“I know,” I said. “It’s unbearable to think about.”
“I just can’t stand how Grace must be feeling right now.”
“I know exactly what you mean.” I looked her in the eye. “They’re really going to need our support, Jen,” I said.
“I think we should have gone with Tara to the room,” she said.
My daughter was braver than I was. “You want to be with Grace?” I asked.
Jenny nodded.
“All right.” I got to my feet. “Let’s go find them.”
58
Grace
Mom was being her usual self, chatting up Haley and Anna as we waited on the couch in Haley’s room for a nurse to come swab my cheek. Someone had brought in another chair so everyone could sit and I was still cold, even though I knew the temperature in the room was fine. I had the blue blanket wrapped around my shoulders again and it felt like armor. I didn’t know what to hope for. If I was a match, I was afraid of what would happen to me next. If I wasn’t a match, Haley could die. When I thought about it that way, I knew I had no choice.
My mother was just as nervous as I was. She was talking a mile a minute, which wasn’t all that unusual, and within ten minutes she knew everything there was to know about the neighborhood where Haley and Anna lived in Virginia and what Haley liked in school and all that typical stuff. She was acting like the always-on Tara Vincent, but her eyes were darting between Haley and Anna and the open door of the room and she had moved her chair right next to mine and hadn’t stopped touching me since she showed up at the hospital. I was glad of that.
The whole time my mother was talking, Anna and Haley kept staring at me like I was a peach in the grocery store and they were trying to decide if they wanted to take me home with them or not. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Everyone please stop staring at me,” I said. Mom moved closer to me on the sofa, but Anna and Haley just laughed.
“We can’t help it,” Anna said.
“I would so seriously like some of that hair,” Haley said.
I wondered if I could give her some of it. Have it cut and donate it to the Locks of Love program so they could make it into a wig for her. Could you specify who you wanted to receive your hair?
While I was thinking about how I could donate my hair, Emerson and Jenny suddenly showed up in the doorway.
“Knock, knock,” Emerson said. “We just wanted to see how Tara and Grace are doing.”
Anna stood from her chair like someone had poked her with a stick, and Haley suddenly sat up straight in her bed.
“Holy shit,” she said.
Then everything turned upside down.
59
Noelle
She’d had taxing deliveries before, scary deliveries where a birth she’d expected to proceed without complications suddenly turned into something that made her pulse race. But Tara’s delivery of Grace would forever remain one of the most frightening experiences of her professional life.
Tara had called early that morning to tell her that her contractions had started, so Noelle didn’t take her morning cocktail of drugs for her back pain. Instead, she put pinches of turmeric between her cheek and gum and made a thermos of red clover tea, without much hope of relief. There was something to be said for herbal remedies in childbirth, but they were failing her when it came to her back. Her pain was worse than ever these days. The only thing that helped were the drugs, and she blessed the inventors of Percocet and Valium.
With each hour of Tara’s long, grueling labor, Noelle’s back seized harder until she occasionally had to mask her tears of pain, not wanting Tara or Sam to worry about her when they needed to be concentrating on themselves. Her own concentration was split between the task at hand and the pills she had in her purse.
Around four in the afternoon, Emerson called to say that her water had broken and a neighbor was driving her to the hospital. Ted was in California at a Realtors’ convention and she was facing labor alone. She cried on the phone, and Noelle felt torn in two.
“Ted’s on his way to the airport,” Emerson said. “He’ll get the first flight out, but he has to change planes in Chicago. It’s going to take him forever to get here.”
“You’re in excellent hands, honey,” Noelle assured her. Without Ted or her two closest friends by her side, Emerson would suffer emotionally, but medically, she’d get good care and that was what mattered most right now. Everything had to go well for her. After the two lost babies, Noelle couldn’t bear the thought of Emerson having anything less than the smooth delivery of her healthy baby girl.
She kept in touch with her by phone, comforting her and cheering her on as she labored. Once Tara gave birth and she was certain both mother and baby were stable, she’d talk to Tara and Sam about bringing in the postpartum doula she’d been working with for the past couple of years. Tara knew Clare Briggs and would be comfortable with her. Then, if Emerson was still in labor, Noelle could run over to the hospital to be with her.
Late that night, while Ted was stuck in Chicago and Tara was fighting fear and pain, Noelle called the hospital and learned that Emerson was having an emergency C-section. Oh, how she wanted to be there to hold her sister’s hand! She kept in touch with the hospital—she knew nearly every nurse in the unit—and she breathed a sigh of relief when Jenny was born and both the baby and Emerson were reported to be healthy and stable.
She poured apple juice for Tara, Sam and herself, and between Tara’s contractions they toasted the birth of Jenny McGarrity Stiles. Sam alone knew her relationship to that baby. He squeezed her hand as she sat on the edge of their bed. Noelle couldn’t wait to see her niece, but first she had a baby to deliver.
