Wings of Glass (7 page)

“Really?” I asked, surprised. “You know how to do that?”

Callie Mae shook her head. “This isn’t the boondocks, ladies. We do have hospitals here.”

Fatimah shrugged as if she couldn’t care less what anyone thought. I wanted so badly to have that kind of confidence.

Callie Mae set down what was left of her sandwich. “And how many of those babies died, Doctor Fati?”

Fatimah huffed. “I lost only three babies in two years.”

Callie Mae nodded. “Oh, only three?” She turned to me. “And, Penny, you’re willing to risk your child’s life? Ninety-seven percent odds good enough for you?”

My head was spinning with numbers and options. “I don’t have health insurance.” I didn’t like the idea of taking any kind of chance with your life, of course, but my options seemed limited. Fatimah at least knew what she was doing, which was better than leaving myself in Trent’s hands. He’d never delivered anything other than a litter of kittens and a stillborn calf.

Sitting back, Callie Mae crossed her arms. “And how many of the mothers did you lose, hmm?”

“Only two,” Callie Mae said proudly. “One from blood. One from the infection.” She looked to the side and twisted her mouth as though the memory tasted bad. “Her husband would not wait like I told him to. He was a filthy hog.”

It took me a second to get what she was saying. “That’s disgusting,” I finally said. I stirred the straw around my soda, looking at it instead of them. “How long do you have to wait?” There was so much I didn’t know about taking care of you, Manny, and it terrified me.

“A month at least.” Fatimah used her fingers this time to pluck out another ice cube from her glass. “Two is better.” She popped the cube into her mouth and crunched away.

Callie Mae raised her hand in the waiter’s direction and mouthed she was ready for the check before turning back to us. “You’re both going to the clinic right after we leave here. My cousin is the office manager. I’ll ask her to fit you in.
They work on a sliding scale, so it shouldn’t cost much at all. I’ll ask Michelle to clean your last house, which frees up the afternoon.”

“You will not give my work away. That is food from my mouth!” Fatimah said.

Callie Mae wagged a finger at her. “Yes, I certainly will, Miss Thing. You’ll just have to take one of her houses tomorrow.”

Fatimah huffed and mumbled something in her native language that didn’t sound very nice.

The tension made my stomach tight, but Callie Mae was content enough with the outcome to eat the last few bites of her sandwich. “You may get to see the baby on the ultrasound we talked about.” She wasn’t looking at either one of us, but since I knew she hadn’t talked to me about any ultrasound, I figured she must be speaking to Fatimah.

“I will see the baby?” Fatimah grinned. “Seeing a baby inside his mother. Imagine!”

“I thought they didn’t do that until you were further along,” I said.

Callie Mae gave me a look that made it clear I was to shush.

Picking up the check the waiter had set down, she threw me a glance. “And you, Penny, should get to hear your baby’s heartbeat.”

I smiled, overjoyed with the fact I was going to be seeing a doctor and even more that I might actually hear your heart beating. “I want to see the doctor,” I said, hoping I didn’t make Fatimah mad. “I want to do everything I can for her—or him.”

“I know you do,” Callie Mae said. “And you will.”

THE DOCTOR
squeezed in a quick visit with me for Callie Mae’s sake in exchange for a promise I would set up an appointment for a full workup before I left. Fatimah got cold feet at the last minute and, despite Callie Mae’s threats and pleading, insisted she could and would doctor herself just fine. When she plugged a finger in each ear and started making a loud whooping sound, Callie Mae got embarrassed enough to let it go.

The doctor squirted cold jelly on my stomach and kept sliding what she called a Doppler farther and farther down until I blushed; then she slid it back up, stopped several inches below my belly button, and smiled at the steady
whoosh-whoosh
sound she located. “That’s the baby’s heartbeat.”

I closed my eyes and listened. I couldn’t believe that was your little heart beating inside of me. It made it all so real, so wonderful, and so scary.

All I could think of as I drove home to Trent was that
we were going to have a Christmas baby! Of course we both know now it didn’t work out quite that way. I drove home to your father, wanting to get there as fast as I could. It seemed like that fifteen-minute ride was two hours long. Finally, I pulled into the driveway. Carrying a glossy black-and-white picture of a blob the doctor assured me was you, I raced toward the house.

When I opened the door, I knew right away he was drunk. There he sat, as usual, slouching on the couch with his eyes drooping into those telltale slits. The television was blaring, and there were half a dozen crushed beer cans at his feet, along with an empty whiskey bottle.

The last thing I would have done is left that man alone with hard alcohol, so I knew one of his buddies or girlfriends had been over to supply him.

His hair stuck straight up like a lunatic’s, and his white T-shirt had a mustard stain smeared across the shoulder like he had wiped his mouth on it, which, knowing him, he probably had.

With one arm draped over the back of the couch, he turned toward the door and belched. It was all I could do not to run to the bathroom and get sick again.

“Well, well, Mrs. Taylor. You finally decided to carry yourself home,” he slurred in my direction.

I could smell the booze and cigarette smoke clear across the room. So much for not smoking in the house. The good news about your due date would have to wait until I had time to assess his mood. Trent could be a mean drunk just
as soon as a friendly one. Only time and conversation would tell which way the wind blew that day.

“I see you’ve been busy.” I made my way to the beer cans and started plucking them off the floor. When I picked up that glass whiskey bottle, I’m not proud to admit it, but the thought of smashing him over the head with it did cross my mind.

He wiped his forearm across his mouth. “You don’t have a pair of lips for your loving husband?”

I exhaled. Happy drunk today.
Thank you, Jesus.
“Hi, baby.” With my hands full of cans, I leaned down. Holding my breath, I kissed his scruffy cheek. He’d had so much to drink he was actually sweating alcohol. I wanted to fuss at him and tell him every six-pack he slammed down was a pack of diapers we could have bought. But he was happy, and so I was going to pretend to be happy too. Nothing mattered now except you, Manny. Over the following months it would be a constant battle to remember that around your father.

“I’m so hungry I could eat the butt end of a hobby horse,” he said, making the whole sentence sound like one long word.

I took the cans and bottle to the kitchen and let them clank down into an already-full trash can. I knew Trent couldn’t see, but the garbage can was right outside the back door. Surely if he could feel his way to the fridge to get a beer, he could find his way out there to empty the trash. How badly I wanted to say his loss of vision was not an excuse to lie around the house and do nothing. Why was it when he had worked I was expected to have the house clean and
dinner made, but now that the shoe was on the other foot, he couldn’t even be bothered to pick up his own filth?

“What are we having?” He pointed the remote at the TV, let out another belch, and kicked his feet onto the cocktail table.

You don’t know how much I wanted to leave right then. Let him worry about his own stinking dinner and deal with the cockroaches sure to take over the place if I wasn’t there to clean. But what kind of woman would leave her blind husband?

Rummaging through the cabinets, I eyed the stack of dirty dishes in the sink and called back to him. “What do you feel like?”

Something slid across my waist and I screamed. I hadn’t heard him come into the kitchen, but there he was, puffing his beer breath onto my neck. Apparently, he was getting around the house on his own pretty good. Just not enough to find his way to the trash can or kitchen sink.

“Dag, One Cent, why are you hollering? You tryin’ to wake the dead?”

Stumbling backward, he grabbed onto my shoulder for support. The weight of him almost knocked me over. I hadn’t realized my nausea had subsided until it came back.

“I was just coming in here to tell you I know what I’m in the mood for.” He leaned in to kiss me, but I turned so he caught my ear. This didn’t deter him one bit. He just started grabbing at me.

Just coming from the doctor, I was in no mood to be groped. “Baby, leave me be so I can fix you some supper.”

The familiar crease had found its way between his thick eyebrows, which told me a rant was finding its way to his lips. I backed away.

“This job of yours has got you so high-and-mighty now you don’t even want your own man. What, are you turning gay now?”

I sighed and grabbed the washcloth off the faucet. “Come on, don’t start. I love you. I don’t want no one but you.”
No one, including you,
I thought. “I’m just tired, is all.”

He slapped the air, maybe intending to hit me, maybe not. He was too drunk and sloppy for me to tell which. “If this job is going to make you too tired to—”

“It’s not the job making me tired. It’s your baby growing inside of me.”

“So now it’s my fault?”

I wet the rag and wrung it, then wiped the counter crumbs into the sink. While he stumbled back into the counter, trying to play it off like he meant to lean there instead of fall, I walked over to the freezer and yanked out a pack of hot dogs. If he wanted something better, let him cook it himself. “I saw a doctor today.”

“We got a money tree growing out back now?”

I had gotten good at rolling my eyes, now that he couldn’t see me. I wondered if he would like me asking that same question about his eye doctor’s visits if his job wasn’t picking up the tab.

I slapped the hot dogs on the counter and grabbed a knife out of the drawer. “It only cost me five dollars. They work on
a sliding scale. Since I don’t make much, they don’t charge much.” On the way home I’d prepared myself in case he started on the “Taylors ain’t no charity case” thing again. The way I figured it, a sliding scale arrangement wasn’t charity. It was just an even playing field for a change. I was prepared to put my foot down if he tried to insist I couldn’t go back, but my fears turned out to be unfounded.

“What did he say? It’s a boy, ain’t it?” Your father’s ignorance didn’t seem to bother me when I wasn’t pregnant, but now that I was, it plucked my last nerve.

Pressing the tip of the knife through plastic, I worked four hot dogs away from the others. “They can’t tell until I’m further along.”

“What’d they tell you? Is he okay? Are
you
okay?”

Something told me to look at him, and I did. The expression on his face knocked the chip right off my shoulder. He cared if you were okay. Even more surprising, he cared if I was.

I went to him and told him all about what I saw on the ultrasound. The blob I thought was you, but turned out to be just my bladder, your strong little heartbeat, and saving the best for last, I asked him if he wanted to sit down for the most exciting news of all.

“Twins?” he asked wide eyed as I led him to the table and pulled out a chair.

I laughed. “No, thank goodness.” I waited for him to sit. “I’m further along than we thought. She’s due on Christmas day.”

His mouth dropped open. “He is?”

I stood there in silence a moment as I let him collect his thoughts.

Finally, he snapped out of whatever place in his mind he’d been visiting and shook his head. “Christmas day? This is a sign, Penny.”

“A sign of what?” I sat beside him, giving him my full attention.

His words were still slurred, but even so, there seemed to be a soberness about him I hadn’t seen in years. He pulled his pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket, then realized what he was doing and put it away again. “I’ve been thinking today that maybe God striking me blind was his way of punishing me for the way I’ve been treating you.” He paused. “And I told God I was sorry.” He gently squeezed my hand. “I meant it, too. And now I find out we’re having a baby, and on Christmas day?”

He shook his head at the ceiling. “Don’t you get it? This is God’s gift to me. His reward.”

I’d never heard your father talk about God except to complain about all the things he thought God should be doing for him, but wasn’t. I had no earthly idea if any of this was a gift to Trent, but it was definitely one to me. I’d been praying for your father’s soul since the day I’d married him, and I had begun to give up hope. It was so overwhelming, I began to cry.

Trent wrapped his arms around me and kissed my tears in a way I’d only seen men do in movies.
Whose life is this?
I wondered as he kissed my face and promised that, from this day forward, he was going to be the man I deserved.

THE NEXT MORNING,
I awoke feeling like I hadn’t slept in weeks. After showering and throwing my damp hair into a ponytail, I dragged myself to the kitchen to fix Trent’s lunch so he would have something to eat when I was at work. To my astonishment, he was already up making breakfast. The smell of coffee and frying eggs hung in the air.

With the spatula in one hand, he turned his head as if he could see me. “Good morning, mother of my child.”

“Good morning,” I practically stuttered, coming closer to see what exactly was in the pan. Bits of white shell swam among yellow slime. I almost said something, but stopped myself in time. Hadn’t I just complained he wasn’t making an effort to do anything around the house?

He used a metal spoon to stir the eggs and put scratches in a Teflon surface I’d been babying with wood and plastic for five years. “When I woke up this morning, I could see light.”

My heart stopped. “You can see?”

“Nothing but smudges of light, but the doctor said if my sight was going to return, that’s how it would start.”

“That’s great news,” I said with as much enthusiasm as I could muster. “You’ll be back to normal in no time.” No time soon, I hoped.

“I fixed your lunch,” he said proudly. “It’s in the fridge. Bologna and cheese.”

“Wow, baby,” was all I could say, wondering how in the world he would know when the eggs were done when his vision was nothing but a blur of color.

“You might notice that a little piece of the meat on your sandwich has a bite taken out of it. It’s how I checked to be sure what I was making you.”

He scooped up a spoonful of egg and brought it to his mouth. After knocking off the steam with his breath, he ventured a taste. “A little runny, just the way you like them.”

I didn’t like eggs at all, never had. On the rare occasion when I actually did eat them, they had to be bone dry. But, again, he was making an effort and I didn’t want to discourage that.

Throwing a glance at my watch, I said, “Baby, sit down and let me serve us up.” I only had fifteen minutes to make it out the door, so I didn’t really have time for him to painstakingly feel his way around in search of dishes. Thankfully, he turned the stove off and made his way to the table.

Swallowing back the nausea, I forced down a few bites of runny eggs mixed with crunchy shells.

He took his first bite, made a face, and picked a piece of
white from his mouth. “Guess I need a little practice.” He set the debris on his plate and pushed it away.

“They’re delicious,” I said. “Listen, I’ll clean up when I get home, but I really have to get going or I’m going to be late.”

“Wait a minute, Penny. There’s something I want to talk to you about. I want us to start going to church. I don’t want my child to grow up a heathen like his old man.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Church?” Callie Mae had been begging me to come back to Sheckle Baptist. It was going to feel so good to finally say yes. Knowing how Trent’s ego worked, I didn’t want to act too eager, though. He had to feel like he was laying down the law and I was submitting. “I guess you have a point.”

“Daggone skippy, I do.”

“This Sunday?” I was so happy I’d forgotten all about my nausea and fatigue. I couldn’t wait to get to work and tell Fatimah we would be joining her family and Callie Mae this Sunday.

“No, next Christmas,” he said, looking annoyed.

“Service starts at ten,” I said.

“No, it don’t, neither. I called myself. It’s eleven o’clock sharp.”

Setting my fork down, I looked at my watch again. I really needed to get going. “You called where?”

“I can’t remember the name of it. Beginnings something. You’ve seen it. We pass by it every time we go to the Piggly Wiggly.”

I did remember the church he was talking about—New
Beginnings. A mid-sized, warehouse-looking building with a lot of fancy cars parked out front. I’d never been inside, but it looked nice enough.

Callie Mae would be disappointed, but at least we were going to church. Another miracle among a string of many lately. “Okay, eleven o’clock it is.” I walked over and kissed him, then picked up his plate along with mine, and set both on the counter. “How did you pick out that place, anyway?”

He slid his hand under his T-shirt and scratched his belly. “I called 411 and asked them to pick out a Christian church within ten miles of us, and that’s the name she gave me.”

I doubted he prayed before he’d done that, but the last thing I was going to do was ask. At least we were going.

Grabbing the lunch he’d made me from the fridge, I said, “See you tonight. Thanks for breakfast and lunch.”

“Don’t be late,” was his reply.