A Birth
I shoot to my feet, wiping the tears away and hoping I’m not smearing dirt all over my face. Roger meets me up on the patio. In the dim light, he sees my distress but I shake my head and he makes no comment. Instead, he puts an arm around my shoulder and propels me through the door. Slices of apple pie sit on dessert plates at the table, but the chairs are empty. Mike and Laura have their coats on and are making to leave, but Sophie isn’t with them. Laura turns back from the door and comes to put her arms around me. Then she holds me at arm’s length and lifts my chin with her fingertips.
“Chin up, my friend, you are about to become a grandmother!”
“And we know when it’s time to leave a party,” Mike says, drawing Laura away. He gives me a smile that makes my heart leap.
Andy streaks by me, following Mike and Laura out the door. He’s carrying Valerie’s overnight bag that has been packed for weeks. Just as quickly, he reverses his step and speeds through the kitchen into the garage. David finally cleared enough space so Andy could park their car inside, but Andy forgot. The movement in the house is taking on Laurel and Hardy proportions. I bump into walls trying to get down the hallway into their bedroom. Why hasn’t Roger replaced the ceiling light in the one dark space in this house?
Valerie looks like a bloated Raggedy Ann doll propped on a pillow amidst a tangle of limp sheets that smell like they could use a wash.
“Hi, Mom. My water broke.”
I sit down on the bed beside her and take her hand. “Are you having contractions?”
“Oh, I’ve been having contractions since yesterday.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“They weren’t regular. I wasn’t even sure that’s what they were.” She squeezes my hand and winces. “I’m sure now.”
Andy appears in the doorway. “Valerie, don’t you think we should call the doctor?”
“Yes!” I say.
The doctor gives Andy instructions about timing contractions and Roger and I retreat to our room. This is an intimate time to be shared by a husband and wife.
“Does this bring back memories?” Fresh from his evening shower, Roger square knots the tie to the burgundy robe I gave him last Christmas and sinks into his chair with a deep, glad-this-day-is-over sigh.
“Not really. My situation was so different.” I’m creaming my face, breathing in the strawberry scent that releases as I massage tension away from my eyes. “Valerie has family around her. Andy will be by her side and we’ll be here to welcome home the new baby.” I picture that moment and my heart begins to race. “I was alone in a military hospital when I had Valerie.”
“Henry was on assignment, I imagine, but your mother wasn’t there?”
No matter how much forgiveness I shovel on top of the bitterness, a memory can resurrect those feelings. I never blamed Henry for my choice to marry a man who was already spoken for, but I always blamed Leora for the choices she made to absent herself at critical times. Perhaps all women judge their mother’s more harshly than they do their husbands and children. God change my heart.
“There was no place for her.” What do I mean by that? “I mean...you know, Roger? I went it alone with Valerie, just like my mother did with me. I didn’t make a place for Leora. But thank God, Valerie’s experience will be different.”
Joy will enter this house when our new baby arrives, cleansing joy. I am determined that we will wipe the Glass House clean, polish it until it shines with joy.
“Well then, tomorrow we’ll prepare for a proper homecoming.”
“Yes! Balloons and banners.”
“Cake and ice cream.”
“Roger, a baby can’t eat cake and ice cream.”
“But I can.”
Men!
R
Roger falls asleep quickly, but I lay awake listening to the noises of the house. I hear Valerie’s muffled moaning. How can Roger sleep through this? In the quiet moments when she rests from her labor, I hear the click of Boofus’ toenails as he paces. He can’t sleep either. I hear a low tone I recognize as conversation. Sophie must be in David’s room. I am too tired to address any issues of impropriety. The time has come for these two to figure out their relationship and decide for themselves how to behave. They are smart kids, good kids, and I trust them. God, give them hope and a future.
Water drips from a faucet somewhere. I’m trying to figure out how to deal with the leak when I finally emerge from groggy sleep and realize it is not a drip. It is a slow tapping on our bedroom door. Roger snores peacefully as I slip out of bed and crack open the door.
“We’re going now.” Andy is disheveled but wide-awake and fairly buzzing with take-charge energy.
“What time is it?”
“Three.”
“How is she doing?”
“She’s exhausted. She’s in the car. I gotta go!”
“Call me as soon as the baby is born.”
“I will.”
I turn back and see that sneaky Boofus has crept in, jumped up on the bed, and settled himself at Roger’s feet. It’s for sure I won’t get any more sleep tonight...today. What is today? November eleventh; a good birthday date. Not so close to the holidays that it can’t expect a proper celebration. I’ll be glad when I can stop saying it and call the baby he or she. I know it’s traditional to hope the first baby is a boy, but secretly I’m hoping for a girl.
I leave our room, closing the door quietly behind me and taking note that both David’s door and the door to Sophie’s old room, the baby’s nursery now, are closed. We left her daybed in there, so I tell myself that’s where she is and go to the kitchen to make coffee.
I’ve nodded off in a chair in the living room when Sophie wakes me at six o’clock. She’s holding a cup of coffee in one hand and the coffee pot in the other. She looks like she’s dressed for work.
“Want to join me at the table for a piece of apple pie for breakfast?” Her smile is brilliant.
“Sure,” my eyes water and sting with fatigue. “Apple pie and coffee are just the right combination of sugar and caffeine I need.”
“Wow. Valerie is having her baby today. I am so stoked!”
“You are becoming quite the California girl, aren’t you Sophie,” I say, laughing.
“It’s true.” She sets her coffee cup down, warming her hands around the mug. “David and I had a long talk about that last night.”
I sit very still and quiet, hoping she will open up. She searches my face with eyes that are at once guarded and hopeful. I smile and nod. She takes a deep breath, expelling her next sentence into the air.
“Well, okay, here goes. I can’t tell you everything because David really needs to share his plan with his Dad first; gee, this gets complicated.”
“It’s okay Sophie, just tell me about you.”
“Okay then. I have a plan. I love my job at Foothill. I want to get a degree in Choreography so I can head a university dance department, and I want to start a modern dance troupe here in the Bay Area, in Palo Alto maybe, but I’ll need rehearsal space and David is going to help me with that, and...”
“Whoa, slow down. That’s great Sophie. Where do you plan to study?” Who is going to pay for this?
“I’ll start out at Foothill. I can totally handle that because they give employees free tuition. Then I’ll transfer to San Jose State College or to the University of Santa Clara. I’ll work and pay my own tuition, and by then David and I...”
Sophie claps her hand over her mouth.
I decide to help her out. “So you two are making some plans and it’s too early to go into details.”
Sophie gives me that wide Sophia Loren smile, exuberant and guileless. “Yes! That’s it.”
“It all sounds promising Sophie, exciting really.”
And then David is standing there, behind her. I look at him with new eyes. They are both so young, but on fire with big dreams and so obviously in love. Sophie reddens and jumps up to get David a cup of coffee. He sits down beside her empty chair, gives me a shy smile, and goes for a fork and the pie.
By seven o’clock, Roger and Danny have shown up at the table to finish off the rest of the pie. We rarely see Danny these days. He’s either at work or off somewhere with Ursula. And, he still has some sort of involvement in David’s project that has him running all over town. I hope my sister will be proud of her enterprising son, although I don’t know how she will feel if, as I suspect, he decides he doesn’t want to return to the family farm.
“Shouldn’t Andy have called from the hospital by now?” Roger yawns and stretches.
“Not yet, it’s only been four hours. It could be another fourteen hours before she delivers.”
“I don’t want to miss the announcement but I have to go to work,” Sophie smiles at David. He removes the car keys from his pocket and hands them over.
“Yes, you all get on with your day,” I say. “Sitting here waiting for the phone to ring won’t hurry the birth.” I look at Roger. “Except you. You promised to help me get the house ready for when they bring the baby home.”
Roger nods. “I did. I want to talk to David for a while first and then I am all yours, Mrs. Russell.”
David stands. “I’ll be out in the garage when you’re ready, Dad.”
I run my hands through my uncombed hair and look at my watch. Only seven-thirty. Okay then, I’m going back to bed.