Maternal Harbor (3 page)

Teagan wanted to pinch her.  “You scared the shit out of me over a little varicose vein?”  She reached for the back of Doretta’s arm.

Doretta avoided Teagan’s fingers and tried to rub the spot on her leg.  “That's a good idea.  You can promise me the same thing.”

“
What same thing?”

“
If something should happen to me, you'll take my baby.”

“
You have a perfectly nice mother and a hoard of sisters to rely on.  Don’t pick on me.”

“
My siblings are a bunch of ninnies and my mother will certainly tell my son that he’s a black seed because of my sin.”

“
She will not.”

“
No little boy should ever have to hear that.  Promise?”

Teagan groaned.  “That’s it.  I’m dead.  You can bury me deep and raise my baby.”

She and Doretta laughed together, breaking the tension the way women do, with lighthearted teasing.  However, a pact had been sealed.  Each would care for the other's child no matter what.

The nurse hurried into the lobby and handed Teagan a folded paper.  “Pai wanted me to give you this.”

“How is she?”

“
She and her son are fine.”

A smile touched Teagan’s heart.  Relieved tenderness seeped through her   “Pai has her baby boy.  I’m so glad for her.” 

The nurse smiled.  “Me, too.  She was in labor all night and didn’t realize it.  Happens sometimes with first-time mothers.  They either call with every twinge, or they wait too long.”

“
May I see them?”

“
They're in an ambulance on their way to the hospital.  You may visit them there.”

Teagan slipped the unread paper into her purse.  “My appointment?”

“Doctor Klassen will see you now.”

“
I'll wait,” Doretta said.  “And I'll even buy your lunch as an early payment for raising my son if I croak or something.”

Teagan trudged across the Swedish Medical Center’s skywalk above Tallman Avenue.  Her back ached, boots pinched swollen ankles, and pants crept down until she grabbed onto the waistband to keep them from slipping down to those swollen ankles.  “I can hardly wait till you’re born,” she muttered to her unborn son.

Doretta labored two steps behind, mumbling about the male idiot who located the parking miles from the hospital.  “I hope someday he has to walk on the nubs of his feet,” she said loudly.

“It’s only across the street.”

“
The parking barn is how deep?  We’ve walked down a ramp and over a ramp and then we’ll go down another ramp.”

The south view from the skywalk caught Teagan’s attention and the complaints faded into background noise.  A stiff west wind riled Salmon Bay’s gray surface.  Pleasure boats, white sails puffed out like her belly, skimmed along dodging cargo ships.  A busy harbor was her favorite view, the one she’d grown up with – the one beyond the window.  A chill chased around her shoulders and she walked faster.  “I really have to hurry.  Mac will be in with the catch soon.”

Doretta groaned and quickened her pace.  “You’re always in a hurry.”  But she matched Teagan stride for stride until they finally lumbered through the glass enclosed main lobby and hurried, as best they could, to the Childbirth Center.

At the large viewing window of the nursery, they leaned against the sill and asked to see the Sanders baby.

A nurse held him near the glass.

Teagan’s first close up look at an hour-old infant surprised her, skin red and wrinkled, hair black and long, ears flat, head lopsided, nose pushed down and eyelids tightly closed.  She couldn’t speak for a moment, and then blurted, “He’s so cute, I can’t believe it,”

They mouthed
thank you
to the nurse and ambled down the hallway, glancing into each open door, searching for Pai.  Exhausted new mothers either slept or smiled dreamily.  Teagan envied of their satisfied, noble expressions.  Their babies were born.  They should be proud.  She’d give her best customer free fish for a month to be holding her baby right now.  Instead, she waddled down a hall beside a bitchy friend, feeling bloated and miserable.  Her time would come though.  Was she ready?  Was any woman ever really ready to birth her first child and be the sole provider?

Finally, Pai waved from the bed in the last room.  “I knew you’d find me.”  Her welcoming smile tried to cover what appeared to be fear in her eyes.  Didn’t work.  More than anyone else Teagan knew, Pai’s eyes were windows to her sensitivity.

The growing dependence among the three of them seemed ironic.  In just eight months, the shared trials of pregnancy bonded them like a close-knit family.  The kind she always dreamed of having and never found.  Who would’ve guessed that unborn babies would be the link to fulfilling a need, stretching back to her earliest memories?

Erica passed through Teagan’s mind.  She met her at the same time as Pai and Doretta, but hadn’t warmed up to her; even though, she tried to as they waited for appointments, shared news of the ultrasounds, first movement, size of their bellies, and best buys on maternity smocks.  Somehow, Erica stayed distant.

Odd.

Teagan stepped inside Pai’s room.  “We saw a real cutie in the nursery.  I want to steal him.”

“
You saw Ji Min?  My Jimmy?  Was he all right?”  Pai wound her graceful fingers tightly in a fold of her blanket.

“
Black hair.  Cute nose.  Spitting image of you.  He looks just fine, so relax.”

Doretta plopped on the foot of the bed.  “Gawd, you’re skinny.”

Pai gently massaged her flaccid tummy.  “It feels empty, like part of me is gone.”

“
I can’t wait.”  Doretta maneuvered her bulky girth around until she settled into a more comfortable lean, and then looked down her nose at Pai.  “I expected a great show of Asian calm, but you raised the roof at the clinic.  It’ll be talked about for years.”

“
We aren’t calm, we’re
polite
.  Something you apparently know nothing about.”

Doretta’s brilliant smile broke.  “
Touché.”

Pai tried to smile, but it barely touched her lips.  She reached to clasp Teagan’s arm.  “I need to tell you something.”

Teagan stepped closer and took Pai’s outstretched hand.  “What’s the matter?”

“
I was nursing Jimmy for the first time and Erica just showed up.”  The accented words ran together. 

Teagan leaned forward.  “Slow down and just tell me what happened.” 

“I don’t know, but something.  It was like she was
too
glad to see Jimmy.  Her eyes were too blue.”

A swift image of Erica crossed Teagan’s mind.  “How can eyes be too blue?”

“You tell me.  But it seemed like someone else looked through them.”  Pai shivered and recoiled under her blanket.  “I don’t want anyone looking at my Jimmy like that.  Did the nurse give you the paper?”

Teagan squeezed Pai’s hand, trying to convey understanding even if she didn’t.  “It’s in my purse, but you and Jimmy are fine.  Duffy will be home soon and you’ll feel safe again.”

“Man,” Doretta said, “you guys are grim.  Erica’s okay.  She’s just a little different, like we all are.  She’s probably just glad one of us finally had a baby.”

Teagan picked up on Doretta’s note of reassurance.  “Yeah, I bet my eyes lit right up when I saw Jimmy.  He’s way cute.”

Doretta slid from the bed and waddled to the door.  “Come on, Teagan.  Grouchy Pai needs to sleep and I’m starving.”

“
I really have to go to the pier.”

“
You work too damn hard.”  Doretta disappeared into the hall.

At the door, Teagan couldn’t help taking one last check.  Pai rested on her side, eyes closed; the rich hues of her skin were faded by fatigue – and what else?  Fear?  Maybe.

The source was unknown, but Pai’s anxiety remained real and powerful.

A salt breeze freshened across Salmon Bay.  Gulls wheeled greedily under the drizzling overcast and several sea lions loafed on floating debris.  Teagan shielded her eyes from a light rain.

There.  Mac’s new trawler sliced through the restless waters.  With its outriggers tucked back and a white fiberglass hull, it resembled an ordinary pleasure craft, instead of a small working vessel.

The trawler glided into the slip, and Mac cut the engine.  A yellow rain slicker, hooded and tent-like, covered his grizzly frame.  What could be seen of his face appeared etched with weariness.  Her childhood protector was aging and she wondered how to deal with his stubborn denial of the fact.

“I see you finally christened her,” she called.  “But why the name
Albina
?”

Mac tossed a mooring line.  “Cause the damn
white
belly of this tub scares the red out of every salmon in these waters.  Fish figure we’re the Great White.”

Of course, his explanation sounded perfectly reasonable, same as they always did ever since he found her roaming the wharfs.  She had been a gangly girl of four when he tucked her under his fin and taught her to stay out of the way of the fishermen while they worked; and he allowed her to feel part of them.  She remembered their first meeting as though it were yesterday.  She had been sitting on the edge of the pier, dangling her feet over the edge, just staring at the water or the sky, not seeing anything in particular, simply absorbing the new and usual sights and smells.

Mac had dropped down beside her and gazed out over the water.  “Right pretty, ain’t it?”

“
I promised Lolita not to talk to anyone.”

“
She is right.  But if you are going to hang around the pier, you need someone to keep an eye on you.  Take me to meet this Lolita.”

Teagan had ginned at him.  “She won’t like it.”

“So be it.”

He had taken her side before she even knew she had a side and he became a surrogate grandfather.  To hide the sudden emotion, Teagan quickly tied the line to an iron cleat cemented in the pier.  Composed, she set her hands on her hips, tossed her hair and challenged, “If the salmon are afraid, what will my customers eat?” 

“Cod, tuna, and some sea bass.  They ain’t scared of nothing.”

Breath rasping, Mac lugged ice-filled crates onto the dock and set them down near her feet, seeking her approval.

She brushed away the top layer of ice.

“
Don’t matter how picky you are, those fish won’t turn handsome until they’re cooked with dry wine.”  His words held a tremor leftover from his breathing harder than she remembered.

Teagan covered a sudden, overwhelming concern by hefting a huge cod by the gills.  Its slippery skin gleamed gray and white.  “Bet this one charmed the ladies.”  She batted her eyes at the weather-beaten fisherman, who preferred beefsteak and ale.  His droopy jowls and red-veined nose said so.  “You shoulda been eating your fish the last fifty years.”

“Catching and eating are two separate things.”

Teagan bent to lift a crate.

“Put that down!  No lady in your shape lifts anything heavy when I’m around.”

“
Nothing wrong with my shape, Mac.  It’s just a baby tucked inside.”  He struggled with her unmarried state.  So did Teagan’s mother.  Occasionally, so did Teagan.  Single parenthood was never part of her plan.

“
Why don’t you marry me?  Then you could legally smack me around about what I eat.”  His sky blue eyes lit with merriment.  “Aha, shocked you, huh?  Better yet, let me adopt you.”

“
Mac, Mac.  What am I to do with you?  I need fish for the shop, not your name.  My boy will be an O’Riley, same as I am.” 

Mac lifted one crate on top of the other, hefted them up and trudged toward her pickup; his rubber boots whopped against the cement pier, and his wet slicker squeaked.  Each day he seemed older, more bent against the weight of the crates.

Teagan dreaded the day he grew too old to fish.  He’d be lost.  Without him, she’d be lost.  “You should think about hiring a helper.”

“
Long as I can carry these crates, I work alone.  And you know dang well I bought a smaller boat so I didn’t have to listen to some lazy kid bitching about hard work.”

She felt weak compared to his ageless determination.  Was she strong enough to do what faced her?  The never-ending problems at the shop required toughness, but raising a son alone would take more.  The anticipated responsibility lay heavy.  What kept her aged partner going?  Teagan possessed plenty of the same kind of stubborn grit, worked hard and didn’t cry too much over unfairness; but she would also need a soft maternal side.  Both tenancies fought each other.  Somehow, she’d learn to join the two and not cover up with crustiness as hard as barnacles on a hull; her breast had to soften.

After Mac loaded the crates into the long bed of her four-door pickup and covered them with a tarp, he leaned against the tailgate.  “Next time, send that ornery landlubber that works for you.  He can haul these crates.  Put some muscle back in his skinny hide.”

“
Did I just hear you admit to needing help?”

“
No.  You do.”  He shoved away from the pickup and lumbered back toward his trawler, with shoulders squared and head held at a cocky slant, arms swinging, daring anyone to question his ability.

Teagan sighed.  “Pete says you’re one mean old salt, and he isn’t coming near except when I’m in the hospital.”

“Suits me.”  His words carried over his shoulder.

Mac was stubborn.

Teagan worked the pickup around several stacks of unloaded containers.  Ahead, a black Blazer pulled from behind a warehouse on the right.  “Sheesh,” she muttered.  “There’s another one.”  It reminded her of the one at the clinic.  Fresh off the lot and not yet licensed.

“
Flip, Teagan.  You’re becoming as paranoid as Pai.”

But her senses were heightened and she tracked the Blazer until it pulled right onto Emerson and disappeared into traffic.