When I relieved Lois at midnight, I was surprised to see Jodi hooked up to an I.V. A sick feeling churned in my stomach. "What's wrong? Why does she need that?"
"It's something to make the contractions start again," Lois said.
"It's about time somebody did something."
Chapter Twenty-four
"Jodi's water broke," Lois said.
My hands clutched the Mustang's steering wheel harder. "Water broke? What's that mean?"
I didn't dare take my eyes off the road to glance in the rearview mirror so I could see Lois and Jodi in the back seat. Not in this rain. "Is everything all right?"
"Keep driving," Lois said.
Ordinarily you can cruise from Grandview to Iowa City in sixty minutes along Interstate 80. Push the cruise control button, sit back, and relax. You're there. The highway's a little hilly but not too bad.
No sitting back and relaxing this afternoon.
Rain swept across I-80 when Jodi, Lois, and I pulled off the ramp and headed west into a storm. Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed. Wind lashed at the trees alongside the road, bending their tops. Everyone drove with headlights on. The Mustang's windshield wipers could hardly handle the rain; I strained to see the highway, trying to keep my eyes fixed on the yellow centerline.
In the back seat, Lois was timing Jodi's pains.
Jodi moaned every ten minutes or so. Sometimes I'd hear a sharp "Ohhh...!" and I'd feel Jodi's feet digging against the back of my seat at the bottom.
"How's it going?" I asked when we approached the Durant turnoff, and I'd heard nothing more.
"Eight minutes apart," Lois said.
My mouth turned dry.
Eight minutes apart!
When the pains were zero minutes apart, would I have to pull off the road onto the shoulder and deliver the baby myself? No way! I can't! But we'd passed only the Durant turnoff. Iowa City was forty miles away. Maybe you'll have to, Michael!
Dark clouds churned in the distance. Lightning split the sky. I tried speeding up to sixty-five but didn't feel safe. Fifty or fifty-five felt right.
"How much farther?" Lois asked.
"Twenty miles. But that could be a half hour, driving through this rain."
As we approached Iowa City, traffic became heavier, creeping along in bunches, and as we wound through Iowa City, nearly every traffic light halted us.
When I finally drove up to the hospital emergency entrance, Lois said, "Still eight minutes apart. They seem to be slowing down."
I stopped the Mustang. I slumped forward over the wheel, relieved. We'd made it.
While Lois ran in to get a wheelchair, I waited in the car with Jodi. I twisted around to look at her. She was scrunched in the corner of the back seat like a frightened animal.
"You okay?" I asked. Stupid question! Stupid!
She offered a little smile. "This baby wants to be born."
Lois hurried out, pushing a wheelchair. I jumped out of the car and helped Jodi duck through the rain to the chair. She was so round I couldn't find a place to grab hold of her.
"You're staying, aren't you?" Lois asked.
"Yes." We were getting soaked. "I'll park the car in the ramp and be right in."
"Bring Jodi's suitcase."
I hated hospitals with their wide carpeted corridors, pastel painted walls, antiseptic smells, and jerky elevators. I hated the cool efficiency of their staff.
I'd hated hospitals since Dad had become sick.
At the information desk, a lady in a salmon smock frowned at how wet I was and told me the maternity ward was on the fourth floor.
On the fourth floor, I knew I was in the right place when I heard babies' cries from the rooms I passed, and then I passed a set of long windows in front of which four or five people peered through the glass, gaping. "Oooohs!" and "Ahhhhs!" rang out. That had to be the nursery.
I stopped at another information desk. "Is Jodi Jackson here?"
The nurse looked at me blankly.
"She's having a baby," I said, and held up Jodi's suitcase.
The nurse consulted a sheet on a metal clipboard. "She's in a birthing room, four-seventy-two, to your right and halfway down the hall."
When I walked in, Jodi was already in bed, wearing a white hospital gown. The head of her bed up, pillow behind her back, she was lying under a crisp white sheet that captured the shape of her way-round belly. She looked as if beach ball had bounced into bed with her.
Lois stood at the foot of the bed, and a nurse held Jodi's wrist, taking her pulse. Jodi twisted, clutched the bed sheet, and gritted her teeth. "Oh, that was a bitch!" she groaned.
Lois took Jodi's suitcase from me and dropped it on a chair.
"Everything's going to be all right," the nurse said. Then she glanced at Lois and me. "Would you step out for a moment, please? There's a waiting room down the hall to your left."
Lois and I sat alone in the waiting room for a while. She's small like Jodi, with the same short, curly blonde hair. The same compact figure. A little fuller.
I kept jiggling my knee with nerves. Then a shiver shot up my spine. "Do you really think everything's going to be all right? I mean, why did the nurse say everything was going to be all right, if it wasn't going to be?"
"Maybe they'll have to take the baby Caesarean—Jodi's very small."
"Caesarean?"
"Operate. Jodi was born Caesarean."
A nurse poked her head in. "Michael Panther?"
Oh my God!
I bolted up. "I'm Michael Panther."
"You can see Jodi now."
"She's had the baby?"
The nurse smiled. "No, she's still in labor. You can be with her, if you like."
I stepped back for Lois. I thought maybe she'd scoot ahead of me, taking over, but she said, "Go ahead, Michael."
I followed the nurse down the hall and into the room.
Another nurse stood beside Jodi's bed. On a stand sat a beeping heart monitor like I'd seen in TV hospital dramas, flashing green blips. Wires from the monitor ran under Jodi's sheet and were connected to her somewhere.
"It's a fetal monitor," the nurse said, when she saw me staring. "We're monitoring the baby's heartbeat. She pointed to an empty chair. "You may sit down."
I pulled the chair close to the bed and sat. Swallowing, I gave a little smile. "How you doing...?"
"Okay," Jodi said. Her gown and sheet looked rumpled. "They're coming quick now. Terrible pains."
"I wish I could do something."
Jodi's face drew up, red and twisted. I grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Oh God, Michael!"
I cut the nurse a helpless look and squeezed Jodi's hand harder. "Relax, Jodi," the nurse said, "and breathe."
Jodi began inhaling slowly through her nose, then exhaling through her slightly open mouth, over and over, till the pains eased.
"Next time," the nurse told Jodi, "take a deep, cleansing breath, exhale, then 'sniff-sniff,' 'hee-hee,' like they taught you. Modified-paced breathing, okay?"
"Okay."
"Did you attend classes with Jodi?" the nurse asked me.
"Classes?"
"Lamaze classes."
I hated not knowing what she was talking about. "No, no, I didn't."
"You should have," the nurse said, sounding as if she were scolding me.
My face burned. She handed me a cool, damp cloth, and I wiped Jodi's forehead. "Thanks." Jodi barely managed a smile. "You don't have to stay. I may do this for a long while."
"I'll stay."
The nurse wrapped Jodi's arm with the blood pressure thing and started pumping the rubber ball. "Relax, Jodi."
"Where's Mom?"
"In the waiting room," I told Jodi. "Do you want her?"
"No, it's all right. Ohhh God, Michael!" She gripped my hand like a vice.
"A deep cleansing breath, Jodi," the nurse said. "Concentrate on a focal point."
"Got it—!"
Staring at the ceiling, Jodi inhaled—I inhaled—and we both exhaled. Then Jodi drew two sharp breaths through her nose: "Sniff-sniff!" She blew them out her mouth: "Hee-hee!" Again: "Sniff-sniff! Hee-hee!"
Each time she blew her lips drew tight against her teeth. She went on like that for nearly a minute. Then her hand relaxed in mine. "This isn't fun, Michael."
"I can tell."
"You did fine, Jodi," the nurse said. "Try to relax more, okay?"
Jodi nodded. "Hey, Michael?
"What?"
"What did Snow White say while she was waiting for her photos?"
I smiled. "What?"
"I wonder when my prints will come?"
My smile grew wider; I gripped Jodi's hand harder than ever. Reciting a riddle while in the middle of labor—this girl was tough. Unbelievable. Exhausted, she sank deeper into the bed and closed her eyes, a glimmer of perspiration on her upper lip.
Her pains came regularly like that for a while, wrenching pains. She drowsed between times, and I fed her ice chips from a plastic cup whenever she asked for them.
But the pains slacked off again.
What did that mean? It didn't make sense.
Every once in a while a different doctor showed up in the room, mumbling, shaking his head. The nurse kept taking Jodi's blood pressure and temperature. Lois came in, and we traded off sitting with Jodi.
Once I heard a doctor tell the nurse, "She's not dilating."
When I relieved Lois at midnight, I was surprised to see Jodi hooked up to an I.V. A sick feeling churned in my stomach. "What's wrong? Why does she need that?"
"It's something to make the contractions start again," Lois said.
"It's about time somebody did something."
Lois touched my shoulder. "Be patient, Michael."
"Would either of you like something to eat or drink?" the nurse asked. "There are vending machines with sandwiches and cold drinks in the main-floor waiting room."
I shook my head.
"I think I'll get some coffee," Lois said, and yawned. "Maybe a sandwich."
Jodi seemed to be resting comfortably. Eyes closed, she was breathing regularly, though heavily, her belly rising and falling like a wave. Pulling the chair close, I sat down and held her still-clammy hand again. Her lips twisted, and her eyes fluttered open. "This baby's as stubborn as I am, Michael."
"He'll change his mind soon," I said.
"I hope so."
Jodi's eyelids drooped. Her voice sounded worn. I couldn't imagine anyone else braver than a girl having a baby. Football players were wimps compared to this.
At 3:00 A.M. a doctor I hadn't seen before came in, surprising me—I'd been dozing in the chair—and asked me to step into the hall. I walked around the corridors, shaking the kinks out of my legs, twisting them out of my neck.
I stopped at the waiting room. Lois and four others slumped in chairs, sleeping, their heads hanging.
When I wandered back to Jodi's room, the door was closed. I knocked cautiously. No one answered. As I reached to turn the knob, the door opened. I stepped back, my heart in my throat. Pale, eyes closed, Jodi lay on a gurney under a big white sheet, her I.V. hanging from a shiny rod attached to the bed. My spine tingled with fear. I thought Jodi was dead—she looked dead. Like Dad. I love you, Jodi. I love the baby, too. Our baby!
A nurse pushed the gurney past me, then rapidly down the hall to I didn't know where. I grabbed the last nurse hurrying out of the room by the sleeve. "What's happening?"
"It's time," she said.
I ran back to the waiting room. Lois slumped asleep in a green vinyl straight-back chair, head cocked on her shoulder, breathing softly. I hesitated, then touched her arm. She was instantly awake but glanced around a moment as if she didn't know where she was. "Oh...Michael. What's wrong?"
"It's time," I said. I think I yelled it.
"Calm down," Lois said, taking my hand. "You'll wake everyone."
"Sorry."
"All we can do is wait. Everything's going to be all right."
"I feel so helpless."
"Everything's going to be all right," Lois said again.
How many times did I have to be told that?
I dropped into an empty chair beside Lois. I sucked in air and tried to pretend I was calm. "Everything's going to be all right," I repeated under my breath.
I think I dozed off a couple of times, head hanging. I don't know how much later—maybe thirty minutes or less—a doctor came to the waiting room, his surgical mask around his neck, sweat beading his forehead. "You're Michael Panther?" he asked.
I popped up, heart pumping adrenaline, but nearly fell back into the chair because my legs weren't ready for me to stand. "Yes."
"This way. You can see your son now."
Suddenly I couldn't breathe right, but I followed the doctor. He took me to a room where Jodi lay in bed under a sheet, eyes closed. Smiling, a nurse put a tiny bundle in my arms wrapped in a soft blue blanket, a blue stocking cap snuggled on his head.
Elation shot through me like an electric current.
"A fine baby boy," the doctor said, smiling, too. "Over seven pounds. We had to take him Caesarean."
My eyes stung. Tears blurred everything but I could still see he was a beautiful pink-and-white baby with long fluttering legs and arms—a tiny bundle of gurgling noises and funny faces. He was smiling at me like, Hi, Dad!
Hi, Son!
Then he yawned, his mouth wide, all pink inside, all gums, his tongue curling. The word Mine! sprang to my lips.
I glanced at Jodi. Eyes closed, she looked gray, her belly almost flat now under the sheet. No, Ours! I thought.
"She's fine," the doctor said.
"A wonderful, healthy baby boy," the nurse said, reading Jodi's pulse.
A fresh bunch of tears rushed to my eyes. I could hardly see. Lois was suddenly standing next to me, beaming, a proud grandmother. I stooped over so she could see better. She plucked the stocking cap from the baby's head. Then a sudden frown clouded her face. Her lips twitched. She flicked me a glance. "I'll take the baby, Michael."
I wondered if I was holding him wrong. Like a football or something. I didn't think so. I was doing okay. But I said, "Sure."
I still couldn't breathe right. I puffed my cheeks and tried to blow out a long, silent breath. Mom was right. This baby was so precious, so fragile...so warm and sweet-smelling...I mean, I didn't want to give him up, but I shifted him to Lois's waiting grasp.
She cradled him with one arm and stroked his head with her other hand. "I had to look," she said to me. "Had to take his cap off and see for myself."
I rubbed the tears out of my eyes with the heel of my hand and then my breath caught. For the first time I noticed the baby's hair was red. Glossy red. Lots of glossy red hair. Silky-looking red hair. Flaming red.
I nearly choked. I tried to swallow. My hand grasped my forehead. Squeezed. Then I blinked. "I think I have something in my eye."
Lois was looking at me with...what? Pity? "I had to see," she said. "I'm so sorry."
I wobbled into the corridor, leaned against the wall, and wiped the damp stinging from my eyes with the back of my hand.
I wasn't a father at all.
The baby was Luke's
Luke McAllister's baby.
Not my baby at all.
The baby had red hair.
Beautiful red hair. Not black. But fucking red hair.
Coming Monday—Chapter Twenty-five: Michael tries to grasp the truth: Jodi's baby is not his.
