“I think it’s time,” Sandy said, shaking me awake.
“Time for what?” I grumped.
“To go to the hospital.”
“Have you timed the pains?”
“No.”
“You time them. When they’re a minute apart, we’ll go.”
We had gone through a number of similar false alarms during Sandy’s pregnancy. The baby had been due in July. Here it was August and still no baby.
About midnight Sandy woke me again while crashing and banging around the house. I knew she was provoked by the way she was stuffing things in a bag with one hand, clutching her belly with the other and glaring miserably at me. She was about the size of one of the Easter eggs I flew, only with stick arms and legs instead of that other protrusion.
“What are you doing?” I asked her.
“I’m going to the hospital whether you take me or not,” she snapped.
“I’ll take you,” I capitulated. “But if you get me up again in the middle of the night for nothing when I have to fly tomorrow, then you’re fired.”
I deposited her at the hospital while I drove April to stay with friends who promised to watch her. A nurse ran up and hustled me to delivery as soon as I returned.
“She’s gonna shoot you,” the nurse warned. “She’s in there having the baby right now.”
I walked in at 2:00 A.M. Angela was born at 2:14. I was a family man with a wife, a stepdaughter, and now a new daughter. All reasons to keep my scrawny little undersized ass out of Vietnam.