Rescue (11 page)

He watched her glance from the corner of the room to the floor to his face. “You can’t do this,” she said. “You’ve been saving
for that land all these years.”

He didn’t remind her that she had let him pay the cop. “Hey, no rules, remember? I can do whatever I want.”

“This isn’t funny, Webster. This is serious.”

“Asking you to marry me was serious.”

She stared at him, then gave a half smile. “So where’s the ring?” she asked.

He pulled the blue jeweler’s box from his pants pocket. He hadn’t wanted her to find it while he was gone. She took it from
him and opened it. It was a small diamond set flat in a gold band.

“Jesus Christ, Webster,” she said. “I was kidding.”

They were married by the minister at the Congregational church where Webster had been confirmed just before he gave up on
religion. The soul was an entity he felt ambivalent about.

Webster’s parents came to the ceremony, along with Burrows and his wife, Karen. Two of Webster’s cousins drove down from the
Northeast Kingdom. No one from Sheila’s side showed up, and it felt to Webster, for a moment during the service, that his
soon-to-be wife was standing on air, as if she might tumble into oblivion for lack of roots. Sheila’s sister, the only relative
who might have made the trip, was near her ninth month of pregnancy and couldn’t travel. Sheila didn’t seem to mind. “I wish
it was just me and you,” she’d said the night before.

She wore a high-waisted black dress, which surprised Webster, who hadn’t been consulted and who’d assumed white. After the
ceremony, when he complimented her on the dress—it was fluid and elegant and made her skin light up—she explained that she’d
wanted to buy a dress she might be able to wear again.

“To your next wedding?” he asked.

She cuffed him with her bouquet, one his mother had picked out.

After the ceremony, the eight celebrants walked in the July sunshine to a wedding luncheon in a private room at the Bear Hollow
Inn. Webster’s cousins, Joshua and Dickie, both of them farmers, had keen senses of humor, which Webster remembered from his
childhood when they’d lived closer. The jokes got Burrows going, and once Burrows had had a few, there was no stopping him.
Webster sat back and stroked Sheila’s arm. He liked seeing his mother laugh to the point of near hysterics. Even Sheila joined
in the conversation when she could, though for minutes at a time she was eerily quiet.

“You OK?” he asked.

When she turned to him, he thought he saw tears forming at the corners of her eyes. He put his elbow on the table to shield
them from the rest of the group. He’d never seen Sheila cry. His face was inches from hers. The tears frightened him.

“What is it?” he asked, taking her hand.

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

Webster thought it might be the loneliness of having no family at the service and was about to say that he was her family
now. He and the bump.

“This is stupid,” she said. “I never do this. I’m just so happy.” She bent her head to his chest, as if embarrassed by emotion.
He wrapped her in his arms. “I never thought this would happen to me,” she said. “Not like this. I don’t deserve you, Webster.”

“Are you shitting me?” he whispered into her ear. Sweet nothings from the bridegroom to the bride. “I’m the one who can’t
believe his luck. You roll your car precisely on my stretch of road, and I just happen to be in service? What are the odds
that the love of my life would do that?”

He felt her laugh.

He pulled a clean handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. If he glanced up, his father, who’d insisted Webster
carry one in his suit pocket, would be smiling. Webster held Sheila until she’d fixed herself up. “I really do love your dress,”
he said, a compliment that allowed him to pat the deliciously round contour of her lap.

“Do I have mascara all over me?” she asked.

He pulled away and scanned her face. “Right eye, just below the outer edge.”

She swept the mark away, gave the handkerchief back to Webster. She lifted the champagne glass she’d been avoiding. The gesture
caught Webster’s mother’s eye.

“Oh, honey, I’ve been waiting this whole time for you to do that.” She and Sheila clinked glasses.

That night Webster and Sheila lay in bed on the first of their three nights of honeymoon. They had chosen to forgo a trip.
Webster was happy enough to be in their bedroom cocoon with the prospect of two more days off. On Monday, they would shop
for a car seat and a crib with the money his parents had given them as a wedding present. Tomorrow he and Sheila would decide
in advance where to put the crib—which tiny part of their already tiny apartment they could carve out as a nursery. But that
night they had no worries and no plans. Webster’s mother, like
the church lady she was, had arranged for the inn to make up two dinners and to save the rest of the cake, all of which she
handed to Sheila when the lunch was over. “A woman doesn’t cook on her wedding night, no matter where she spends it,” his
mother said. Sheila hugged her for the first time.

Webster gave his mother an A+ for trying. She seemed to be their biggest fan. Then again, Sheila had something his mother
wanted: a grandchild to hold.

Webster put his hands on the bump and thought:
This, right now, this is my family
.

Sheila drifted in and out of sleep while Webster held her.

T
hey’re contractions,” Sheila said when Webster opened the door at eight thirty in the morning. He’d had an easy night. Not
too many calls, and nothing serious. “Not too bad.” She was just into her ninth month. She sat at the kitchen table, a glass
of water in front of her, her robe stretched as far as it would go around her belly. She could barely tie the sash. Being
pregnant was sometimes funny.

“Braxton Hicks?” he asked.

“Maybe.”

They’d gone to the classes, even though Webster already knew the drill. He kept it to himself, not wanting to stand between
Sheila and the information she needed to know. He’d delivered an infant his first month as a probie. Burrows said the second-timers
always waited too long. Webster knew about the blood vessels and aorta that twisted into an umbilical cord, the suctioning
and the precious seconds waiting for the baby to pink up, the pointed heads the nurses always covered with caps shortly after
the birth. The nurses said that the caps kept the babies warm. Webster thought it was because their pointed heads were ugly.
He’d never seen a beautiful baby spring right out from the chute. Usually it wasn’t until the infants were a month old, when
the mothers came in to Rescue to thank the medics, that he could attach the word
cute.

He set his radio and belt on the table. He watched as Sheila caved inward and closed her eyes.

He waited until she came back.

“That’s not Braxton,” he said.

“No, probably not.”

“Your water break?”

She nodded.

“When?”

“Around two a.m.”

“Why didn’t you call me?”

Sheila shrugged.

Webster assessed her. He checked his watch and waited for another contraction. It came at four minutes, and this time she
made hard fists to ward off the pain. He squatted in front of her.

“Do you remember about the breathing?” he asked.

“Of course I remember it. I just can’t do it.”

“You did fine in class,” he reminded her.

“Does this look like class?”

“Try to breathe while you’re having the contractions even if it isn’t the way they taught you. Can you get dressed?”

“Probably.”

“We’re going in.”

“To the hospital?”

“You bet,” he said, standing.

“Am I going to be one of those idiots they talked about in class? The woman who goes in too soon and then has to go home?”

“No,” Webster said. “Your water broke. You have to go in.”

She struggled to stand, and he helped her. “I hate it that you know more about this than I do,” she said.

“Why?” he asked. “If this baby comes in the car, it’s me you’re going to want with you.”

They dressed together in the bedroom, Webster unwilling to go into Mercy in his uniform. Sheila wasn’t his patient. She was
his wife, and he was about to become a father. Still, he knew all the things that could go wrong: the breech, the stillbirth,
the cord around the neck. He asked if he could feel her abdomen so that he could locate the baby’s head. “Don’t touch me,”
she snapped when he moved toward her.

He took his utility belt, which had a pair of shears on it. He brought an armload of blankets. He carried her suitcase.

She leaned against the wall, breathless. “You really think it’s coming now?”

“No,” he said.

He helped her down the long flight of outside stairs. Stairs that were treacherous in winter, easy in September. The sun was
up strong, and the leaves were translucent with color. Twenty-two years in Vermont, and it never got old.

Sheila had three hard ones in the car. She pushed one arm against the dashboard, the other against the door. They were coming
fast. He took the cruiser up to sixty, which was all he dared. He never knew when some lost asshole tourist might bolt onto
the highway.

“Oh, God,” she cried and looked at him. “I want to push.”

“Don’t,” Webster said firmly. “Whatever you do, don’t push. Breathe, Sheila. We’re only half a minute out. Do the breathing.
Are you listening to me? Don’t push.”

“I can’t do the fucking breathing.”

Webster wanted his wife on a sterile bed, her legs in stirrups, the attending listening to the fetal monitor.

He watched her cave in to another contraction. Before, as an EMT witnessing a birth, Webster had wanted to know what the pain
was like. Now he was glad that he’d never know it.

Webster skidded into the loading dock, opened the door, and was inside the ER in one motion. He signaled to the first nurse
who looked familiar.

“Mary, your name is Mary, right? My wife wants to push.”

The nurse snagged a stretcher and ran toward the cruiser. She yanked the door open. Sheila, white-faced, lay back against
the seat. “OK, hon,” Mary said. “Everything’s going to be fine. Can you stand?”

Sheila’s legs were wide apart. She shook her head no.

“We’re going to get you out now.”

Webster hooked his arms under Sheila’s armpits, turned her sideways, and pulled. Mary, who was surprisingly strong considering
her small stature, caught the feet. They hoisted Sheila onto the stretcher.

In the ER cubicle, Mary swung the flower-print curtain closed. She and Webster sheeted Sheila onto the bed. Sheila began to
make mewling sounds during the contractions. Mary whipped off the maternity trousers and underpants, spread Sheila’s legs,
and put them into stirrups. Sheila still had on a purple batik maternity top with a peace sign in front.

“Crowning,” Mary said.

Webster stopped himself from saying
Fuck.
He didn’t want to panic his wife.

“Where’s the attending?” he asked.

“ICU.”

Webster swallowed another
fuck.

“The baby’s coming,” Mary said. “You stay up by your wife’s
head and hold her shoulders. You’re here as her husband. She needs you more than I do.”

Mary stepped outside the cubicle to hail a nurse named Julie.

Webster held Sheila by her shoulders and told her that he loved her, that everything was going to be fine. The baby was coming,
and she could push all she wanted.

“Thank you, God,” his wife whimpered.

Her face scrunched up, and a sweat broke. Within seconds, Sheila’s hair was wet. She’d begun to grunt, and the sound spooked
Webster. He’d heard it before, but not from Sheila. He tried to go into EMT mode and make himself calm, but when he felt the
grit in Sheila’s muscles and heard her cries, all his training left him. He was both excited and terrified, as if he’d never
witnessed a birth before.

“Come on, Sheila,” he said into her ear. “One more big push.”

Sheila bore down with everything she had. Then she lost it, arms flailing. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” she cried, and Webster wondered
if it was a sort of prayer.

“Sheila,” Webster said in a firm voice. “Sheila, bear down. A quick one. You got it. You got it. It’ll all be over in a second.
Just do it one more time.”

And then Sheila’s body took over and carried her helplessly along.

Webster knew the moment the baby was out. He held his breath during the seconds of silence that followed.

He heard an infant’s cry. He bowed his head, so grateful.

“OK, Daddy,” Mary said. “You want to cut the cord? You got yourself a beautiful baby girl.”

Webster snapped on a pair of gloves, and Mary gave Webster the sterile shears from a tray. He made a clean snip. While Julie
dealt with the afterbirth, Mary sterilized the nub. She swaddled the baby and handed the infant to Webster. He nudged the
swaddling aside so that he could see all of his daughter’s face.

His daughter
.

Her presence flooded him. He brought the infant to her mother, who had her eyes closed.

“Sheila,” Webster said in a low voice. “I’ve got her. I’ve got our baby. She wants to nurse.”

Sheila woke with a start and held out her arms, which Webster saw were trembling. He helped prop her up. He laid the baby
on her chest, carefully folding Sheila’s arms around their daughter. He knew that Mary was watching.

“Oh my God, she’s beautiful,” Sheila said, as if surprised, and Webster laughed. Sheila looked like hell and so did the newborn.
But he couldn’t hold that thought for long. He was the daddy now. He hovered over both of them.

The baby latched on to a nipple. Sheila looked up at Webster. “Isn’t this where we met?” she asked.

Sheila picked out a Webster family name that she liked: Rowan. Webster cobbled together enough time off to last two weeks.
After he returned to his job, he was given Tour 1. The chief called it a restructuring, but Webster suspected he was giving
him a break. The day shift allowed him to be home with Sheila and the baby by four thirty in the afternoon.