A Witch In Time (12 page)

I blushed again as I saw my mother’s eyes alight on the two of us, but this time I didn’t let it affect me quite as much. After all, she knew about Marcus now. Later there would be time for questions about what happened to Tom and why we were no longer seeing each other, but for now she knew as much as she needed to know, and she was just preoccupied enough to let me be. For a time.

And I, for one, was determined to enjoy my momentary peace.

Mom was itching to go way before the nurse came in to say that Mel was resting peacefully, but that we could all go and look in on her if we wished.

“Patient registration is fairly light here today,” the red-headed nurse told Mom, “so we’ve put her in a room without a roomie. With her having had twins, I, uh, really didn’t think she’d complain about that.

“Of course,” the nurse continued, “she’ll be staying with us for at least four days. As long as her recovery goes as planned, she should be released then.”

“That long?” my mom asked, the frown between her brows returning. “Is anything wrong? She was never held that long before.”

The nurse explained, “It’s the C-section. Her previous pregnancies were via natural childbirth, if I’m not mistaken. You see, there are more chances for complications following a Cesarean. The lengthier stay helps us to ward off the risks involved with a Cesarean birth. All of this would have been explained to Mrs. Craven by her doctor during her primary care visits. And of course, seeing as how the babies were multiples and they were a little bit underweight—that daughter of yours has a teeny-tiny uterus, I would never have pegged her for a twins mom—well, we’re going to want to make absolutely certain they are starting to gain before we let them go.”

I could have gone without hearing about my sister’s delicate inner beauty, but that was just me.

My mother’s concern had only increased with the nurse’s explanation. “Is anything . . .
wrong
with them? Something you haven’t told us?”

“No, no. Certainly there is always room for concern with a lower-birth-weight infant. But your grandchildren are only marginally under that, and both scored high enough on their Apgars. Lucky for your daughter, she went nearly full term, almost all the way to her scheduled C-section. The longer in utero, the stronger the babies’ lungs. Now, I’m not allowed to give you any guarantees, but I’d say the odds are pretty good they’ll be going home with their mama. But mind you, you didn’t hear that from me,” she said with a wink.

“Which room is hers?” I asked.

“Twelve twenty-three. Down the hall to the T, then turn left. It’s going to be a pretty quiet stay for her; there are only two other new mommies on the whole floor tonight.” She wandered down the hall on silent rubber soles, gazing at the chart she held on one arm as she scribbled away.

We all filed down the corridor, with a sleepy Grandpa G taking up the middle position. Marcus took my hand and squeezed it. “How are you holding up?” he murmured.

I squeezed back and smiled at him. “Good. Better than Mel, I’ll bet, despite her teeny-tiny uterus.”

He laughed. “Are you sure you don’t mean
‘Thanks to
her teeny-tiny uterus’? Because I’ll bet right now she’s going to be admiring your figure and wishing she had it.”

“You don’t know Mel. Give her a couple of weeks and she’ll be strutting her stuff, back into her pre-preggo jeans, complete with prominent hip bones.”

Sigh.

“Hm. Just the way she’s put together, I guess. By the way, I hope this doesn’t offend you, but ...” He leaned in and

whispered, “I’m not certain I’m comfortable discussing your sister’s parts with you. Or with anyone else, for that matter. ”

I hugged into his arm. “Oh good. I was a little worried for a minute there. I mean, what does that say when your guy is comfortable discussing things like that?”

He just grinned.

The door to room 1223 was standing ajar, so we tiptoed inside, peering around the edge of the door as we did. The dim fluorescent over the bed was switched on, casting the room in an eerie half light. Mel was in the bed, tucked in tightly up to her armpits, face wan and pale, blond hair tousled, if not outright mussed, and IV tubes taped along her arm to their connection points in her hand and wrist. I glanced discreetly down at her belly. Just as I suspected. It was rounded, yes, and big by Mel’s standards, but most women would sell their husbands to look even that slim.

Sigh. Again.

Greg waved at us from a lounging recliner in the corner. The poor guy. I could almost feel sorry for him. He looked nearly as wiped out as Mel did.

And there, to the right of Mel’s bed, were two glass bassinets.

“Oooooh, let me see them!” my mother whisper-squealed. How she managed the two effects together, I cannot understand. And then she half tiptoed, half pranced across the floor, looking like some manic ballerina elf and not the middle-aged grandmother that she was. “Oh, look at the little darlings. They’re so tiny!”

The four of us, minus Grandpa, crowded around the bassinets. “Tiny” was just not strong enough a word. “Diminutive,” certainly. “Lilliputian” might have worked, if only to drive the point home. They were the smallest human beings I had ever laid eyes on. With their legs and arms swaddled up toward their chests, they couldn’t have stretched more than a foot from stem to stern. Their tiny heads were roughly the size of large oranges. They almost didn’t look real, except they were too exquisite not to be.

I looked over at Greg. “Are they sure it’s safe for them to be in here, away from the nurses, if they’re under observation?”

He used his head to silently indicate the monitors that were tracking their every breath and heartbeat.

Her expression rapt, Mom was obviously itching to get her hands on one, but somehow she resisted picking them up, instead satisfying herself with stroking along a cheek with the back of her index finger. I felt a tug, unexpected and incredibly strong, somewhere around the general vicinity of my heart as even in the midst of a dream the baby turned its face toward the touch and a small, delicate mouth opened.

“Have you ever seen anything quite so perfect?” she cooed, as close to melting as I had ever seen her.

“Well . . . Jenna and Courtie were both very adorable babies,” I hedged magnanimously.

“Well, of
course
they were adorable. All babies are adorable. But . . . two at the same time . . . and so small . . . !”

She really was melting. Not Wicked-Witch-of-the-West, bucket-of-water, flowing-back-into-the-ground-from-whence-she-came melting, but still completely all consuming. It made me wonder if that’s how she had been when she had given birth to each of the three of us older O’Neills. Or was becoming a grandmother remodeling her emotional sensibilities?

“I just want to get my hands on them . . .” Mom sighed. But she wouldn’t, not yet. They were sleeping off the trauma of their arrival to this strange new place, and Mel needed her rest, too. It would be almost criminal to wake them up now. Besides, Greg was shooting daggers at her for even mentioning the possibility of picking them up. Something told me the new papa was stressing, big time.

“What’s the matter, Greg?” I asked him, quirking a smile.

He just shook his head, then stood up. “I gotta go. I’m beat. Someone tell Mel for me, would you? I have court in the morning.”

I froze, not knowing what to say. He couldn’t be bailing on Mel so soon after delivering, could he? Husbands just didn’t do that these days. We weren’t exactly living in the old-school, Donna Reed version of reality, where the man was encouraged to do his thing while the woman just sucked it up with a smile. Not only that, but Greg actually sounded . . . pissy. And I couldn’t see why. Was it postpartum letdown, man style? Surely there hadn’t even been time for that. The babies were just now here, for heaven’s sake. Time for him to take a quick step back, take a few deep breaths, and get himself in the right headspace for new-and-improved daddyhood. In my not so humble opinion, that is.

Mom scarcely noticed him leaving, but I saw the scowl settle into the furrows on my usually mild-mannered dad’s forehead. Greg saw them, too. He made some bland excuse of a mumbled apology, but that didn’t stop him from leaving, pronto.

And why was it that Mel chose that very moment to wake up from her sedative-induced slumber?

“Hm . . . mm . . . wh ... rz ... grg?” she muttered.

Mom leaned down over her and kissed her on the forehead, then smoothed her hair away from her face. “What was that, Melanie dear?”

“Grg. Whrz. Grg?”

Mom still looked confused, but I had been there many a time when Mel had come home from high school parties three sheets to the wind and unable to get her tongue to function like a normal human being’s, so I had a better grasp of her tendency toward twisted linguistics. “I think she’s asking where Greg is,” I told Mom.

“Oh. Well, Melanie, darling, he had to go home. He has to work in the morning. He wanted us to tell you.”

“Greg?”

“Yes, dear. Hooooooome.” She stretched out the word as if doing so would somehow make it easier for Mel to grasp the concept. It was the same method used the world over when dealing with a person who was exceptionally slowwitted. Which by definition, at least at present, Mel was.

“Dideeseethuhbabeeeeez?”

Slightly clearer. No translation required this time. “Yes, dear. He saw them.”

Mel sighed, happy. “Pretteeebabeeegrlz.”

At least she remembered that much. Greg had mentioned she’d been awake for the delivery. She’d even been coherent enough to name the babies. No one would ever guess that at this particular moment in time. The meds they had her on must be crazy strong.

“That’s right. Pretty girls. Just like their mama.” Mom stroked her hair back from her forehead again, the light in her eyes so soft and tender that I felt a pang, sharp as an arrow in my heart. Was it wrong of me to hope that at some point in my life she had looked at me that way? She must have, mustn’t she? I just wished I could remember it.

“Why don’t you rest now, Melanie. Just close your eyes and rest.”

Mel didn’t need to be told twice. Not being all the way there to begin with made it easy. Her eyelids dropped like a shot. “‘Kay. Bye.”

And over and out.

“Are you going to stay?” I asked Mom. She had moved back to the bassinets and was hovering there. “Someone should stay.”

She tore her gaze from her newest granddaughters as my father moved forward behind her to put his hand on her shoulder, and reluctantly shook her head. A nod toward the corner gave the reason why: Grandpa G had parked his chair there in an attempt to be out of the way of traffic and had promptly nodded off. That would explain the distinct lack of wisecrackery.

“I’ll stay.”

The words came out of my mouth before I even realized they were in my head, searching for a way out.

My mom turned and looked at me, her reaction sheer surprise. “You will?”

I would? “Um, yeah. If that’s okay. I mean, if you’d rather . . .” I risked a glance at Marcus, but he was smiling and shaking his head in a completely indulgent way. Whew. But we’d both known it was probably too late now for any plans we’d made anyway.

“Well, if you don’t mind staying,” Mom said slowly, searching my face and eyes as though trying to make out what alien race had taken over her eldest daughter, “it would be easier for me. Grandpa has to have his medicines in the morning, and your dad never gets them right.”

She did, however, pause to take a few digital pics of the wee ones. “So the girls can see their new baby sisters—I’ll stop by to see them in the morning before coming here.”

Marcus waited until my parents had steered a spent Grandpa G out the door and up the hall before he came up behind me as I stood over the bassinets myself, gazing down softly at my new nieces in all their angelic glory. He wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder and held me a moment. “Pretty amazing, babies.”

“Yeah.”

“You ever want one?”

“Someday. Maybe more than one. I’m not sure.” More moments like this, and I had a funny feeling I could psych myself up to that state of mind pretty quickly. But it was better that he didn’t know that. “You?”

“Someday.” He kissed the top of my head. “You going to be okay if I go home? Minnie is bound to be needing some affection by now, I think.”

Minnie! In all the excitement, I had forgotten that she was still at his house. “Is it all right if she stays with you tonight?” I asked.

“Well, she’ll make a poor substitute for you, but I guess she’ll have to do.”

His quiet statement sent a shock wave of awareness straight through me. It seemed so long since we had fallen into his bed, only to have our plans for an evening of getting to know each other really, really well fall through because of Mel’s impeccable timing and my mother’s seemingly arcane ability to track me down wherever, whenever. I turned my head, ever so slightly, and he was there, waiting for me. Our lips met, blended.

“I wish things had turned out differently tonight,” I whispered on a sigh when it ended.

“There will be another time. Lots more other times,” he promised. “Right now it’s time for you to enjoy an intimate moment with your family. That’s important, too. I’ll still be here. There’s time enough for everything.”

Time. A girl could get caught up in it, if she wasn’t careful. Me, I just wanted more of it.

Checking first to make sure Mel was still asleep, I grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back for just One. More. Taste.

“
Mm
,” he breathed against my lips, brushing his own along mine in a gentle but somehow completely enthralling caress, “you keep doing that and I’m going to have to think a little bit harder about sharing you in the future.”

“Oh good. Then that makes two of us.”

Reluctantly I released my grip and eased out of the enveloping warmth of his energy. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then?” I asked.