Bygones (39 page)

Lisa said, “I want him here.”

“Yes, I know,” Bess whispered. “So do I.”

It was true. While she had watched Lisa laboring she'd wanted Michael beside her as strongly as ever in her life. It appeared, however, that he was avoiding the hospital, knowing she was there, just as he had the pool party at Barb and Don's.

By ten o'clock there'd been no change, and the anesthesiologist was called in to administer an epidural, which made Lisa woozy and a slight bit giddy. The baby was big, probably close to ten pounds, and Lisa was narrow across the pelvis. The epidural, it was explained, would not stop the contractions, only make Lisa unaware she was having them.

Mark was napping. The Padgetts had their eyes closed in front of the TV, and Bess went out to find a pay phone and call Stella, who said she wouldn't clutter up the proceedings but wanted to know the minute the baby was born, even if it was the middle of the night. After the phone call, Bess returned to the obstetrics wing and ambled around the circular hall. On the far side she wandered into the solarium, an arc-shaped room with a curved bank of windows overlooking the treetops and Lily Lake across the street. Only a glimpse of the night-dark water was visible and from inside, where climate was carefully controlled and trees were potted, it was impossible to tell if the night was warm or cool, still or noisy, if crickets were chirping, water lapping or mosquitoes buzzing.

The thought of mosquitoes brought the memories of warm summer nights when Lisa and Randy were little and the whole neighborhood resounded with the sounds of squeals from a dozen children playing starlight-moonlight and kick the can. When they were called for bedtime, the kids would whine, “Come on, Mom, just a little while longer, pleeeeze!” When they were finally coerced inside, their bare legs would be welted with bites, their hair sweaty, their feet dirty. Then she and Michael would bathe and dry them and put them in clean pajamas. How good they would smell then, with their faces shiny and their pajamas crisp. They would sit at the kitchen table and gobble cookies and milk and scratch their mosquito bites and protest that they weren't a bit tired.

But once in bed they'd be asleep in sixty seconds, with their precious mouths open and their sunburned limbs half above, half under the sheets. She and Michael would study them in the wedge of light from the hall as it picked out their lips and noses and eyelashes, and often their bare toes protruding from pajama legs rucked up about their knees.

Remembering, Bess felt her eyes grow misty.

She'd been standing a long time, staring out the window, weighted by the bittersweet tug of nostalgia, too weary to uncross her arms, when someone touched her shoulder.

“Bess.”

She turned at the sound of Michael's voice and felt an overwhelming sense of relief and the awful threat of full-fledged tears.

“Oh, you're here,” she said, as if he had materialized from her fantasy. She stepped into the calm harbor of his arms as she had longed to step into that shadowy bedroom where her younglings slept. The pressure of his embrace was firm and reassuring, the smell of his clothing and skin familiar, and for a minute she pretended the children were young again, they had tucked them into bed together and at last were stealing a moment for each other.

“I'm sorry,” he said against her temple. “I'd flown to Milwaukee. I just got back and my answering service gave me the message.” The strength of Bess's embrace surprised Michael. “Bess, what's wrong?”

“Nothing, really. I'm just so glad you're here.”

His arms tightened and he let out a ragged breath against her hair. They had the solarium to themselves. The indirect lighting created a soft glow above the black windows. At the nurses' station beyond the door, all was quiet. For a while time seemed abstract, no rush nor reason to refrain from embracing, only the utter rightness of being together again, bolstering each other through this next stepping-stone in their daughter's life and their own.

Against Michael's shoulder Bess confessed, “I've been thinking about when the children were little, how simple everything was then, how they'd play games after dark with all the neighborhood kids and come in all full of mosquito bites. And how they looked in bed when they fell asleep. Oh, Michael, those were wonderful days, weren't they?”

“Yes, they were.”

They were rocking gently. She felt his hand pet her hair, her shoulder.

“And now Randy is out on the road somewhere with some band, probably high on pot, and Lisa is in there going through all this.”

Michael drew back but held Bess by the upper arms while looking into her eyes. “That's how it is, Bess. They grow up.”

For a moment the expression in her eyes said she wasn't ready to accept it. Then she said, “I don't know what's come over me tonight. I'm usually not so silly and sentimental.”

“It's not silly,” he replied, “it's understandable on this particular night, and you know something else? Nostalgia looks good on you.”

“Oh, Michael . . .” She drew away self-consciously and dropped into a chair beside a potted palm. “Did you stop by Lisa's room?”

“Yes. The nurse explained they gave her something to help her rest for a little while. She's been here since three, they said.”

Bess nodded.

He looked at his watch. “Well, that's only seven hours. If I remember right she took thirteen getting here.” He smiled at Bess. “Thirteen of the longest hours of my life.”

“And mine,” Bess added.

He sat down in a chair beside her, found her hand and held it on the hard wooden arms between them, rubbing her thumb absently with his own. They thought about their time apart, their stubbornness that had brought them both nothing but loneliness. They studied their joined hands, each of them grateful that some force outside themselves had brought them here and thrust them back together.

After a while Bess said quietly, “They said the baby is really large, and Lisa might be in for a hard time.”

“So we'll stay, for as long as it takes. How about Stella? Does she know?”

“I called her but she decided to stay home and wait for the news.”

“And Randy?”

“He knew she was in labor before he left. He'll be home tomorrow.”

They waited in the solarium, alternately dozing and waking. Around midnight they went for a walk around the wing, discovering a new shift had come on, gazing into the empty nursery, passing the family lounge, where Jake Padgett was stretched out on the sofa, sound asleep. In the birthing room Hildy was the only one awake. She was sitting in the wooden rocking chair doing cross-stitch and waved at them silently as they paused in the doorway.

Lisa's new nurse came by and introduced herself. Marcie Unger was her name. She went into Lisa's room to check the digital readings, came back out and said, “No change.”

By two o'clock things had picked up. Lisa's contractions were coming every five minutes and the anesthesiologist was called to cut off the epidural.

“Why?” Lisa asked.

“Because if we don't, you won't know when to push.”

The birthing room came to life after that. Those who wanted to witness the birth were asked to don blue scrubs. Marcie Unger stayed beside Lisa every moment and Mark, too, holding Lisa's hand, guiding her through her breathing.

Jake Padgett decided to wait in the family lounge but Hildy, Bess and Michael donned sterile blue scrubs.

For Bess it was a curious sensation, looking up to find only Michael's attractive hazel eyes showing above his blue mask. She felt a momentary current the way she had when she was first falling in love with him. His eyes—stunning beyond all others she'd ever known—still had the power to kick up a reaction deep within her.

His mask billowed as he spoke. “How do you feel?”

“Scared, and not at all sure I want to go in there. How about you?”

“The same.”

“We're just being typical parents. Everything will go fine. I'm sure of it.”

“If I don't faint on the delivery-room floor,” Michael said.

Her eyes crinkled. “Birthing room, and I'm sure you'll do just great.”

“If we don't want to go in there, why are we doing it?” Michael said.

“For Lisa.”

“Oh, that's right. That darned kid asked us to, didn't she?”

The interchange took the edge off their nervousness and left them smiling above their masks. Bess could not resist telling him, “If we're lucky, Michael, this baby will have your eyes.”

He winked one of them and said, “Something tells me everything's going to be lucky from here on out.”

When they entered the birthing room again, Lisa's knees created twin peaks beneath the sheet. The head of her bed was elevated at a 45-degree angle but her eyes were closed as she panted and labored through a contraction, her face glistening with sweat and her cheeks puffing as she breathed.

“I've g . . . got to p . . . push,” she got out between breaths.

“No, not yet,” Marcie Unger said soothingly. “Save your strength.”

“But it's time . . . it's . . . I know it's . . . oh . . . oh . . . oh . . .”

“Keep breathing the way Mark tells you.”

Beside her, Mark said, “Deeply this time, in and out, slow.”

Bess's eyes sought Michael's and saw reflected there the same touch of anguish and helplessness she herself felt.

When the contraction ended, Lisa's eyes opened and found her father's, above the blue mask. “Dad?” she said with a weak smile.

“Hi, honey.” His eyes crinkled with a smile as he moved to her side to squeeze her hand. “I made it.”

“And Mom,” she added in a whisper, searching for and finding her mother's eyes. “You're both here?” She gave a tired smile and closed her eyes while Bess and Michael exchanged another glance that said, This is what she wanted, this is what she set out to do. They took their places on Lisa's left while Mark and his mother stood on her right.

A second nurse appeared, all sterile and masked. “The doctor will be here in a minute,” she said. She looked down into Lisa's face and said, “Hi, Lisa, I'm Ann, and I'm here to take care of the baby as soon as it arrives. I'll measure him, weigh him and bathe him.”

Lisa nodded and Marcie Unger moved to the foot of the bed, where she removed the sheet from Lisa, then the end cushion of the bed itself, before tipping up a pair of footrests. She told Lisa, “These are for your feet if you want them. If not, fine.” On the side rails she adjusted two pieces that looked like bicycle handles with plastic grips, and placed Lisa's left hand on one. “And these are for you to hang onto when you feel like pushing.”

Mark said, “Here comes another one . . . come on, honey, show me that beautiful breathing. Pant, pant, pant, blow . . .”

Lisa moaned with each blow. In the middle of the contraction the doctor swept in, dressed like all the others in blue scrubs and skull cap. She spoke in a feminine voice. “Well, how are things going with Lisa?” Her eyes darted to the vital signs, then she smiled down at her patient.

“Hello, Doctor Lewis,” Lisa said with as much enthusiasm as she could muster. Her voice sounded weak. “Where've you been so long?”

“I've been in touch. Let's see if we can't get this baby into the world and have a look at him. I'm going to break your water, Lisa. After that, everything will happen pretty fast.”

Lisa nodded and rolled a glance at Mark, who held her hand folded over his own, smoothing her fingers.

While Dr. Lewis broke Lisa's water, Michael glanced away. The doctor was giving Lisa a monologue on what she was doing but Lisa made small sounds of distress. Under cover of the doctor's voice, Bess whispered to Michael, “Are you all right?”

He met her eyes and nodded but she could tell he was not, especially when he observed the faint pinkish fluid that ran from Lisa and stained the sheets beneath her. She found his arm and rubbed it lightly while from across the room she caught Hildy watching. Hildy's eyes smiled and the two women, who'd both borne children of their own, exchanged a moment of silent communion.

Lisa's next pushing contraction brought even greater sounds of distress. She cried out, and her body and face quaked as she clasped the handles and tried mightily to push the baby from herself.

The contraction ended with no results, and when it ebbed Bess bent over Lisa and said, “You're doing fine, honey,” worried herself but hiding it. She lovingly wiped Lisa's stringy, wet bangs back form her brow and thought,
Never again, I'll never watch this again!

She straightened to find Michael's eyebrows furrowed with concern, his breath coming fast, luffing his mask in and out.

The next contraction seemed worse than the last and racked Lisa even harder. Her head lifted from the bed, and Bess bolstered her from behind while Michael stared at the swollen shape of the baby's head engaged in the birth canal and repeated along with Mark, “Pant, pant, pant . . . push.”

Still the baby refused to emerge, and Bess glanced at Michael's eyes to find them bright with tears. His tears prompted some of her own and she glanced away, wanting to be strong for Lisa's sake.