Seduced by Moonlight (28 page)

Cherisse was standing at the sink washing red potatoes in preparation for peeling them with a potato peeler. Her mother liked to add them to the pole beans, a big pot of which was simmering on the stove.

Suddenly, her water broke. It gushed down her legs, wetting the floor and forming a puddle around her feet.

She surprised herself with the calmness she demonstrated when she turned to her mother, who was taking something out of the refrigerator, and said, “Ma, would you go tell Harry my water just broke and the babies are on the way?”

Jo screamed and ran out the back door to the yard.

Danielle came running downstairs and straight to the kitchen when she'd heard her grandmother's blood-curdling screams.

When she got to the kitchen, her mother was standing wide-legged at the sink, holding on to it. Danielle ran to her.

Cherisse forced a smile, although right after her water had broken, she'd been hit by a hell of a contraction that was twisting her up inside. “Sonia went to my old room to put Joy Renee down for her nap,” she said. “Would you get her for me, baby?”

She didn't have to because Sonia had also heard Miss Jo's screams and had stood stock-still for a moment, afraid that the sound would awaken Joy Renee. When Joy Renee did not move an inch, she made sure the sides of the portable crib were secure, then she left the room, pulled the door closed behind her and hurried downstairs.

She entered the kitchen now and quickly assessed the situation. To Danielle, she said, “Help me get her to the couch in the living room. She needs to lie down where her head can be raised and her feet lowered.”

They were headed in that direction when Harry burst through the back door, followed by Ken and Miss Jo.

“Has anybody called nine-one-one!” he yelled.

No one had. Danielle took care of that and afterward went to her grandmother, who was looking quite pale, and made her sit down on a chair at the kitchen table. The action was in the living room and she didn't think her grandmother needed to be in the thick of it.

Harry sat behind Cherisse on the couch so that she reclined on him. Sonia was busy removing Cherisse's underwear. Ken, who was quite queasy in these kinds of situations—he'd fainted when Sonia had given birth—retreated to the kitchen to wait with Miss Jo and Danielle.

Sonia was squatting at the foot of the couch with a bird's-eye-view of the crowning of one of the twins' heads while Harry was holding Cherisse, and whispering, “It's gonna be all right,” over and over again.

“It won't be long now,” Sonia cried. “When I tell you, I want you to push, sis, but not too hard, okay?”

Cherisse let out a groan. “Okay!”

“Push,” said Sonia.

The baby's head emerged and soon the body followed. Sonia held the little boy in her arms with his head pointed downward. The baby began to cry and Cherisse breathed a deep sigh of relief. He was okay!

Sonia promptly placed the baby on her chest and went back to her post at the foot of the couch. The other baby's head was crowning.

Sonia counted silently, wanting to be able to say how many seconds or minutes the twins had been born apart.

Eighty counts later, she cried to Cherisse, “Push!”

Cherisse pushed and soon another little boy came into the world bawling. Sonia also placed this child in his mother's arms. Harry was holding all three of them with a thankful smile on his face.

He had two sons, both healthy, both with strong lungs and all their limbs, and his beautiful wife worn out but very much alive, in his arms.

Life was good.