hell are you talking about, babe? I’d never do that. I know you wanted to breast-feed; we decided on that.”
“Well, the nurse has a paper that says the husband requests the baby to be bottle-fed,” I whimpered, a big tear streaming down my face. He caught it with the tip of his finger, kissing the place where it had run down my cheek.
“Hold on a second,” he said and left the room.
When he got back, the nurse was right behind him with the baby so Daddy could see him for the first time. I settled down quickly—didn’t want to upset my son. My heart softened as I watched Shay hold his new son ever so gently.
“Callie, he’s wonderful,” Shay said, rocking the baby gently, looking from his little face to mine. “You have beautiful babies.” He was beaming. “I can’t wait until you’re pregnant again. You’re so beautiful when you’re pregnant.”
“Are you crazy? I just gave birth about five hours ago and you want me pregnant again? Not happening!”
Shay brought the baby over to my side of the bed and sat down.
“Are we going to stick with the name we picked out?” I asked.
“I think we should, I like it. You picked it.”
“Wesley,” I murmured. Shay nestled our baby into my arms. “Welcome to the world, Wesley Wilson Westover,” I whispered.
***
After a while the nurse said it was late and she thought Shay should leave and let me rest. He kissed the baby and I goodbye, promised to be back in the morning, and then out the door went Daddy. The nurse took Wessy, I was given a sedative, and off to la-la land I went.
***
In the morning Shay came back and lifted me gently toward him to hold me.
“Callie,” he said, “I’m very upset with Maggie. She gave those orders to the doctor, because she didn’t want you breast-feeding in front of Sterling. So Maggie and I aren’t speaking right now.” He put his arms around me sadly.
I let this new information sink in. While Shay held me, I flashed on the argument I’d heard between Sterling and Maggie while I was getting orange juice, the day she threw the cup at him.
“Listen, Shay,” I said. “Don’t be angry with your mom. She’s just insecure. It’s not good for the children if we’re all at o
dds, and we all have to live together. Let’s forgive and forget. That’s what love and families are all about, anyway.”
“I don’t know how you are always so forgiving, Callie.” Shay kissed me sweetly and whispered in my ear, “I’m getting in there with you and making love to you. I want you pregnant again, princess!”
Thank gosh he was grinning, because my words were, “In your dreams big boy!”
***
Samson and Sunset Page 13
