Laura put her foot to the accelerator and sped past the exit.
At the Hillandale Apartments, Laura cruised around the building where C. Jannsen lived, looking for Doug’s car in a parking slot. There wasn’t a Mercedes in sight, only the low-slung, jazzy sports cars of younger people. Laura found an empty space just down from the building, and she pulled into it to wait. He’s not here and he’s not coming, she thought. He left before I did. If he was coming here, he’d be here already. He went to work, just as he said. He really did go to work. Relief rushed through her, so strong she almost put her head against the steering wheel and sobbed.
Lights brushed past the car. Laura looked behind her and to the right as the Mercedes moved by like a shark on the prowl. Her breath snagged on a soft gasp. The Mercedes pulled into a parking space eleven cars away from Laura. She watched as the lights were switched off and a man got out. He began to walk toward C. Jannsen’s building. It was a walk Laura recognized instantly, sort of a half-shamble, half-strut. In Doug’s hand was no longer the briefcase, but a six-pack of beer.
He’d stopped at a package store, she realized, and that was why she’d gotten there first. Rage flared within her; she could taste it in her mouth, a burnt taste like the smell of lighter fluid on charcoals. Her fingers were squeezed around the wheel so hard the veins were standing up in relief on the backs of her hands. Doug was on his way to see his girlfriend, and he was swinging the six-pack like an excited schoolboy. Laura reached for the door’s handle and popped the door open. She wasn’t going to let him get to that apartment thinking he’d pulled another one over on his dimwitted, compliant wife. Hell, no! She was going to fall on him like a sack of concrete on a slug, and when she was through with him, C. Jannsen would need a pooper-scooper to scrape him up.
She stood up, her face flaming with anger.
Her water broke.
The warm fluid flooded between her thighs and down her legs. The shock registered in her mind by the time the fluid reached her knees. What she’d been experiencing as back pain and occasional cramping all day long had been the first stage of labor.
Her baby was about to be born.
She watched Doug turn a corner, and he went out of sight.
Laura stood there for a moment, her panties drenched and the first real contraction beginning to build. The pressure soared into the realm of pain like a powerful hand squeezing a deep bruise, and Laura closed her eyes as the contraction’s pain slowly swelled to its zenith and then began to subside. Tears rolled down her cheeks. Time the contractions, she thought. Look at your watch, stupid! She got back into the BMW and checked her watch by the courtesy light. The next contraction began to build within eight minutes, and its force made her clench her teeth.
She could not stay there much longer. Doug had someone. She was on her own.
She started the engine, backed out of the parking slot, and drove away from her husband and the Hillandale Apartments.
Two contractions later Laura pulled off the expressway and stopped at a gas station to use the phone. She called Dr. Bonnart, reached his answering service, and was told he’d be paged by his beeper. She waited, gripping the telephone as another contraction pulsed through her, sending pain rippling up her back and down her legs. Then Dr. Bonnart came on the line, listened as she told him what was happening, and he said she should get to St. James Hospital as soon as she could. “See you and Doug there,” Dr. Bonnart told her, and he hung up.
The hospital was a large white building in a parklike setting in northeast Atlanta. By the time Laura had done the paperwork in Emergency Admitting and was moved into the LDR room, Dr. Steven Bonnart showed up in a tuxedo. She told him he hadn’t needed to dress for the occasion. Formal dinner party for the hospital’s new director, he explained as he watched the monitor that fed out a display of Laura’s contractions. Wasn’t much of a party anyway, he said, because everybody there wore beepers and the place sounded like a roomful of crickets.
“Where’s Doug?” Dr. Bonnart asked as Laura had known he would.
“Doug’s…not able to be here,” she answered.
Dr. Bonnart stared at her for a few seconds through his round tortoiseshell glasses, and then he gave directions to one of the nurses and he left LDR to get changed and scrubbed.
A Demerol drip was inserted into the back of Laura’s hand with a sharp little stab. She was in a green hospital gown with an elastic belt around her waist that fed wires to the monitor, and she sat up on a table with her weight bent forward. The smell of medicine and disinfectant drifted into her nostrils. The nurses were fast and efficient, and they made chatty small talk with Laura but she had trouble concentrating on what they were saying. Everything was becoming a blur of sound and movement, and she watched the monitor’s screen blip as the contractions built inside her, swelled and cramped, and finally ebbed again until the next one. One of the nurses began talking about a new car she’d just bought. Bright red, she said. Always wanted a bright red car. “Easy breaths,” one of the others told Laura, laying her hand on Laura’s shoulder. “Just like they taught you in class.” Laura’s heart was beating hard, and that showed up in erratic spikes on another monitor. The contractions were like trapped thunder; they shook through her body and foretold a storm. “First child?” the nurse with the red car asked as she looked at Laura’s chart. “My goodness, my goodness.”
Dr. Bonnart reappeared, green-gowned and professional, and he parted Laura’s legs to check her dilation. “You’re working on it,” he told her. “Still have a ways to go yet. Hurting much?”
“Yes. A little.” Did apples hurt when they got cored? “Yes, it’s hurting.”
“Okay.” He gave directions to Red Car about ceecee something, and Laura thought, Time for the big needle, huh? Dr. Bonnart went to a table and came back with a small item that resembled a spring in a ballpoint pen, a wire trailing from it to a high-tech white machine. “A little invasion,” he said with a quick smile, and he reached up into her with his gloved fingers. The spring-looking thing was an internal fetal monitor, she knew that from her class. Dr. Bonnart found the baby’s head, and he slid the device under the flesh. The high-tech machine began to put out a ticker tape of David’s heartbeat and vital signs. Laura felt a scraping at her lower back. The nurse was preparing her for the epidural. At least she wouldn’t have to look at the needle. The force of the contractions was powerful now, like a fist beating at a bruise on her spine. “Breathe easy, breathe easy,” someone urged. “Little sting now,” Dr. Bonnart told her, and she felt the needle go in.
A little sting for him, maybe. The wasps were bigger where she came from. Then it was over and the needle was out, and Laura felt the skin on her lower back prickle. Dr. Bonnart checked the progress of her dilation once more, then he checked the ticker tape and her own signs. In another moment she thought she could taste medicine in her mouth, and she hoped the epidural worked because the contractions were fierce now and she felt sweat on her face. Red Car mopped her brow and gave her a smile. “All that waiting for this,” the nurse said. “Amazing how it happens, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.” Oh, it’s hurting. Oh God, it really does hurt now! She could feel her body, straining open like a flower.
“When it’s time, it’s time,” the nurse went on. “When a baby wants to come out, he lets you know about it.”
“Tell him that,” Laura managed to say, and the nurses and Dr. Bonnart laughed.
“Hang in there,” Dr. Bonnart told her, and he left the room. Laura had a moment of panic. Where was he going? What if the baby came right this minute? Her heartbeat jumped on the monitor, and one of the nurses held her hand. The pressure built within her to what seemed like a point of sure explosion. She feared she might rip open like an overripe melon, and she felt tears burn her eyes. But then the pressure faded again, and Laura could hear her own quick, raspy breathing. “Easy, easy,” the nurse advised. “Thursday’s child has far to go.”
“What?”
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p; “Thursday’s child. You know. The old saying. Thursday’s child has far to go.” The nurse glanced up at a clock on the wall. It was almost nine-fifteen. “But he might wait until Friday, and then he’ll be fair of face.”
“Full of grace,” Red Car said.
“No, Friday is fair of face,” the other contended. “Saturday is full of grace.”
This line of argument was not Laura’s primary concern. The contractions continued to build, pound within her like waves on rugged rocks, and ebb again. They were still painful, but not so much so. The epidural had kicked in, thank God, only the ceecee was not strong enough to mask all sensation. The pain was lessened, but the fist-on-bruise pressure was just as bad. At just after nine-thirty, Dr. Bonnart came into the room again and checked everything. “Coming along fine,” he said. “Laura, can you give us a little push now?”
She did. Or tried, at least. Going to split open, she thought. Oh, Jesus! Breathe, breathe! How come everything had been so neat and orderly in class and here it was like a VCR tape running at superfast speed?
“Push again. Little harder this time, okay?”
She tried once more. It was clear to her that this was not going to be as simple as the classes had outlined. She could see Carol’s face in her mind. Too late now, toots, Carol would say.
“Push, Laura. Let’s see the top of his head.”
Another face came into her mind, behind her closed eyelids as she strained and the pressure swelled at her center. Doug’s face, and his voice saying The end of just us. The end of Doug and Laura. She saw the Hillandale Apartments in her mind, and Doug’s car sliding into the parking space. She saw him walking away from her, carrying a six-pack of beer. The end of just us. The end.
“Push, Laura. Push.”
She heard herself make a soft moan. The pressure was too much, it was killing her. David had hold of her guts, and he didn’t want to let go. Still she tried, her body quivering, and she saw Doug walking away on the shadowfield of her mind. Walking away, farther and farther away. A distant person, becoming more of a stranger with every step. Her cry grew louder. Something broke inside her; not David’s grip, but at a deeper level. She gritted her teeth and felt the warm tears streaking down her cheeks, and she knew it was over with Doug.
“There, there,” Red Car said, and mopped her cheeks. “You’re doing just fine, don’t you worry about a thing.”
“All right, take it easy.” Dr. Bonnart patted her shoulder in a fatherly fashion, though he was about three or four years younger than she. “We’ve got the top of his head showing, but we’re not quite ready. Relax now, just relax.”
Laura concentrated on getting her breathing regulated. She stared at the wall as Red Car mopped her face, and the time alternately speeded up and crawled past on the clock, a trick of wishes and nerves. At ten o’clock, Dr. Bonnart asked her to start pushing again. “Harder. Keep going, Laura. Harder,” he instructed her, and she gripped Red Car’s hand so tightly she thought she might snap the woman’s sturdy fingers. “Breathe and push, breathe and push.”
Laura was trying her hardest. The pressure between her legs and in the small of her back was a symphony of excruciation. “There you go, doing fine,” another nurse said, looking over Red Car’s shoulder. Laura trembled, her muscles spasming. Surely she couldn’t do this by herself; surely there was a machine that did this for you. But there was not, and surrounded by monitors and high-tech equipment, Laura was on her own. She breathed and pushed, breathed and pushed as she gripped Red Car’s hand and the sweat was blotted from her cheeks and Dr. Bonnart kept encouraging her to greater effort.
Finally, at almost twenty to eleven, Dr. Bonnart said, “All right, ladies, let’s take Mrs. Clayborne in.”
Laura was helped onto a gurney, with what felt like a fleshy cannonball jammed between her thighs, and she was rolled into another room. This one had green tiles on the walls and a stainless steel table with stirrups, a bank of high-wattage lights aimed down from the ceiling. A nurse covered the table with green cloth, and Laura was positioned on the table on her back, her feet up in the stirrups. Light gleamed off a tray of instruments that might have found a use during the Inquisition, and Laura quickly averted her gaze from them. She was already feeling exhausted, with about as much strength as a wrung-out washrag, but she knew the most strenuous part of the birthing process still lay ahead. Dr. Bonnart sat on a stool at the end of the table, the tray of instruments close at hand. As he examined her and the position of the baby inside her, he actually began to whistle. “I know that song,” one of the nurses said. “I heard it on the radio this afternoon. You hear it and it really gets in your mind, doesn’t it?”
“Guns and Roses,” Dr. Bonnart said. “My son loves ’em. He walks around wearing a baseball cap turned backward, and he’s been talking about getting tattoos.” He shifted the position of his fingers. Laura felt him prodding around inside her, but she was as numb down there as if she were stuffed with wet cotton. “I told him one tattoo and I’d break his neck. Could you lift your hips just a bit, Laura? Yes, that’s fine.”
Red Car turned on a videotape camera on a tripod, its lens aimed between Laura’s legs. “Here we go, Laura,” Dr. Bonnart said as the other nurse put a fresh pair of surgical gloves on his hands. “You ready to do a little work?”
“I’m ready.” Ready or not, she thought, she would have to do it.
The nurse tied a surgical mask over Dr. Bonnart’s nose and mouth. “Okay,” he said, “let’s get it done.” He sat down on the stool again, Laura’s gown folded back over her knees. “I want you to start pushing, Laura. Push until I say stop, and then rest for a few seconds. He’s crowning very nicely, and I believe he wants to come on out and join us, but you’re going to have to give him a shove. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“All right. Start pushing right now.”
She began. Damned if she didn’t have that Guns and Roses tune snagged in her brain.
“Push, push. Relax. Push, push.” A cloth mopped her face. Breathing hard. David wasn’t coming out. Why wasn’t he coming out? “Push, push. That’s good, Laura, very good.” She heard the silvery click of an instrument at work, but she could feel only a slight tugging. “Push, Laura. Keep pushing, he wants to come out.”
“Doing just fine,” Red Car told her, and squeezed her hand.
“He’s stuck,” Laura heard herself say; a stupid thing. Dr. Bonnart told her to keep pushing, and she closed her eyes and clenched her teeth and did what he said, her thighs trembling with the effort.
Near eleven-ten, Laura thought she felt David begin to squeeze out. It was a movement of maybe an inch or two, but it thrilled her. She was wet with sweat and her hair was damp around her shoulders. It amazed her that anybody had ever been born. She pushed until she thought her muscles would give out, then she rested for a little while and pushed again. Her thighs and back rippled with cramps. “Oh, Jesus!” she whispered, her body strained and weary.
“You’re doing great,” Dr. Bonnart said. “Keep it up.”
A surge of anger rose within her. What was Doug doing right now, while she was laboring under spotlights? Damn him to hell, she was going to sue his ass for divorce when this was over! She pushed and pushed, her face reddening. David moved maybe another inch. She thought she must surely be about to bend the stirrups from their sockets; she pushed against them with all her strength as Red Car swabbed her forehead.
Click, click went the instrument in Dr. Bonnart’s hand. Click, click.
“Here he comes,” Dr. Bonnart said as the clock ticked past eleven-thirty.
Laura felt her baby leaving her. It was a feeling of great relief mingled with great anxiety, because in the midst of the wet squeezing and the beep of monitors Laura realized her body was being separated from the living creature who had grown there. David was emerging into the world, and from this point on he would be at its mercy like every other human being.
“Keep pushing, don’t stop,” Dr. Bonnart urged.
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She strained, the muscles of her back throbbing. She heard a damp, sucking sound. She glanced at the wall clock through swollen eyes: eleven forty-three. Red Car and the other nurse moved forward to help Dr. Bonnart. Something snipped and clipped. “Big push,” the doctor said. She did, and David’s weight was gone.
Slap. Slap. A third quick slap.
His crying began, like the thin, high noise of a motor being jump-started. Tears sprang to Laura’s eyes, and she took a long, deep breath and released it.
“Here’s your son,” Dr. Bonnart told her, and he offered her something that was wailing and splotched with red and blue and had a froggish face in a head like a misshapen cone.
She had never seen such a beautiful boy, and she smiled like the sun through clouds. The storm was over.
Dr. Bonnart laid David on Laura’s stomach. She pressed him close, feeling his heat. He was still crying, but it was a wonderful sound. She could smell the thick, coppery aromas of blood and birth fluids. David’s body, still connected to her by the damp bluish-red umbilical cord, moved under her fingers. He was a fragile-looking thing, with tiny fingers and toes, the bump of a nose, and a pink-lipped mouth. There was nothing, however, fragile about his voice. It rose and fell, an undulation of what might have been adamant anger. Announcing himself, Laura thought. Letting the world know that David Douglas Clayborne had arrived, and demanding that room be made. As the umbilical was clipped off and tied, David trembled in a spite of infant fury and his wailing grew ragged. Laura said, “Shhhh, shhhh,” as her fingers stroked the baby’s smooth back. She felt the little shoulder blades and the ridges of his spine. Skeleton, nerves, veins, intestines, brain; he was whole and complete, and he was hers.
She felt it kick in then. What other women who’d had babies had told her to expect: a warm, radiant rush through her body that seemed to make her heart pound and swell. She recognized it as a mother’s love, and as she stroked her baby she felt David relax from rigid indignance to soft compliance. His crying eased, became a quiet whimper, and ended on a gurgling sigh. “My baby,” Laura said, and she looked up at Dr. Bonnart and the nurses with tears in her eyes. “My baby.”