with their familiar glow of kindness, she would hardly have recognized it. His fogged breath mingled with hers as he smiled. “Sorry…wish I could. Gotta stay with my truck. I’m gonna be along in a little while. Listen, you’re gonna be just fine. You just take good care a‘that baby, now, y’hear?”
“Jimmy Joe-”
“Safe trip.” He leaned down and kissed her, quick and hard. She felt his hand slip from her grasp.
The helicopter door clanged shut. A mittened hand patted her shoulder and a kindly Texas voice said, “You just hold tight, now, honey. We’ll be there soon.”
Mirabella closed her eyes as her stomach gave a dreadful lurch.
Jimmy Joe stood and watched the helicopter lift off. Watched it until it was just a speck in the sky. He felt as if a great big piece of himself had just been ripped off him and was flying away from him. And if he lived to be a hundred, he wasn’t ever going to be able fo forget the look in Mirabella’s eyes when he’d left her alone in that chopper.
A truck crawling by on the interstate saw him standing there and blasted an airhorn greeting. Jimmy Joe lifted his hand and waved, then started walking back toward his big blue Kenworth, still idling faithfully away as it had through that long, cold night. She looked a mite road-weary, he thought, covered with grime and snow sludge, mud flaps crusted with frozen mud. He promised himself the first truck wash he came to after he got out of this mess, he was going to pull in and give her a nice bath. Himself, too, while he was at it.
And they were both going to be needing some fuel pretty soon; the Kenworth’s tanks might have a few more miles left in them, but he was running on empty. The snacks he’d gotten from the vending machines were all gone, except for a halfeaten package of peanut-butter crackers. He ate those and washed them down with warm 7-Up, then tidied the sleeper as best he could and disposed of the trash. After a safety check of his rig and a last visit to the rest stop’s freezing-cold toilet facilities, he was finally ready to roll.
First, though, he turned up the volume on his CB radio and took down the mike, then waited until he got a lull in the conversation. “Uh…this is the Big Blue Starr,” he drawled. “I’m over here at the rest stop at the twenty-eight- mile stick… Gon’ be joinin’ you here in a minute. I’d ’preciate it if you’d give me some room… Come on.”
As it seemed to be more and more often these days, it was a female voice that came back to him. “You got it, Big Blue. Sure am happy to hear from ya again. How’s the lady and her baby doin’? Ever’body okay?”
“Doin’ just fine. Chopper picked ’em up this mornin’. They’re headin’ for Amarillo as we speak.”
“We sure are glad to hear that. We been prayin’ for ya. My husband Tom, here, and me, we’re drivin’ team. Got two little babies ourselves, over there in Enid, Oklahoma. We’re still hopin’ to get home in time to hug ’em and tell ‘em Merry Christmas, but…I don’ know. If this don’t clear up pretty soon…”
“How’s it lookin’ over that way?”
“Uh…pickin’ up a little, they tell me. Looks like they finally got the overpasses sanded, anyways. Sun’s gettin’ up there now, though. Gon’ start gettin’ slick, here, pretty soon.”
“Thanks,” said Jimmy Joe. “I’ll watch it.”
“You do that. Pass on our good wishes for us, if you see the lady and that little baby again, would ya? ’Preciate it.”
“I’ll do that. Y’all have a safe trip, now.”
“Back at ya. Ten-four.”
Jimmy Joe hung up the mike and put his rig in gear, sending up a little prayer as the first of eighteen wheels bit into unbroken snow. He churned down the on-ramp and a hole opened up for him. He eased the blue Kenworth into it and once more became part of the long caravan of trucks ploughing steadily eastward.
It felt real good to be on the road again, and heading for home at last. But for some reason, without Mirabella and the baby in it the cab seemed awfully quiet to him. And empty.
It was past midday by the time Jimmy Joe rolled into Amarillo. He’d made one stop, at a gas station on old Route 66 just west of Vega, where he’d bought a few gallons of diesel and shaken the hand of the man whose voice, coming through on the radio emergency channel, had guided him through the long night just past.
Turned out the fellow, whose name was Riggs, had a pretty good garage and a tow truck besides, so he’d given him some money and Mirabella’s car keys and asked him to go pick up the silver Lexus as soon as the roads cleared up enough. Riggs had wanted him to stay and have a bite of breakfast, but hungry as he was, he was even more anxious to be on his way. So he’d settled for a cup of coffee and a quart of chocolate milk, and then he was on the road again.
On the outskirts of Amarillo, the going got a little easier. The bright sunshine hadn’t warmed things up much- just enough to melt a thin coat of water on top of the ice that made it about as slick as grease. But at least the overpasses and the on- and off-ramps had been sanded. And the streets leading to the hospital had been well plowed. It looked like about half of the parking lot had been scraped clear, too, and the snow pushed up in a pile over to one side.
He parked his rig next to the pile and set the brakes, and was indulging in a good stretch when he noticed that the parking lot seemed to be an awfully busy place, considering it was Christmas Day. He noticed several TV-news trucks and vans with satellite antennas sticking out all over them.
“Wonder what’s goin’ on?” he muttered to himself as he climbed out of the cab. He hoped it wasn’t some sort of disaster or other. Happening on Christmas-that sure would be a shame.
The hospital’s front entrance and main waiting area were all a-tangle with people, quite a few of them carrying video cameras, the rest standing around drinking coffee out of plastic cups and looking out-of-sorts. Several of them kind of stared at Jimmy Joe when he walked in, which was a reminder to him that it had been a couple of days since he’d showered and shaved. He was glad he’d put on a clean shirt and his good boots and changed his trucker’s vest for his fleece-lined Levi’s jacket, but he knew from the glimpse.he’d caught of himself in the glass doors coming in, with his two-day beard and bloodshot eyes, that he was no prize. On the other hand, it was Mirabella he’d come to see, not a bunch of strangers, and he had an idea she would forgive him if he looked a little rough around the edges.
He eased his way through the crowd with a few “Beg your pardons” and “‘Scuse me, ma’ams” and made it up to the reception desk, where a sweet-faced, gray-haired lady wearing a pink pinafore was trying her best to ignore all the hustle and bustle.
She flicked him.a glance. and said, “May I help you?” in a tone of voice that warned him she would rather not.
He cleared his throat and leaned as close to her as he could across the countertop so he wouldn’t have to shout his business to the whole world over the noise. “Uh…yes, ma‘am, I’m lookin’ for the maternity department?”
The lady in pink folded her hands together as if she was about to say her prayers and gave him a look that wasn’t much warmer than the temperature outside. “Of course you are. And the patient’s name?”
“Uh…yes, ma’am. That’d be Mirabella…” Damnation, what was it? “Uh, Waskowitz. She and her baby were brought in this morning.”
“Yes, sir, and are you a member of the family?”
Whew, thought Jimmy Joe, if that voice had been any colder it would have given him frostbite. A moment later, when he thought about it, he knew what he should have done was lie-just say, “Yes, ma’am, I’m her brother,” or something like that, and be done with it. But the habit of honesty was so ingrained in him, by the time the inspiration came to him, he’d already blurted out the truth.
“No, ma’am, I’m not. I guess you could say I’m a friend.” He saw right away that wasn’t going to get him anywhere, so he shuffled around and cleared his throat some more, and then jumped back in with, “But I know she’ll want to see me. My name’s Jimmy Joe Starr, and, uh,… Well, see, I was with her when she bad her baby. In fact, she, uh, had it in my truck. And…well, I promised her I’d come by and see her, soon as I could. Just to say hi, you know, make sure she’s okay…”
Somewhere along in there, it came to him that the people around him had gotten real quiet. In fact, he figured he could have heard a pin drop. He kept lowering his voice and leaning closer to the lady in pink, trying his best to keep his business private, but when he did that, it seemed to him that everyone in the place sort of leaned with him.
Then all of a sudden it was like a dam had burst. The whole roomful of people surged in around him, everybody
