The father of one of his former band-mates was piloting a research boat to the Antarctic, Jimmy Roy explained, so he had offered himself as a crew member. His mother loaned him the air-fare to Argentina and he signed on as an assistant cook. For weeks and weeks the boat made him sick, and his injured back gave him constant pain. He saw penguins and elephant seals and jagged mountains of green ice. He thought about his place in the universe, the stray speck of time that was his allotment in life. He calculated how many hours of it had been passed nearly comatose in the dark basement of his mother’s house. When he returned, just two weeks ago, he came with the understanding that he had been given three great gifts: his mother, Annali, and Patsy.
He rolled the label off the bottle of beer he’d drunk while he talked. Pru watched the bar’s neon blue light play in the rings he wore on every finger. “The whole time I was on that boat, I kept thinking about being in the hospital with her. Watching her give birth. How her body knew what to do, even after all those hours in labor—I mean, it was amazing. And I started to think about how God was right there, in Patsy’s body. If God isn’t there, then where?” He looked up at her with his liquid, satiny eyes. “You know what I mean?”
Pru remembered Jimmy Roy the night after Patsy gave birth. Pru had flown in for the birth, and had been standing next to Jimmy Roy when the baby came out. There weren’t any complications, and Patsy had even gotten up and walked around. All day, she nursed the baby, made phone calls, and in general enjoyed herself. Then, for reasons nobody could figure out, she’d started bleeding, a full twelve hours after Annali was born. Jimmy Roy was helping her to the bathroom when the first blood clot slid right out of her. They all stared at it as it trembled on the floor like a jellyfish. Then Patsy moaned, and went as white as a sheet. Pru ran out into the hall and called for a nurse, who followed her in, took one look at the clot quivering on the floor, and ran to call another nurse.
Jimmy Roy didn’t leave her side all night. They had to put in another IV and change the thick pads under her almost constantly. Each time a clot passed, Patsy turned deathly white and shuddered to the tips of her fingers. They ran a line into her arm and gave her Pitocin, to control the postnatal hemorrhage. She missed one nursing, then another. Finally, the medication contracted her uterus and slowed the bleeding, and color slowly returned to her face. Pru and Jimmy Roy both fell asleep in chairs on either side of the bed.
“Pru,” Patsy whispered the following morning, as soon as Pru had opened her eyes. “Was that as bad as I thought it was?”
Pru went over and took her hand. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said lightly. Patsy’s eyes were already closing again. “Not compared to, say, the prom scene from Carrie.” And Patsy had smiled as she drifted back off to sleep.
Jimmy Roy stayed in her room at the hospital for days. He fed the baby with an eyedropper so that Patsy could sleep. He wouldn’t let the nurses give the baby any more bottles, knowing that Patsy would be crushed if she couldn’t get the baby to nurse.
Now Jimmy Roy said, “You know what else I realized? The day that Annali was born was the happiest day of my life. And not just because it was the day she came into the world. But because it was profound. Profound, Pru. Everything after that was just anti-climactic. Even Antarctica. I want to live a profound life, you know? That was the day that I found my purpose.”
Pru nodded. “Being Annali’s father.”
“Yes. Absolutely. And a nurse-midwife,” he added.
“Oh,” she said, practically yelping. She breathed deeply, hoping he couldn’t see how desperately she wanted to laugh. He was, she could see, completely serious. “Wow. Ah. Okay. Gee, a midwife.”
“I want to deliver babies,” he said. “I want my hands to be the first thing they touch in this world. My hands. Can you imagine anything more profound than that?”
Jimmy Roy’s hands were nice enough hands—she’d been admiring them as he played with the label on his beer—but they did hang on the ends of heavily tattooed arms. She had a little trouble seeing them, say, at Fiona’s knees.
She decided to focus on the process. “So, how does one become a midwife?”
“Nurse-midwife. I’ll have to go to nursing school. I’ve already started the application process.” He took a drink of his soda. “I thought I’d check out University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins while I’m here,” he added. “Just in case Patsy stays in this area.”
“Oh,” Pru said again. “Hm.”
“I know what that means,” Jimmy Roy said. “That means, don’t get your hopes up.”
“Listen, you have a right to be in Annali’s life. But Patsy’s in a terrible place right now. It’s not the right time to spring this on her. Just wait awhile before you say anything. That’s my totally unsolicited advice.”
He looked sad, but nodded. “I know I have a lot of amending to do,” he said. In her mind, Pru crossed out “amending” and wrote in “making up.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” she said as they hugged good night. She really meant it. “I’m really glad, Jimmy Roy.”
WHEN SHE OPENED THE DOOR TO HER APARTMENT, Patsy’s head popped up from the other side of the couch, where she was, as usual, watching TV. Pru saw the opening credits for Beverly Hills 90210.
“He’s not here, is he?” Patsy said.
“Jimmy Roy? No.” She stooped to pick up Big Whoop, who stood to put his front paws on
