Eden in Winter (36 page)

‘Another sign that God is a male. If you want, later on we can give you morphine for the pain.’

This time Carla did smile, though with effort. ‘Thanks, but I exhausted my quota of drugs a couple of years ago. I’ll settle for an epidural when he’s closer.’

Stein nodded. ‘He’s coming, no doubt of that. But you’re a first-time mom, so that may be some hours yet.’ He paused, then spoke more quietly. ‘There’ll be a pediatrician here for the delivery. If there’s a problem, we’ll get you and the baby to Boston as soon as possible.’
If he’s still alive
, the doctor did not need to add.

Caught between hope and dread, Carla simply thanked him.

Quickly, they took her to the room for labour and delivery. It was as large as a hotel suite, the walls a soothing beige, with a couch and two chairs near the head of the bed. As they helped her lie down, Carla noticed the clock on the wall.

Once again, the nurse placed a fetal monitor on her stomach. ‘Your baby still sounds strong,’ she assured Carla. ‘Just hang on.’

*

When Adam arrived, Teddy was slumped in an uncomfortable-looking chair outside the delivery room. Standing over him, Adam said, ‘I bet this is one experience you thought you’d never have.’

Beneath the harsh fluorescent lights, Teddy eyed him with weary tolerance. ‘Why should predators like you have all the fun?’

Adam glanced at the door. ‘How is she?’

‘Gritty, as usual. I’ve been looking in whenever they’re not doing weird stuff to her anatomy. But she’s got a long, hard stretch ahead of her, and that may not be the worst part.’

Against his will, Adam imagined Carla presented with a stillborn child. ‘Anyhow,’ he told Teddy, ‘it’s my turn. Did you tell her I was coming?’

His brother frowned. ‘Given the complexity of your circumstances, I didn’t know if you could make it. So where do things sit with you two, exactly?’

‘I have no idea, and right now it hardly matters. I just needed to be here when he comes – whatever happens.’

Teddy gazed up at him. ‘Fine. But I’m waiting this out right here. You gave me this assignment, after all, and now we’re in it together.’ Glancing around, he added in a lower voice, ‘I like her, too. Even though she may still wonder if I killed this baby’s father.’

Despite his tangled knot of worries, Adam felt a deep wave of affection for his brother, the only member of his family he loved without ambiguity. Placing a hand on Teddy’s shoulder, he said, ‘If they’d given me a choice of brothers, Ted, you’d be the one I picked.’

*

When Adam appeared by her bed, Carla was squinting with pain, her face pinched and wan. It took a moment for her to realize he was there. Her eyes froze, surprised yet serious, before she managed to say, ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t home. Teddy tracked me down in New Hampshire, and I came as soon as I could.’

She studied him, absorbing what he had not said. ‘That can’t have gone over well.’

Adam shrugged. ‘No worse than I deserved.’

A trace of a smile appeared at the corner of her mouth. ‘A nicer woman would feel more sympathy.’

‘No doubt. Nonetheless, I’m here.’

She nodded solemnly, as though trying to absorb this. ‘I wish I could be more effusive, but there’s a lot going on with me.’ She hesitated, looking into his face. ‘I’ve never been this afraid.’

Given what Adam knew about her life, the admission pierced him. He moved closer to her bedside. ‘Maybe it won’t help, Carla. But I’m staying here as long as you want me.’

Something in her eyes changed. Her gaze, though tentative, lingered on his face. ‘You truly are an enigma, you know.’

Adam smiled a little. ‘You should try being me.’

The doctor came in, glancing from Carla to her visitor with apparent surprise. ‘Adam Blaine? I haven’t seen you since that football game where you and Bobby Towle beat Nantucket. Looks like the entire family is here.’

Though well intended, the circumstances made Stein’s remark slightly tactless.
Don’t expect my mother
, Adam imagined saying,
though if I told you my father were still walking around, it really
would
be a surprise
. Instead, he responded evenly, ‘We’ll try to keep out of the way.’

Turning his attention to Carla, Stein studied the fetal monitor. ‘He’s still got a strong, steady heartbeat,’ he informed her. ‘A very good sign.’

A smile of hope crossed Carla’s lips. To Adam, she seemed to enter a realm of her own, containing only a mother and the baby she already loved. He considered saying something, or simply touching her, then realized he was outside the mystery of their connection. So he found a chair in the corner of the room, absorbing in silence how deeply he wanted her child to live.

*

As the hours wore on, and day became evening, Adam waited. He sat at the head of Carla’s bed, not speaking much, leaving when he should without being asked. Sometimes she would turn to him, speaking a few words or just affirming his presence with her eyes. But in the deepest sense, he knew, Carla was alone.

They gave her ice cubes to suck on for hydration and, to vary this, a Popsicle. By midnight, her contractions were coming quicker and stronger. Her breaths became gasps; her forehead shone with sweat, and her gown was soaked. ‘Go ahead and scream,’ the nurse said. ‘Everyone does.’

But Carla seemed to fight this, as though she believed yielding to her own pain would jeopardize her son’s life. Stein constantly checked the fetal monitor, nodding at the steady heartbeat. When he examined her again, Carla did not object to Adam’s presence – no doubt because he was positioned to spare her any embarrassment. Over the long night, Stein and his nurse had seemed to accept that he was there as long as Carla wished. At some point, Adam realized he had not eaten. But he did not wish to leave.

Briefly, Carla fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. When the next contraction jolted her awake, she emitted a small cry.

Stein examined her again. ‘You’re dilated to five centimetres, Carla. Time for your epidural.’

A youthful anaesthetist appeared. Introducing himself, he inserted the tube in her lower back, explaining that this would numb her from the waist down. ‘He’s getting closer now,’ Stein told her moments later. ‘I want you to push with each contraction.’

The next one came quickly. Carla thrust her hips beneath the sheet, eyes shut, lips clamped to suppress a cry. ‘Good,’ the doctor encouraged her. ‘Just keep it up.’

‘Easy for you to say,’ Carla complained between gritted teeth. But when her eyes opened again, fixed on the ceiling, Adam could read her fear – not of the pain, but for the son she was struggling to bear.

The nurse wheeled in a baby warmer with blankets. Instinctively, Adam took Carla’s hand, and felt the brief answering pressure of curled fingers.

An hour passed, then another, with almost no sound save the doctor’s instructions, Carla’s thin animal cries of pain. Adam kept holding her hand. After another fierce contraction forced a louder cry from between open lips, she protested, ‘The epidural’s wearing off.’

The doctor checked her yet again. ‘He’s very close now, Carla. I’m going to give you a local, and make a small incision.’

The nurse stood next to him at the foot of the bed. Her face intent, she gave Carla a shot; moments later, the doctor positioned himself on a stool and produced a scalpel. To Adam’s eye, the instrument disappeared; when it appeared again, its edges red, he fell himself wince, his fingers tightening around Carla’s. She did not ask him to leave.

*

Stein reached beneath the blanket. ‘He’s coming now, Carla,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Just keep pushing.’

Another middle-aged woman appeared in the room – the pediatrician, Adam guessed. He felt a fresh surge of dread: even were the baby born alive, so many other things could doom him. Though he had not told Carla, he had scoured the internet to learn about trisomy eighteen. Leaning close to her, he murmured, ‘Do you want me to stay?’

Silent, she squeezed his hand, her face ashen with pain. Another spasm twisted her body.

‘I can see his head,’ Stein said encouragingly. ‘You’re doing great.’

Taut, Adam could not see the baby, could do nothing but clasp Carla’s hand. He felt her grip tighten as she struggled to raise her head, straining to glimpse the son she might be losing. At her feet, the nurse used a syringe to clear the unseen child’s nose and mouth.

‘There’s a shoulder,’ Stein said quickly. ‘One more push.’

Releasing Adam’s hand, Carla thrust her torso upward with both palms, the strain and anxiety showing in her eyes, wide open now, body trembling with the final push. Adam saw the doctor’s gloved hands reach beneath her gown.

‘Please God …’ she implored in a soft, clear voice.

Stein was holding the child now, Adam realized, as the nurse hurriedly swabbed him with a towel. Agonizing seconds passed, and then the doctor held the baby aloft for his mother to see, still connected to the cord inside her.

The newborn was still, Adam saw, a tiny, waxen figure with dark, matted hair. Carla sat bolt upright, rigid with apprehension. Hurriedly, Stein gave the infant a quick slap on the rear.

The baby seemed to shudder, then emitted a brief cry, extending an outstretched arm in protest. Grinning, Stein said, ‘Pretty stoic, this guy.’

He passed the baby to the pediatrician. Placing him on a baby warmer, she told Carla apologetically, ‘I just need to look at him.’

She examined the child closely, then put a stethoscope to his chest. At length the pediatrician smiled. ‘Seems pretty healthy to me,’ she informed the boy’s mother. ‘Good muscle tone, fine skin colour, a strong heartbeat, and a first-rate pair of lungs. Seems like this boy is going be with you for a very long time.’

Carla gazed at her son in wonderment. Suddenly her face broke into an incandescent smile that Adam had never seen before, even as tears began streaming down her face. ‘Lie back down,’ Stein requested gently. ‘I think he wants to meet you.’

Carla complied, her expression serious now. As she held out her arms, Stein placed the baby on her chest. Tentative, she kissed the swirl of dark hair before looking into her son’s brown eyes. ‘Hello, Liam,’ she said softly. ‘I’m your mom.’

Adam felt the dampness on his face, a bond with this woman and her child that left him speechless As though she sensed this, Carla turned, looking gravely into his face. Then she turned to her newborn son again, and all else seemed forgotten.

*

Suffused with joy, Carla saw the child’s hand reaching instinctively toward her face. In that moment, it seemed to her, they were utterly sufficient to each other, and to themselves.

Feeling her son’s touch, she thanked God for the gift of his life, and promised Liam that she would earn it for the rest of her own.

Martha’s Vineyard
January–March, 2012

An hour before Adam would arrive for dinner, Carla Pacelli nursed her son, watching Liam’s dark head bob as he attacked this project with his customary enthusiasm.

Their ritual both warmed and amused her. She was now the host in a symbiotic relationship with a boy who was, at least based on anecdotal evidence, unusually voracious. Of course, he had ground to make up; after all, he had insisted on arriving seven weeks early, and she was glad to see him becoming plumper. But the irregularity of his appetite at odd hours was matched only by the noisiness with which he announced it. It was as though he understood that the pitch-dark of early morning required the lung power to break through his exhausted mother’s narcolepsy.

‘It’s not like I didn’t ask for this,’ she told him. ‘But do you always have to prove that you’re a guy?’ In answer, his mouth clamped down harder. ‘I get the message,’ she reproved him fondly. ‘Everything really
is
all about you.’

But Liam would not be rushed; she was in their rocking chair for the duration. Over time, she reflected, this stage would pass, and then the next, and the one after that. Though she would miss what was lost, her purpose as a mother was to raise an adult, confident and self-sufficient, without the damage which had wounded Ben or Adam – or her. Liam was a separate being, and she would school herself to let go.

But for many years he would depend on her, and she would be making choices for them both. Which brought her to the puzzle that was Adam Blaine, so compelling yet so troubling.

I’ll do the best I can
, she promised the infant tugging at her breast.
Of the men in my life, you come first
.

*

While Adam got the lobster pot boiling, Carla set the table and lit candles. Over his shoulder, he remarked, ‘I’ve got to say you’re looking remarkably like your former self.’

Carla smiled. ‘Lots of yoga and floor exercises; I didn’t enjoy my stomach looking like an accordion. Despite my deepening spirituality, my vanity is still intact.’

‘I’m sure Liam doesn’t mind.’ Finishing, he went to the bassinet set near the fireplace to gaze at the infant who, replete, was resting up for the next encounter with his food source. ‘He doesn’t have to do much to be fascinating, does he? He just is.’

‘And a good thing,’ Carla responded wryly. ‘His routine is pretty much limited to intake and evacuation, with moments of staring I choose to interpret as love. The burden of glittering conversation falls on you.’ She lit the last candle. ‘Still, the helpless stage drives home how much Liam depends on me. Including for a childhood that doesn’t give him nightmares.’

Adam glanced at her. ‘No lousy marriage, in other words.’

‘Better no marriage at all. As you and I both know.’

Adam fell silent. Perhaps her remark was gratuitous, Carla thought – she was far from knowing what they wanted from each other. But she felt the need for honesty in a situation so obviously fraught, and Adam might serve best as a caring man for Liam than as something more for her. Contemplating Liam, Adam told the boy, ‘Your mommy says no losers.’

‘Let’s hope that “Mommy”,’ Carla rejoined, ‘develops some talent in that area.’

Returning to the stove, Adam dropped two lobsters in the pot. ‘By the way,’ he remarked, ‘does Liam know that he has an ethnically incongruous name?’