tropical to Colin. Such extravagance cost, of course. He thanked heaven for the good medical plan that went along with his line of work. Without it. . Without it, he might have been filing for bankruptcy along with Jiffy Lube.
He’d stayed with Louise when all three of their children were born. Now he tried to coach Kelly through the breathing exercises she’d practiced getting ready for the day. He hadn’t told her that they’d done Louise no good he could see. Everybody was different. They were supposed to help some women have an easier time.
It wasn’t fun for her. He hadn’t figured it would be. They called it labor for a reason. Louise had been younger than Kelly was now when Marshall was born. Then again, she’d had James Henry, too, and she was quite a bit older then. It could be done.
Done it was, after nine tough hours. In the process, Kelly called Colin some things he hadn’t suspected she knew how to say. As things turned serious, she also yelled, “I’m shitting a goddamn bowling ball!” That one cracked up the maternity-ward nurses, who evidently hadn’t heard everything after all.
The bowling ball turned out to weigh eight pounds one ounce and measure twenty-one and a half inches. Colin cut the umbilical cord after the doctor tied it off. He’d done that with his older children, too. The feel of the surgical scissors slicing through that finger-thick cord was like nothing else he’d ever known. He’d always thought that that cut ought to hurt the mother or the baby or maybe both of them, but it never seemed to.
Deborah Michelle Ferguson rooted at Kelly’s breast when the nurse set her there after she went on the scale. “How are you, babe?” Colin asked.
“Hammered,” she answered. Even though it wasn’t warm in the delivery room, greasy sweat made her face shine under the fluorescent lights and matted her hair. “I want to sleep for a month.” Her mouth twisted into a wry, weary grin. “I know-good luck.”
“Well, I wasn’t gonna say that,” Colin told her.
“No, but you were thinking it.” Kelly’s gaze traveled down to the little pink critter in the crook of her left elbow. “I’ve got milk! How about that? Me and Elsie the Borden Cow.”
“Elsie’s got milk,” a nurse said. “For the next couple of days, you’ve got colostrum. That’s what the baby needs right now.”
“Uh-huh,” Kelly said. “The supervolcano probably took care of Elsie, anyway. Didn’t quite get me.”
“Elsie’s still around. She’ll last as long as she moves milk and cheese and glue and whatever,” Colin said. “After that, she’s short ribs.”
“Short ribs! Oh, my God! I just realized how hungry I am! That’s hard work to do on an empty stomach!” Kelly’s eyes swung toward the nurse in appeal. “What can I eat? When can I eat it?”
“We’ll bring you a tray after we take you back to your room. Dinner tonight is sliced chicken breast, boiled potatoes and gravy, and stewed carrots and raisins. Jell-O for dessert,” the nurse answered.
Colin thought that sounded much too much like hospital food. Kelly exclaimed, “Wow! It sounds wonderful!” She was ready to eat a horse and chase the guy who’d been riding it.
“I’m gonna call Marshall and Vanessa and your folks,” Colin said. He leaned down and kissed Kelly on the forehead. She tasted sweaty, too. He also kissed his new daughter, who paid no attention to him whatsoever.
“Mazel tov!” Stan Birnbaum said when he heard the news. Kelly’s father relayed it to her mother. Colin could hear Miriam Birnbaum burst into tears before she got on the line.
“Awesome!” was Marshall’s comment, which would do for an English rendering of mazel tov. “Tell Kelly I’ll spoil the little brat rotten. Woohoo!”
Vanessa sounded more restrained than her brother: “Congratulations, Dad. They’re both all right?”
“They sure are,” he answered proudly. “And the old father isn’t doing too bad right now, either.”
“Okay,” she said. If he was on Cloud Nine, she was on Cloud Three-Three and a Half, tops. She got off the phone fast enough to annoy him. What was she doing? Waiting for an important call instead? To her right now, the Serbian hit man or whatever the hell he was would probably qualify.
Sighing, Colin called Gabe Sanchez. “You’re a lucky bastard, you know that?” Gabe said as soon as he heard that mother and daughter were doing well.
“Thought had crossed my mind,” Colin admitted.
“I’m jealous, is what I am.” Gabe was bound to be kidding on the square. His own love life hadn’t been nearly so fortunate as Colin’s since his divorce. And the divorce itself was nastier than the one Colin went through.
“Thanks, buddy,” Colin told him.
He went back to the room Kelly was sharing with a gal who was about to have twin boys. The mere idea was plenty to make him cringe. He pulled the curtain around Kelly’s bed to give them the illusion of privacy. No sooner had he got there than an Asian gal from the kitchen carried in a tray.
“Food!” Kelly cried, like stout Cortez or Balboa or whoever it really was discovering the Pacific. Only the conquistador didn’t make the ocean disappear. The way Kelly inhaled the hospital dinner was a sight to behold. She gulped the apple juice that went with it, too. Then she delivered her verdict: “That was the best lousy meal I’ve ever had.”
Colin actually knew what she meant. He didn’t tell her so, for fear she wouldn’t believe him. But hard work and crappy chow in his Navy days made him understand.
A nurse brought in the baby, wrapped in a pink blanket. “You can have it sleep by you tonight if you want,” she said. “Or we can just bring it in when it needs feeding.”
“Do that, please,” Kelly said. She’d been all for keeping the kid by her side through the night till Colin talked her out of it with tales of how frazzled Louise had been after doing that with Rob.
“Okeydoke,” the nurse said now. “Might as well get what sleep you can, dear.”
“Right,” Kelly said. After the nurse went away, she muttered, “If I get any sleep at all on this miserable hospital mattress.” She punctuated that with a yawn. “If I can’t sleep on it tonight, I never will.”
“Hope you do,” Colin said.
“Tonight. Tomorrow night. Then I go home, and the fun really starts,” Kelly said.
“We’ll manage,” Colin told her.
“You already know what you’re doing. You’ve done it before. For me, it’ll all be on-the-job training.” Kelly rolled her eyes. “Christ, Marshall knows more about taking care of babies than I do. He’s sure had more practice.”
“We’ll manage,” Colin said again. “And you’ll do great.” He believed that right down to his toes. Kelly wasn’t as aggressively organized in everything she took on as he was. But whatever she tried, she did a good job at it. He couldn’t imagine motherhood being any different.
* * *
Louise Ferguson and James Henry walked into the Carrows on Reynoso Drive. “Hello,” said the smiling young woman who seated people. “One and a high chair?”
“Two and a high chair,” Louise answered, looking around. “We’re meeting somebody, but I don’t see her yet.”
“Okay. Come this way, please.” The young woman took her and James Henry to a table. “Is this all right?”
“Sure,” Louise lied. She’d sat at this table when she told him she was pregnant with James Henry right after Teo skipped on her. She couldn’t remember a less pleasant lunchtime, even if the BLT had been pretty good. But ingrained politeness kept her from asking to sit somewhere else.
She held her son on her lap till a Hispanic kid brought the high chair. She wondered if he was legal, and how closely Carrows checked. Just closely enough to keep from getting into hot water with Immigration, odds were. A waitress brought a menu for her and a children’s menu for James Henry. She also doled out a couple of crayons so he could color on it.
“Thank you,” he said gravely.
The waitress blinked, then grinned. “You’re welcome! You’re a
“He is,” Louise agreed. It was true, no matter how much he’d complicated her life. Her own smile faded when she looked at the prices. She hadn’t been here for a while-not since she lost her job at the ramen works.
