One Christmas Knight

emergency. Uh…I’m in a truck-Blue Starr Transport-on I-40. Let’s see, that’s about fifty miles west of Amarillo. We’re stuck in traffic, and I’m, uh, well, I’m in labor. And, uh, we need help. So…please send someone. Please. Help…

“What now?” she whispered after a tense little silence. “Nobody’s answering.”

“Did you remember to let go of the button?”

“Oh…shoot.” She swore under her breath. Another few minutes of silence went by. “Still nothing. Shall I try again?”

“Sure, might as well.” Then he had to smile as this time she jumped right in with a self-confident singsong. He had to hand it to her-the lady did learn fast. Sounded just like a born trucker.

“Mayday, Mayday, this is an emergency. Repeat, this is an emergency. I am in a big rig owned by Blue Starr Transport, stuck in westbound traffic on I-40 about fifty miles west of Amarillo. I am in labor and in need of assistance. Please respond. Mayday.”

Together they listened to crackling static and breathing sounds. Then in a flat, expressionless voice she said, “Well. So much for that.” From the corner of his eye he could see her hand reaching toward him.

Wordlessly he took the mike from her and hung it back up, wishing he could have taken her hand instead, just because sometimes when there wasn’t anything to say, it was kinda good to have a hand to hold on to. But the mike was there in the way, and by the time he had it taken care of, the moment had gone by. So all he could do was try and find some words.

“We’ll keep ‘er on that channel,” he said gruffly. “Just keep on tryin’. Sooner or later we’re bound to raise somebody. Meanwhile, maybe you oughta go on back there and lie down for a while. Seems to me if you keep quiet, things might slow down some. Get out of those wet things, too, while you’re at it. I know I’ve got some clothes back there you can wear. Couple of sweatshirts, some long johns…”

“Jimmy Joe…” Just that.

The way she said it, the way she was breathing, got his attention real quick. He looked over at her, his heart jumping right out of his chest. “You havin’ a contraction?”

She nodded rapidly, clinging to him with eyes suddenly gone dark and scared. “I guess it must be.”

“Okay… okay.” He gripped the wheel and stared a hole in the windshield, hoping he didn’t sound as scared as he felt, hoping he didn’t drive right up the tailgate of the reefer truck in front of him. “Now…”

What now? It had been a long time since he’d attended those childbirth classes with Patti-J.J.’s mama. All he could remember about them was a lot about relaxation, and something called “cleansing breaths.” Which, judging from the sounds she was making, Mirabella already had down pat.

Finally getting up enough courage to look over at her, he saw that she had her eyes closed now and was concentrating on those breaths for all she was worth. It gave him an odd, lonely feeling to watch her, as if she’d gone away somewhere, to some place he could never follow. Nothing for him to do but keep his mouth shut and drive, until finally she let out her breath in a long, slow hiss and finished it up with, “Oh, boy.”

“Bad one?” he asked awkwardly, fully aware of the fact that no matter how she answered him, he would never really understand. Nothing like childbirth to make a man feel totally useless, he thought. Probably why in ages past at times like this the womenfolk were always sending the men out to chop wood or boil water or hunt buffalo, just to make em feel like they were good for something.

“Not so bad.” She said it with a relieved chuckle, like a kid finding out that the punishment he’d been dreading wasn’t so terrible after all. “If they don’t get any worse than that, I can handle it.”

“How often you havin’ ’em?”

“I don’t know.” She shifted restlessly. “I guess we’d better start keeping track.”

“Okay, say we start-” he pulled back the sleeve of his sweatshirt and got a good look at his watch, adding a couple of minutes for the time they’d been talking “-now. Okay, now, you tell me the minute you feel the next one comin’ on, y’hear? And right now before it does, you best get on back there and lie down.” He jerked his head in the direction of the sleeper. “Get some rest.”

Then he caught a replay of himself. He shook his head and made a sound that was full of all the self-disgust and helplessness he felt. “I beg your pardon-don’t mean to be givin’ out orders. I just do it so I’ll feel like I’m doin’ somethin’.” He gave her about half a grin, which was the best he could muster.

“That’s okay.” After a moment she gave a soft laugh and added dryly, “You probably ought to get in some practice while you can. Looks like you’re going to be my childbirth coach.”

With that she got up and eased herself between the seats. The quilt got hung up on the gearshift and he reached automatically to unhook it for her, taking more time than he needed, fussing with the dragging end like a bridesmaid with a bridal train while he tried to get some spit flowing in his mouth again. He’d never known his mouth to be so dry. Fear. That’s what it was.

But he couldn’t let Mirabella know. That was why he scraped up a little laughter and kind of a confident, know- it-all tilt to his head and drawled, “Childbirth coach… Oh, yeah, I sure do remember that. Those classes, now… I reckon that’s what they’re for, don’t you? Make the father feel like he’s actually doing something worthwhile, even if all it is is propping his wife up and yelling at her to do what she’s already doing anyway.”

“You went to childbirth classes?” He heard the surprise in her voice along with the soft grunts and scuffles she made as she settled herself back in the sleeper. “Really?”

“Sure did. Went with my wife when we were expectin’ J.J. It was a while ago, though-don’t know how much of it I remember.” Traffic having stopped for the moment, he twisted around to look at her and then had to laugh out loud at the pure disbelief on her face. “Why, what’s that for?”

“What’s what?”

“That look. What‘sa matter? You don’t think I’ve been to childbirthin’ class?”

“Well…it’s kind of hard to imagine.”

“Yeah?” His eyes were bright, teasing. As uncomfortable as she was with the way the conversation had turned, Mirabella was glad to see his smile again. “Why’s that?”

“Oh…well, uh…” she faltered, realizing that as usual she’d put her foot in her mouth, and there wasn’t going to be any way she could answer that without it sounding like a putdown. And the galling thing was, she had the feeling he knew it, and didn’t mind.

“Doesn’t fit my image, huh?”

“I guess it just seems like a Yupppie thing,” Mirabella hedged lamely. Not a truck-driver thing. How awful it was, to discover that she was a snob.

“What, you don’t think we got Yuppies in Georgia?” His eyes were attentive, his smile gentle and off- center.

“Oh, I’m sure.” Shame made her snappish. “But you’re not.”

“Now, how do you know what I am?”

The two things Mirabella hated most were, number one, being teased, and number two, being bested in a verbal battle. The first of those usually brought on an urge to stamp her foot and scream. Fortunately, determination not to succumb to the second almost always gave her a strong enough incentive to resist that urge and hold on to her temper.

“I’m from L.A.,” she said dryly. “If there’s anything I know, it’s Yuppies, and believe me, you’re not one. Anyway-” She broke it off, suddenly both furious and panicstricken, because she’d just discovered that the last thing she wanted to do was try to define Jimmy Joe-even to herself, much less to his face. “I didn’t mean anything by what I said. It’s just-I never would have thought Southern men were into that kind of stuff, that’s all.”

“Now, there you go,” Jimmy Joe said, overdoing the vexation just enough so she knew he was kidding. “Where do you get your ideas about Southern men? I bet every single thing you know about us Southerners you got from redneck jokes and country music.”

“I don’t listen to country music,” she said stiffly; she considered the very term an oxymoron. “And I think redneck jokes are…” His sudden laughter and her own latent sense of good manners stopped her.

“Hey-not all of us Southern men are rednecks.”

“I never thought you were!” But she could feel her face warming. There it was-the R-word, the one she’d been trying to shut completely out of her mind. She didn’t want to admit to herself that she’d ever thought of him that way. But she had, at first-okay, sure, cute as the dickens, but a redneck nonetheless. And now she felt ashamed of that.

“Now, what do you think a redneck is?” he persisted, his eyes bright and teasing, his drawl exaggerated. “Pert‘