Chapter Twenty

They found a much happier Ella hooked up to an IV and a fetal monitor, and by the smile on her face, an epidural. “I’ve never seen a primipara get to five centimeters so fast,” her nurse said.

“Willpower,” Ella claimed. “Glad you came along, Jessie. Now I have someone to talk to.” She clutched the television remote. “About time for Price Is Right. Mama and me used to watch it every day. I know the price of everything.”

Teddy would bet she did.

“Oh, we’d sit together, and she’d say how you lived on a ranch with a pool and a gym and horses to ride and servants to wait on you hand and foot just like some of these western spa trips they give away. She wished she could get that for me too. No, you dummy, six-thousand-eight hundred for a resort in Arizona! It ain’t Paris,” his sister shouted at an inept contestant. “This would be great if only I had a co-cola right now. My soaps are on after this.”

“No soft drinks. You’ll only throw them up like they said in class. I can get her ice chips, right?” Teddy asked the nurse.

“Yes, I’ll show you where. Looks like Ella is in good hands. I’ll check her progress from time to time, but now it’s mostly a waiting game.”

Ella took her eyes off the ring being offered to contestants on the screen. “Five-thousand-ninety-nine. Those are biddy diamonds, not like Stacy’s big rock. How long?”

“No one knows. Don’t do any pushing until we tell you. I’ll be watching.” The nurse wagged a motherly finger at her and led Teddy off in search of ice chips.

By the time he returned, Jessie had her manicure kit out trimming the broken nail and repairing chips in Ella’s polish. Ella put out her free hand for the cup of ice, took a mouthful, and crunched it. “I think you’re supposed to suck on that slowly.”

“You’re just a big, ol’ party pooper, Teddy. If I didn’t have so many things stuck in me, this would be like a trip to the spa. That enema was no pleasure, though, and only done because the doctors don’t want me to shit on their hands.”

“Lots of stars do deep cleansing. Look at it that way,” Jessie said.

“Then, they must be nuts. Wish I had some corn nuts right now. Didn’t eat much for breakfast, only that biscuit and jelly. Felt a little off. Should have known this was coming on.”

Teddy debated about asking her if she’d had a visitor, but delayed. She’d only lie. He and Jessie took turns going for breaks, having that cola Ella wanted out of sight, and getting some dinner in the hospital cafeteria. By the time the evening news came on, their patient had lost her bounce. She perked up a bit when Wheel of Fortune played, but faded again when sitcoms and dramas aired.

After the nurse arrived to check her monitors and the progress under the sheets, Teddy gave in and called the ranch. This birthing business took a very long time. Besides, his mom would want to know.

“Do you need some company? Xo and I could come,” Nell said.

“No, Jessie is here with me.”

“That’s good. This shouldn’t all be on you, brother or not.”

“I’ll let you know when the baby is here. Maybe you could bring flowers or balloons or something since she has no family but me.”

“Will you call her father?”

“Hell, no. He threw her out. She can contact him if she wants. I’ll be in touch.”

He returned to the room to get the news. “Eight centimeters. We have a little way to go yet, but before midnight, I’d say.”

“What the hell! I been here near all damn day seems like.”

“Since noon. Seven hours would be quite a short labor for a first baby. A couple more should do it.” The nurse moved on to her other patients.

“A couple more fuckin’ hours! I’m thirsty and starving.”

“Entering transition,” Teddy murmured to Jess. “She doesn’t mean it.”

“Yes, I sure damn do!”

“Want me to rub your belly with lotion?” her brother offered.

“Shit, no. My own brother rubbing my belly—that’s too Uncle Merv the Perv for me. But Jessie can do it.”

Jessie’s brows shot up at the odd reference, but she accepted the tube of lotion from the birthing bag. Teddy stepped out to get more ice chips. At this point, he knew nothing would please his sister. Truth to tell, he loitered a little and had some coffee to sustain him through the night. Then feeling like a coward, he returned to give Jessie a break. To have her here helping him meant all the world to him.

The labor room smelled of roses from the lotion. “Couldn’t feel that, but the scent surely is nice.” Ella took a deep inhale and accepted the ice chips. Afterward, she appeared to doze.

“Her belly is rock hard when she has a contraction. You can see how long they last on the monitor. I don’t believe it will be two hours,” Jessie confided.

“The sooner the better. I don’t know why any woman would want to do this.”

“I would, gladly.”

“I’ll bet you wouldn’t complain as much either.”

“I can’t promise that.”

Teddy took Jessie’s hands and raised them to his lips. They were soft and sweet smelling from the lotion. “I am truly grateful you are here. I thought I could go through this alone. I know my mom would have helped, but I wanted to flaunt my independence again. Sometimes that’s just dumb. Anyhow, glad we are sharing this.”

Jessie reclaimed her hand and used it to brush the fine, blond hair from his forehead. She placed a kiss on his brow. “Anytime you need me, just ask.”

Ella’s blue eyes popped open. “Well, if you two are done cooing like a pair of mourning doves, one of you could call that nurse. I swear I want to push. She needs to get her ass in here.”

Teddy tangled in his crutches in his haste to get up, straightened out, and moved as fast as he could to the nurse’s station. A page went out for their nurse. By the time he traversed the long hallway again, she’d arrived, checked the vital signs and the mystery under the sheets again.

“We have crowning. Well done, Ella, only eight hours. We’ll have the doctor here in a moment. Mr. Billodeaux, if you are going to witness the birth, wash your hands and put on the gown and booties in the bathroom. I’m sorry, miss, but only one person can attend.”

“That’s all right. I’ll go to the waiting room.” Jessie smiled as Teddy took his own deep, cleansing breath. She made way for the doctor, an Indian woman in the expected white lab coat.

After doing her own inspection, the doctor declared, “Yes, we are ready for the delivery room.”

Teddy moved along behind the gurney, his feet slipping in the booties, paper gown flapping around him, his hair confined under a cap. They stationed him at Ella’s shoulder. When asked if she wanted to watch the birth in a mirror, she said, “Hellll, no!” Privately, he was a little disappointed and yet a little relieved. His only task seemed to be encouragement and lifting Ella’s shoulders to help her push. The pushing lasted longer than he anticipated.

“This is a big baby, coming slowly. We will do the episiotomy and use the forceps to help the birth along. Nothing to worry about,” their doctor reassured them.

“Teddy, Teddy, they gonna cut me open?” Ella turned desperate eyes on him. “I don’t want no big scar up my belly.”

“No, Ella. The episiotomy is a cut to keep your vagina from tearing. They’ll sew you right up. It’s no big deal.”

Teddy noticed the doctor’s dark eyes crinkle at the corners, an indication of a smile behind the mask. “Someone has done their homework. What a good daddy he will be.”

“Uncle. I’m the uncle.”

“Also good.” All the while, the doctor’s hands worked under the drape, inserting what appeared to be a huge set of forceps to grasp the baby’s head. Teddy’s nephew or niece entered the world with a sucking sound as it popped loose and slithered into the world, purple and covered with blood and cheesy vernix.

“Something’s wrong with it!” Ella shouted.

“No, no, your daughter is a big, healthy girl. Her color will improve once she breathes on her own.” The doctor continued to do her work, calling for a pan to receive the afterbirth. She gave Teddy another of her eye smiles. “Would you like to cut the cord?”

“I guess so.” He moved to the far end of the table where his niece lay on the clean white sheet. The cord, thicker than he’d imagined and far more rubbery, had stopped its eerie pulsing. He positioned the medical instrument between the two clamps as instructed and freed his niece from her mother. She cried loud and assertive.

“Did I hurt her?”

“No, excellent job. I think she simply woke up in a new world. The crying is good. It clears the lungs, but we will do a suction to make sure. You may go back to the head of the table and help your sister push out the placenta now—unless you want to watch.”

“No, ma’am, I mean doctor.” As it was he caught a glimpse of the afterbirth, big as a good-sized beefsteak laying in the pan after Ella gave a few more pushes. Birth, not for the squeamish.

“Eight pounds, fourteen ounces,” the delivery room nurse announced as she cleaned and weighed the baby, placing a considerably more presentable swaddled child in Ella’s arms.

Ella frowned at the round, little face. “She shouldn’t be so brown.”

Teddy bent over the infant who squinted at him through bright, blue eyes. “She has our eye color, like Mama’s, too.”

Ella refused to be consoled. “Don’t you recall their eyes can turn dark after a while? Even I know that.”

“She’ll still be a beauty,” the new uncle said with conviction. “Like Xochi, maybe.”

“She’s not what I bargained for. She shoulda been blonde like me, not have all those dark curls pressed against her head.”

The nurse, a diplomat, said, “Would you like to carry the baby to the nursery, Uncle, while we clean up Mama and get her to her room?”

“I want to, but I’m afraid I’ll drop her.”

“We’ll get a wheelchair for the both of you. What name did you pick?” she asked Ella who still glared at her bundle of joy. Ella turned her head and declined to answer.

“Elizabeth Jane,” Teddy replied.

“Classic, very nice. We get so many odd ones these days.”

The wheelchair arrived. Teddy seated himself, turned his crutches over to the nurse, and settled Elizabeth Jane on his lap. Ella’s voice cried out as he approached the door from the delivery room. “You better remind them I want that shot in my behind to stop my milk. Don’t want no saggy, leaking breasts.”

“It is in your records, marked very clearly,” the doctor said. “Take the baby to the nursery, Uncle. Roll the patient on her side for the injection.”

As Teddy rode down the hall, he thought Elizabeth studied his face through the blue slits of her eyes, though he knew newborns didn’t focus all that well. More likely she watched the overhead lights flash by on their journey to the bassinet. Maybe she would recognize his voice. “Hi, I’m your Uncle Teddy. I’ll take good care of you. Want to shake on that?”

He offered the baby a finger. She latched on with a remarkably strong grasp. Sure, all babies did that, a reflex to cling to their mothers, but somehow he felt they’d made a pact. In the nursery, he immediately missed the warm bundle transferred to a rolling cart with a small container on top.

A nurse checked the baby’s wristband and filled out a card declaring her Baby Smalls. She covered her curls with a tiny knit cap sporting a pink bow. “She’ll sleep now. When she wakes, we’ll bring her to her mother to be fed.” Teddy nodded, reclaimed his sticks, but didn’t move. “Really, she’s in good hands. Get some rest.”

He headed to the waiting room, but Jessie met him halfway. “A nurse told me it’s a girl. Let’s go see her.”

Teddy reversed his steps. Right now, Jessie’s chair looked mighty comfortable. Maybe she’d give him a ride if he asked, but held that request in until their noses pressed against the glass to view Elizabeth Jane, bigger than any of the other babies and sleeping calmly.

“I’m afraid Ella is rejecting her.” He voiced his fear in Jessie’s ear. “Says she’s too brown.”

“I imagine the father was brown, too. What did she expect?”

“That the baby would look exactly like her.”

“We’ll deal with it—together.” Jessie wrapped a hand around his. “We can bring her around if we mention the Kardashian offspring. Several of them are brown.”

“You think?”

“I know.”

“I’m going out to find some flowers. Albertson’s isn’t too far away.”

“Teddy, you are beat, and you don’t get any of those good hormones that are supposed to rush into the mother’s system and make her want to nurture.”

“It won’t take long. Once Ella is settled, we’ll go home and get some sleep. I think I’ll tell Mom and Xo not to come this late. If all is well, Ella and the baby will be back at the apartment around noon. They can come and fuss over them then.”

“Okay. I’ll keep Ella company.”

Not that the new mother was good company. “I swear my legs feel like two logs o’ pine. Can’t move nothing.”

“It’s the epidural. It will wear off,” Jessie said—unlike her own paralysis.

A tray arrived with a choice of fluids and a light meal. “Drink the Gatorade the way my athletes do,” Jessie prompted. She put the cup into Ella’s hand.

“Funny, I felt just fine after they got the kid out of me. Could have eaten a cow, but now I kind of lost my appetite.”

“Try some broth.” Jessie raised the plastic lid over the plate. “We have eggs, toast, some applesauce. Eat as much as you can.”

“How come you’re here? Teddy run out on me too?”

“No, he’ll be back shortly.” Jessie seethed, thinking of a dead tired Teddy seeking out flowers for his ungrateful bitch of a sister.

He appeared in the doorway as soon as the thought entered her mind. He’d switched to his wheelchair and held a simple arrangement of pink rosebuds, baby’s breath, and ferns in a green glass vase between his knees. Jessie took them and placed them on Ella’s bedside table. She shot the girl a look that demanded, “Be grateful.”

But Teddy apologized. “Sorry, you can’t get much this late at night.”

“Thoughtful of you to get them.” Jessie sent Ella another pointed glance.

“Yeah, they’re real pretty.”

Another visitor arrived, a very cheerful nurse wheeling the basinet. “This big girl is already hungry. I have the bottle all ready for her first feeding. Now, crook your arm, and I’ll hand her over.” A small, tight fist waved in the air as Elizabeth Jane fussed.

“Can’t you see I’m eating?” Ella snarled.

The nurse covered her initial shock very well and remained pleasant. “I’ll take her back to the nursery and one of the aides will give her a bottle.”

“Don’t do that! I’d like to feed her.” Jessie held out her arms. The nurse draped a clean cloth over Jessie and settled the baby into the right position. She delivered the bottle with minimal instruction to keep the nipple full and stepped back to observe. Elizabeth Jane made short work of three ounces of formula before she closed her eyes again. Automatically, Jessie transferred her to a shoulder and patted out a burp.

“Someone is a natural at this,” the nurse complimented as Ella forked up eggs.

“Next time, I get a turn,” Teddy said, his earnest blue eyes alight at the sight of Jessie holding the baby.

“You can have as many turns as you want.” Ella bit into her toast with a savage crunch.

“I’ll take her back to the nursery for the night. We’ll feed her there, and let the mother get some rest since she isn’t nursing. See you in the morning.” That ended Elizabeth’s first visit with her mother.

As soon as the nurse cleared the door, Ella spoke up. “She ain’t my baby. Can’t be.”

Teddy sought Jessie’s eyes and nodded. “Sure, she is. I saw them put the wristband on her in the delivery room. No mistake. She has our eyes.”

“Don’t mean nothing.”

“I think she looks like Kanye and Kim’s babies, but prettier. If she keeps those blue eyes, she’ll be so striking.”

“Her daddy ain’t black. He’s one of those Melungeons I told you about. They got white blood and Cherokee, too. Some folks think they came from Turkey, and the Turks ain’t black.”

“Elizabeth certainly has an interesting background,” Teddy observed mildly. “We’re going now, but will be back in the morning. Get some sleep. You’ll need it.” Very aware of Jessie’s hands clenched on the wheelchair, her knuckles turning white, he nodded Jess toward the door and got her moving down the hallway before the outburst occurred.

“I know your sister had a hard life and is as ignorant as a person can be, but to deny your own child! She doesn’t deserve to be a mother.”

“Probably didn’t want to be one as far as I can tell. I won’t let her neglect Elizabeth.”

“I know, I know.” Jessie pressed the elevator button as they sat side by side.

“My mother didn’t reject me at birth even with part of my spinal cord exposed. She loved me when she should have hated me because her uncle was my father. She left me safe with the Billodeauxs when her boyfriend would have killed me.” Maybe that truth shouldn’t have come out just now, but it slipped from his exhausted lips. “Ella will come around.”

“Oh, Teddy, I doubt it, but we’ll make sure the baby is loved.”

Jessie seemed to have missed his stunning confession. “You don’t think less of me because of how I came into the world?”

“It’s not the child’s fault who its parents are.”

They escaped into the private box of the elevator away from the nurses silently padding around, and the occasional squall of a newborn. “Jessie, would you stay the night with me, just sleep next to me? I’m too beat for the wedge or anything else.”

“That is exactly where I planned to be.”