CHAPTER 13

Pauline phoned Dr. Brownback but was unable to reach Silky, Velvet, Taffy, or Dutch because only a few minutes before, Lydia Dale had come into the TV room and announced that her own labor pains were ten minutes apart. They were already on their way to the hospital, so flustered they hadn’t thought to call Mary Dell, not knowing she was following close behind.

Pauline hadn’t been able to find Donny either. She drove to the barn to look for him. His truck was parked outside, but when she called his name, he didn’t answer. Just that morning he’d decided to saddle up Georgeann and ride the fences, making note of any sections that needed repair. In another couple of weeks, he figured he’d have to start sticking closer to home, in case the baby came during the day.

Lydia Dale’s baby came quickly. Four hours after she’d arrived at the hospital, a nurse entered the maternity waiting room and told the assembled relatives that Rob Lee Benton, a healthy, eight-pound, twelve-ounce boy with long eyelashes and a perfectly formed head as round and bald as a cue ball, had been born and would be available for viewing through the window of the newborn nursery in about half an hour.

When asked, the nurse told them that Mary Dell was doing just fine, that there was nothing to worry about, that first children always took longer to be born.

“But isn’t it too soon?” Dutch asked, his weathered face creased with anxiety.

“We’re taking good care of your daughter, Mr. Templeton. And your grandchild. The neonatologist has been called. As soon as the baby is born, it will be taken to the NICU. They have all the right equipment and staff to care for preemies,” she said, then patted him on the arm and left the room with rubber-soled efficiency.

Dutch dug three quarters out from the pocket of his jeans and dropped them into the vending machines. He bought two candy bars for Jeb and Cady and a cup of bad coffee for himself.

The nurse had spoken with authority, using words that Dutch didn’t understand—“neonatologist” and “NICU”—but she hadn’t answered his question.

Was it too soon?

After all the years of waiting, the pain of watching his daughter’s hopes of motherhood be raised and dashed over and over again, was this baby, too, coming too soon? Was another of his grandchildren going to die before it had even lived?

Dutch went to church every week of his life and served as an usher every third Sunday of the month. Even so, he’d never been much of a praying man, but he prayed now, as hard as he could. Staring into the black lake of a cardboard coffee cup, he prayed to the God he’d always believed in but had spent precious little time talking with.