After Forever Ends (42 page)

I used the phone first to call on my father, whom I had not spoken to since I’d told him we were expecting. For some reason I had a very deep need to talk to him right then.

“Silvia!” There was a hint of relief in Dad’s voice, “I’m so glad you rang! How is everything?”

“It's fine, Daddy! It's really, really good!”

I talked to my father longer than I had ever before in my life. I told him all about the pregnancy, about the nursery and the appliances. I told him about Nigel. I talked to my father like he was an old friend who needed catching up, like he was someone with whom I held no secrets. He asked questions and laughed with me and then told me all about the work he was doing and the travels his research was taking him on. And he told me all about Lucy, who was off at uni. He gave me her new phone number and told me to call her after seven. “She’s back to her flat by then,” He explained, “She asks about you all the time, Silvia. She’s very concerned about you and the baby. I think she said she spoke to Oliver the other day, but you really should ring her yourself.”

“I will,” I promised, “I suppose I should let you go, Dad. Oliver cooked supper so I could talk with you a while. I’m really hungry.”

“Well, a wise man does not separate a pregnant woman from her food. I learned that with your mother,” He actually laughed again. “Go and have your supper then.”

“I love you, Daddy.”

“I love you, Silvia. Give me a ring at least when the baby comes and let me know. I’m hoping you’ll let me come and visit.”

“Let you? Oh, Daddy, you’re always welcome!”

“That’s good to know. Don’t forget to ring me when the baby’s here.”

“One of us will. I promise.”

“Good bye, Silvia.”

“Cheers, Daddy!”

I hung up the phone and sat in the chair for a moment before I joined Oliver at the table. “Nice chat, Love?” He asked. He'd already filled my plate with vegetables and mash.

“The best.”

“Excellent,” He grinned across the table at me.

I went six more weeks before the baby came. I was so round I looked like a deformed balloon with fat little hands and feet sticking out. I was heavy and miserable and was probably miserable to be around, but as always, the meaner I became the sweeter Oliver forced himself to be. He still brought me home everything I asked for, only now I had a phone and could make on the second requests. The situation had become dangerous.

The night before she was born I had to have a pizza. I mean, I absolutely without question HAD to have a bloody pizza. It could not have just been any pizza, either. It had to have extra pepperoni and then I dumped hot sauce all over it. Chinese hot sauce, the kind that has the potential to blister your lips, if not melt the flesh from the inside of your cheeks. I poured it on like maple syrup.

Oliver was looking at me like I’d gone off my nut. “Would you like a sandwich with that, Love?” He asked as he picked up his second piece and saw half the pie had already gone. I started laughing and, as usual, I could not stop. I giggled until my sides ached while he just sat there grinning at me and shaking his head. But I cannot describe the stomach ache I had when I woke up at four in the morning. Or, at least, I thought I had a stomach ache. I jumped up and raced to the toilet. Fear tore through me that I would not make it in time.

“Hot sauce can be your friend or your enemy,” Oliver mumbled to me from the bed, “You should have stopped after the thirty-seventh piece.”

I would have laughed, but the pain in my gut kept me from it. The urge to loosen my bowels passed. I came back into the bedroom and started into bed when it hit me again. I jumped up and rushed back to the toilet. I repeated this action ten more times and finally had a good picture of what was happening. Oliver by this time was, predictably, sound asleep.

I knew it was contractions, I was just not sure at what point I should wake my sleeping prince and tell him about them. I sat on the bed with the dog and timed them for three hours, walking back and forth from the toilet for safety’s sake. Finally, at about seven o’clock Oliver opened his eyes and smiled, “Good morning, Just Silvia.”

“Good morning!” I said straight as the well-aimed arrow flies, standing in the middle of the room with my legs spread apart and my pyjamas clinging to them, “My water just broke.”

“Blimey!” He jumped so high he might have hit his head on the ceiling. “Blimey!” He said again and leapt out of the bed.

“I’m going to change my clothes,” I was a bizarre sort of calm. “Will you pack a bag?”

“What do we need?” He tripped on the dog and caught himself against the dressing table.

“Er…I don’t know. I have a bag packed for the baby. That’s in the wardrobe in the nursery. For me, I’ll need a change of clothes for sure. I don’t know what else.” I padded to the dresser and started rummaging for dry clothes. “A hairbrush and my toothbrush. Pack an overnight bag as if I were staying with your mother, I reckon.”

“Right!” He yanked on a pair of jeans and stood there bare chested. He stared at me and then that smile spread across his face, that marvellous, dangerous grin that made me go all crazy inside, “We’re having a baby!”

I grinned back at him, “I know!” Another contraction hit me. I leaned over and tolerated it. “Oooooh. We need to go soon!”

He pulled a shirt over his head, “OK, go put fresh clothes on. I’ll pack your bag.”

Oliver was waiting by the front door when I came out of the toilet. He helped me into my Wellies and pulled my coat around me, “Car’s started,” He said as we went out the door and were hit straight in the face with a blast of cold wind. “Roads should be pretty clear by now,” He added. “Bags are in the boot,” He held me up as another contraction ripped through me. When I was able to walk again, he helped me into the car. I heard him shout as he rounded the front to get in himself, “Lord Copse! Lady Folia! She’s having our baby! Keep an eye on the dog and send the wind at our backs, yeah?”

Still being shaken by losing our first child, I had decided long before I had wanted to have the baby at hospital. It was only a twenty-five or so minute drive, but it was the longest ride of my life. Oliver was driving faster than I would have liked, but I wasn't going to argue with that fact because I was terrified if he didn't I'd have the baby in the car. Still, if I didn't say something and we ploughed into a drift, I'd be having the baby in the car all the same. I clung to the handle of the door as if it were some fail safe to keep me from sudden and instant death while I decided which choice to make.

“I'd like to live to have this baby!” I finally breathed as he barrelled through the snow drifts. They sprayed up over the windscreen and whited out the view. I pinched my eyes shut to block out the terror and concentrated on breathing through another contraction.

Oliver didn't take his eyes off the road, “I know these paths like the back of my hand,” He assured, “I've driven them a hell of a lot faster than this in deeper snow. It's going to be all right, Sil. I'm going to get us there.”

“I love you,” I swore out loud, but in my head I was thinking that my husband had the brains of an ant. I began to pray to a God that I'd never believed in that Oliver was telling me the truth and was not just being over confident about his driving skills.

The hospital was the same one where Nigel had been born. I remember thinking about that as I waddled up the path to the door, Alex's son. I remember thinking about Alex as we walked through the sliding glass doors. It still seemed strange to me how our lives had intertwined from so early an age and how they continued to stretch together in a common direction, always crossing, always mimicking the other. The three of us; Oliver, Alex and me, always together in one way or form, inseparable from the start. All three of us becoming parents under the same roof in the same year. I couldn't imagine sharing so much of my life with anybody but them.

“Phone Alex,” I told Oliver through clenched teeth as I leaned against the wall and contracted violently, “I want him to be here. For a minute. Let him know he’s not staying. I want him to leave when I say and come back when I want him around again.”

“I will, Love.” Oliver rubbed the small of my back, “I will the moment you're settled.”

By the time we got to the Obstetrics floor I was in serious distress. The contractions were coming hard and fast. I handled them by taking quick steps between them and then falling against the nearest wall when they'd hit. A fat nurse saw me from down the hall and rushed up with a wheelchair. She popped me in and took me to a room where she stuck me on to a bed. Oliver was rushed in a different direction to have me registered.

“I'll be right back,” He promised as he quickly kissed me.

“Ollie, I'm afraid.” I clung to his hand. I was, too. Horribly afraid. I don't know if it was the fact that he was leaving me or that the realisation that I was about to give birth was setting in, but I was suddenly terrified. My heart was pounding. I felt tears rise into my eyes and spill down my cheeks.

“I know, Sweetie,” He eased my hair back, “I'll only be a minute.”

“No need to be afraid,” The nurse assured me without any sort of smile. She gave Oliver a sort of shove toward the door, “Women have been doing this since the beginning of time.”

She sounded like my dad. Dismissive of my thoughts and concerns. I was just a silly girl. She may as well have said it. A silly girl without a choice who shouldn't be feeling what I was.

Oliver recognised the look on my face, because he sort of snapped at her, “Well, women may have, but Sil never has, so let's try to make her feel better instead of stupid, shall we?”

The nurse's mouth fell open. She clamped it shut, “Right!” She said, suddenly smiling at me, “I'm sorry. All I meant was that your body's built for this! You can do it! And you have a great staff here as well! Who's your doctor, Sweetie?”

She and I made bogus, pleasant chit chat for another few minutes before she excused herself. I appreciated her effort, but I still didn't like her much. It was obvious that under the false exterior of giving a shit about me that she'd rather be someplace else.

I waited there in that room, contracting like a quilt drying on line during a windy day, for a bit longer before I realised there was another woman with me. She had been quiet when I'd come in, but it wasn't long before her husband arrived and she began moaning and carrying on as if Death had her in his grip.

I found it telling that she'd been perfectly peaceful until he'd come. Some women will do anything for attention, even in a situation where all the attention is on them anyway. It's always bothered me, the drama they perform. I took it as long as I could before my own discomfort and wanting of my husband made me lose my grip. “Shut your noise!” I growled at her, “You’re not making it any better for the rest of us having to hear you carry on while we’re suffering the same pains!” Another contraction hit and I clenched my teeth.

“Oh, Daniel! It hurts!” She cried.

“I SAID SHUT IT!” I growled.

The nurse pulled a curtain shut between us. Seconds later Oliver appeared and I immediately felt much better.

“You doing all right?” He asked softly as he took my hand.

“My back hurts. The whole thing's in knots,” I felt the tears well up in my eyes again, “This sucks, Ollie, and I want it to end quickly. I know it'll get worse, too.”

“It'll take its course,” He promised, “Sit up and let me get behind you.”

I said nothing, but moved forward on to the bed and allowed him to slip behind me, one leg on either side of my body. He pressed me forward with his palms and skilfully massaged every muscle from my shoulders to my lower back. “Deep breaths,” He coached, “In through the nose and out through the mouth. Close your eyes and go with the pain. You can't fight it, you can only survive it. Deep breaths...”

He'd really done his homework on reading what to do to help me through my labour and I wished even then that any of it was working, but the tension in my body and mind were impossible to shake. Between the pain of the contractions and the relentless cramping of the muscles in my back complied with the drama queen in the bed across the room from me and my own anxiety, I was ready to demolish buildings with my bare hands.

“Relax, Sil.”

I sobbed, but not because of the pain. I sobbed because I was still afraid. I was afraid because I was helpless and the pain only made that more clear. But soon enough the pain did its job and intensified to the point where I wasn't frightened anymore. I was just angry. I was angry and I wanted to get the whole thing done with. It was taking too long.

I took the blanket into my hands and squeezed it with all my might as Oliver continued to rub and press along my spine.

About twenty minutes later the nurse returned, bursting through the curtain as if I should be excited she had arrived. She sang, “How are you feeling?”

“Murderous.”

“Let me check your cervix,” She slipped on a glove. “Off the bed, You!” She waved a hand at Oliver, who dutifully slid out from behind me. “Lay back, Silvia.”

“Do you really have to?” I asked, hesitantly moving back to the head of the bed and lying down. Over the last few days I'd had my cervix checked a couple of times and it was not my favourite experience.

“Yes, I have to.”

“Can’t he do it?” I motioned to Oliver. “He is a doctor, you know?”

“I’m a doctor of paediatrics, not obstetrics, Love.”

“Afraid not, Dear,” She said as she shoved her fist up my twat and then removed it promptly, “Good news! You’re ready to go to delivery!”

Another contraction mowed over me like a dozer. “I want drugs!” I said as soon as it had passed. “And I want them now!”

She wheeled me into a different room without another word. The new nurse there was much younger and smaller than the first, a blonde with dark green eyes and a nice smile, but I decided she wasn’t worth a damn when she told me that it was too late for an epidural.

“What?” I nearly screamed, turning on to my side to endure yet another blinding contraction, “You are so full of shit!”

Oliver laughed out loud.

“Don't despair,” The little nurse told me, “We have other drugs!”