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.
They’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 h
er 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.
Each day after work, Webster sprinted up the stairs, nearly desperate to see his little girl, who was rapidly approaching perfection. He found Sheila playing with the baby on a pad on the floor, or dozing on the couch, nipples making wet circles on her shirt while Rowan slept in a crib. Though Webster couldn’t feed his daughter, he changed her and put her to Sheila’s breast as his wife gradually woke. Once the feeding was over, Sheila rose and started dinner while Webster gazed at the baby.
Rowan had hair just like Sheila’s, which Webster thought the best genetic luck. The baby’s eyes were blue, and her limbs were long, a characteristic from either parent. Webster’s mother swore that Rowan looked just like Webster’s grandmother, but when Sheila and Webster examined the picture of a dowdy woman Webster couldn’t remember, neither could find any resemblance. Webster’s parents were christened Nana and Gramps.
Webster’s life upended itself. Sheila and he slept on different schedules, neither of them getting enough and neither of them minding. Webster convinced himself that Sheila and he had produced the most beautiful baby he’d ever seen. His mother took up her knitting needles, and it seemed that every time she came to the apartment, she had knit another item for Rowan: baby clothes and blankets when Rowan was a newborn; stuffed toys and sweaters and a beautiful green and blue coat for when she could sit up. Burrows and his wife gave Sheila and Webster a snazzy stroller that came apart and seemed to be able to do everything except cook dinner.
With Rowan in his arms, Webster rubbed noses with her and told her she was a pain in the ass. He walked her all over the apartment showing her the lights. He did and redid the same five-piece puzzle with her a hundred times while she smacked her mouth in surprise whenever she made it come out right. He imagined that Rowan, at nine months, must have found the backyard a vast and exciting territory. In the summer, Webster’s mother brought over fresh vegetables that Sheila cooked, put in the blender, and then froze in ice cube trays. When she fed Rowan each lunch and dinner in her high chair, she defrosted a cube, warmed it up, and spooned it into Rowan’s mouth, employing the same airplane trick Webster assumed every parent used.
Webster found himself using the word love all the time and indiscriminately. He felt he’d stumbled into a life that he was meant to live, though he couldn’t have described it before he met Sheila.
Sheila, with her gradually slimming silhouette, seemed to experience life as her baby did, first living within a cocoon that stretched the sixteen feet from bed to couch to sink, then expanding into a car for drives to Nana’s with the baby and then for errands at the supermarket, Rowan behind her in the car seat.
One late afternoon in August, Webster arrived home to find Sheila and Rowan asleep on the grass in the backyard. He hadn’t wanted to wake them and so had pulled up a chair next to them and watched. A warm breeze blew over the three of them, keeping the mosquitoes away.
He wondered what had happened. Sheila and Rowan were sitting together and had just decided to have a nap? What a funny picture they made, the two females with the same shade of glossy brown hair, one tiny head tucked beneath another. Were they breathing in sync? Webster wished he had his camera with him, but he didn’t dare move to get it. He could hear the bustle of customers out in front of the ice-cream shop. A perfect day for a cone. The yard had privacy when the leaves were on the trees. The patch of land that Sheila and Rowan slept on had the most grass.
Rowan woke first, which then woke Sheila. Sheila brushed the grass off each of them. “Hi,” she said dreamily. She stood with the baby in her arms, and Webster stood with them.
“I suppose I should get dinner going,” Sheila said. Webster stopped her with a kiss.
“I’ve got a better idea. Let’s just go around front and get ice-cream cones.”
Sheila didn’t protest as he thought she might. Usually she made sure that Rowan ate only healthful food. This time, however, she smiled.
“You have wonderful ideas, Mr. Webster, you know that?”
He picked up Rowan, who was still wiping the sleep out of her eye. “What do you say, ice cream for supper?”
She nodded her head and laid it against his shoulder.
Webster knew he was the happiest he had ever been.
It was SIDS, the infant dead for hours when Webster and Burrows got to the house, a small cottage at the edge of the creek that paralleled 42. It was built to be a summer place only, and at first Webster wondered if the mother was a tourist. The home had no insulation. The mother insisted to the 911 dispatcher that the baby was still breathing.
Blankets and stuffed animals littered the crib. No one knew for sure what caused the senseless and heartbreaking death. Webster felt only sadness and disgust.
He reached for the brachial pulse in the arm. He wondered at what point the mother had last looked at her baby and for how long she’d been avoiding reality. Burrows began CPR, even though both medics knew the child was dead. For the sake of the survivors, they had to do everything they could.
Webster glanced around the tiny living room, the crib next to the sofa. He always tried to get a picture of the life inside the house when they made a call. A one-bedroom, baby in the living room. The infant was maybe ten weeks old.
Burrows called in to Dispatch to tell them th
ey needed a police officer and a coroner to meet them at the hospital. With SIDS, there had to be an autopsy.
“Ma’am, what’s your name?” he asked.
“Susan.”
“Susan, where is your husband?”
“He’s at work.”
“Where is that?”
“He’s on a construction site near Rutland.”
Her answers were quick and lucid. Her hair was dirty, and her teeth were a bad shade of yellow. Webster could smell the foul breath from six feet away. Despite the sunny day, it was gloomy by the sofa.
The woman pulled the sides of her pink cardigan closer together with her fists. “Why aren’t you working on my baby?”
Webster squatted in front of the woman. “We are working on your baby. See that medic there?” Webster was sweating through his uniform shirt. “What’s the baby’s name?” he asked.
“Britney.”
Webster wouldn’t be the one to break the horrific news. That would happen in the hospital. It was working on a dead baby that screwed with your head.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” the woman said.
“We’re still working on her. We’re doing everything we can.”
“I know she’s dead.”
Grief hit the woman full force. Her face crumpled, and her body sagged to the sofa. She brought her hands to her mouth, beginning a series of Nos— wails tapering off to whimpers. Webster sat beside her and put a hand on her sleeve. She, not the baby, was his patient now.
Webster stood and quietly asked Burrows if meds were indicated for the mother, but he shook his head. “When the cops are done, we’ll see how she is, maybe bring her in then.”
“It’s unbearable,” Webster said.
“This your first SIDS?”
Webster nodded.
“It’s the worst,” Burrows, never a softie, said. “A whole life gone, and for no good reason. No matter how many times you’ve seen it, it makes you crazy.”
“The mother’s known for hours, hasn’t she?”
“You blame her for not wanting to face reality?”