His Baby (16 page)

When he pulled back, she saw a fierce gladness in his
expression. He stared at her as if memorizing her features, then reached out
and brushed her hair away from her forehead, then folded her back in his arms.

"We have to talk," he said softly, but for the
moment, she thought, opening her arms to gather him to her, she didn't want to
talk. She wanted to yield, to surrender, and most of all, to enjoy this moment
of surrender before she faced the tangle before them.

The tangle seemed worse the more they tried to pull it apart.
At first, they sat in the living room quietly, not quite sure how to say
anything. Lark, as if concerned about the silence in the house, started to cry.
Perhaps she was just hungry. Zack and Diana scrambled around, making Lark
something to eat, changing her, distracting her. After the baby had eaten, they
bundled up, all three of them, and took a long walk in the crisp fall afternoon.

Whitney was a picture perfect town that Sunday afternoon. Walking
along the sidewalks of the quiet streets, pushing the stroller in front of
them, they shuffled through newly fallen leaves, still crisp and brilliantly
colored. There were a couple of different teams playing football in the fields
next to the junior school. The doors to the school were open; the sound of a
brass band drifted out, rehearsing a rousing marching song.

As they got closer to the center of town, there were more
kids out, walking, playing in front yards, running, skateboarding. A few
antique shops in town had banded together to form a local merchants association
and decided to open up every Sunday as well as advertising with colorful
banners. Most of the furniture and decorations they carried weren't antiques
under the stricter definitions of the term, but they were old, charming, and,
for the most part, well preserved. A couple of gift shops were winding up for
Christmas. One of them already had handmade ornaments on display in the front
window.

Christmas.
Diana didn't have many traditions, but she
discovered, to her amazement, that Zack did. Zack and his mother had evolved an
entire Christmas tradition, which began the day after Thanksgiving and carried through
until New Year’s Day. Of course, he explained, there were lots of things she --
Diana -- could do.
If she wanted
. At her nod, Zack told her would leave
her a list.

Baking cookies, making new ornaments, pulling out all the
decorations from the previous years. He decorated his place and helped his
parents with their house. He attended Christmas parties and took care of
putting together the company party. He volunteered as Santa Claus for a number
of local organizations.

Diana tried to keep the surprise out of her face while he
told her the stories, beginning with how he'd gotten involved in college. Zack
hadn't volunteered any of this information so far. What else about his life in
Chicago wasn't he telling her?

They stopped at the coffee shop downtown and took a booth
along the front window in the corner, so they could leave the sleeping Lark in
her stroller. After they'd ordered apple pie and coffee, they both leaned back.

"What would you do if you moved to Whitney?" Diana
asked, out of the blue.

"You mean for a job, of course," he said, waiting
for her nod before he went on. "I've thought about it. Carl's right, there
isn't much in the way of choice around here."

"I'm not used to the idea of Carl moving away."

"Maybe he won't," Zack said, shrugging 

"No, I think he'll move if he finds a job he likes.”

"I can commute some, too," he said. "This
weekend I thought about starting a business. I do know howqto manage a business
now, for better or for worse. It wouldn't be a bad idea to open up some new
jobs around here."

"What kind of business?"

"I don’t know. Dad will probably try to convince me the
business should have something to do with stationary. How about an antique
store for you? I'll be the manager," he said smiling. "Of course, I
don't know if you want to move to Chicago."

"I haven't really given Chicago a chance yet," she
said sadly. "But I can be a bookkeeper anywhere."

"That's true. You know, I live near Chicago, but it is
a small town," he said slowly. "It really is a small town. You might
not find it so difficult to adjust to."

"I don't know if I'm really a small town girl. I've
just never lived anywhere else. Never thought about it, really."

He nodded and they started talking about something else then
gradually worked their way back to what to do next.

The next weekend Diana came to Chicago with Lark, but this
time Zack drove them back so she wouldn't have such a difficult trip. She
stayed with the Whites in the room they had put her in before, but this time
she let Lark sleep in "her" room and Diana and Lark spent time at
Zack's place. Actually, Zack and Diana went out alone on Saturday, drove into
Chicago and did some sightseeing, then ended up with dinner and some blues club
hopping.

Diana discovered, to her amazement, that she was holding
hands with Zack at some point in the second club, a crowded, smoky place with
standing room only. The third club was quieter, with tables, but filled up
rapidly. They ended up sitting a few feet from the band on benches against the
wall, arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. They were close, but by
unspoken agreement had retreated from a closer physical relationship. It was
too much, too soon. They both seemed happy to be closer, more relaxed, more
comfortable, without taking that next step. Diana enjoyed the tension,
something she’d never been aware of before.

She couldn't look at him, not without seeming obvious, but
she didn't need to. She felt his heat, his strength, his attention,
communicated through his hand and his body. He spoke to her in whispers offered
close to her ear, teasing threads of warm breath and the intimate sense of the
two of them, alone in a crowd.

Diana figured there were more people in this small room than
had been on the auditorium stage at her high school graduation.

They didn't stay out too late.

The next morning, Diana found that Beth White had gotten up
with Lark during the night, so that she had her first full night's sleep in
months. Diana felt the strings loosen a little. At breakfast she struggled with
conflicting feelings: she enjoyed the sense that someone else would get up if
Lark cried but she felt as if she’d missed something.

Lark was glad enough to see her and was a happy baby all
day, even during the long trip back to Whitney. Zack stayed over Sunday night
and did some job hunting in Whitney and the surrounding area on Monday.

But Diana wasn't sure. Despite his boredom with his job in
Chicago, he had more involvement in life there. He might move in any case, find
a new house. They still hadn't talked about marriage but Diana considered that the
arrangement seemed reasonable, possible, maybe even desirable. At sometimes
awkward moments, Diana found herself thinking about Zack, remembering him,
wanting to talk about something he’d said, something they’d done.

As much as she liked Whitney, she wasn't sure she needed to
stay. She and Mary talked about it midweek while making arrangements for Mary
to stay on the weekend. Carl was driving to the Whites to stay there for a few
days while he did some job interviews. Ironically, Zack was planning to stay
over Monday to do the same in Whitney.

Zack and Diana and Mary and Lark had a quiet rainy weekend
around the house. There was nothing in those calm couple of days that prepared
Diana for Mary's wake-up call very early in the morning on Monday.

Scrambling out of her warm bed, Diana found Mary leaning
against the doorway, her nightgown damp against her warm skin. Mary had her
eyes closed, her face clenched in a spasm of pain. Diana slipped her arm across
Mary's shoulders to support her, feeling the tension under her arm. She
murmured Mary's name, but the other woman couldn't answer right away.

"Silly question for you," Diana said, as Mary's
face relaxed a little. "Are you in labor?"

Mary just nodded. "I hope so. Otherwise something’s
very wrong because it hurts. A lot."

"Can we get you back to the bed so you can relax?"
Diana suggested.

"No. I want to keep walking. But get me to the
hospital, okay?" Mary relaxed a little, took a few steps, rubbing her back.

"I'll call them. An ambulance. I just have to go back
into my room for the phone."

Mary just nodded, stood up a little straighter, took a
couple of steps, sighed. She seemed to be okay.

Lark started to cry, a soft whimper. Diana started for
Lark's room.

"Call the hospital, please, then check on Lark." Mary
moved slowly a couple of feet towards her door. "I'll check on Lark."

Diana dashed into her room, picked up her phone but with
barely a moment's hesitation her fingers didn't press the emergency numbers but
the numbers that connected her with Zack, who answered sleepily.

"Zack," she whispered quickly. "It's Diana. Mary's
in labor. Very intense."

Diana could hear Lark who was starting to cry more loudly,
but the sound was still not a real distress call. "Lark's awake. I've got
to go. Call the hospital, please, then get here. Please."

"You haven't called them?"

"No. Mary's ... it's.... "

"I'll be there in ten minutes," he said and hung
up.

Back next to Mary, Diana smoothed the other woman's hair back
from her forehead. "I called Zack. He'll be right here."

Mary's eyes lit up and she smiled. "I'm glad he's in
town," she said. "Go take care of Lark."

Once Lark's diaper was changed, they went downstairs for her
bottle. On the way up, Diana unlocked the front door and headed back upstairs. She
found Mary at the top of the stairs, looking down anxiously, debating. She
wanted to wait until a contraction was over before trying to go down the steep,
narrow stairs of the old house. So for the moment, the three of them paced the
hallway, slowly moving along to keep Mary distracted between remarkably strong
labor pains.

"You haven't been having practice contractions?"

"I would’ve remembered something like that," Mary
said. "Guess this baby’s anxious to be born. We haven't even been to
classes yet, which I know we should have done by now," Mary said, fussing.

"Don't worry about it," Diana said, reaching to
smooth the frown lines on Mary's brow. "Just try to remember to breathe
and try to relax as much as you can between contractions, okay?"

"Relax?" Mary said, laughing a little.

That was how Zack found them, having pounded up the steps
two at a time. He came to stand next to Diana, slipping his hand into hers,
patting the baby, who was resting sleepily on Diana's shoulder. They were still
getting the story straight when the sirens approached, pulling into the
driveway and stopping next to the front porch, with its open front door.

While the attendants convinced Mary she could get downstairs
(sort of like talking a kitten out of a tree, one quipped) and supported her as
best they could, Zack and Diana assembled a few things for Lark, found Mary's
purse and Diana's, and pulled coats out of closets. They scrambled downstairs
and found Mary didn't want to leave without one of them, so Zack rode in the
ambulance with Mary.

Diana had turned around and started to pull out of the
driveway when she looked around abruptly. All of the houses along the street
were lit up, not every room, but a light in every house. For a moment she
envied them their warm houses, the momentary sense of disturbance from the
ambulance’s sirens that they would sort out later in the day. It was that very
cold part of the night, when night was moving towards dawn, when people up were
colder and more tired and those who weren't going to see another dawn gave up
and died.

She took a deep breath.

Mary isn't going to die. This is just a premature birth, bad
enough. Carl might even have time to drive down from Chicago, if labor lasted
that long, she thought, then corrected herself. She wasn't sure labor would
last that long. She hoped she could reach Carl by phone in time.

 After another breath, she turned down the street and headed
for the hospital. Zack was standing at the nurses’ station in the emergency
room when Diana came in, holding Lark, the diaper bag and two purses.

"Hey, how is she?" Diana asked. Lark started to
fuss and reached for her Da Da. Zack took her automatically.

"Why don't you go see her?" he suggested,
"Just wait for a yell, you'll hear her." The nurse working behind the
counter turned, looked up, and smiled ruefully at Zack.

The emergency room wasn't that large. Diana had been here
before, more often than she wanted to remember. She found Mary with no trouble,
even without a shout or a scream. This nurse looked vaguely familiar. She
greeted Diana with a quick nod and continued her examination. Mary was in
labor, so they were going to get her admitted and into a labor room as quickly
as possible.

"Are you going to stay with her?"

"I think so, if Zack can stay with Lark."

"And Lark is?" the nurse prompted.

They got the situation sorted out pretty quickly. Diana went
back to find Zack, who was on the phone talking to Mrs. Hampton who had
apparently agreed to come and get Lark and watch her until the new baby was
born.

"What are you doing, Zack? Why are you bothering Mrs.
Hampton, in the first place?" In the second place, she thought, biting off
the impulse to speak aloud --
you have no business deciding how to take care
of Lark
.
But he did
, she thought.
He did
.

"Mrs. Hampton doesn't sleep very well. She's happy to
come by. She'll stay here for a while but I told her she could take Lark back
to the house if she wanted." He glanced at Diana briefly. "She can
use my car or call a cab."

"Why don't you go back to the house with Lark?"
"Because I promised Mary I wouldn't leave her until Carl gets here."

"I'd better call Carl." Diana put her arms out to
take Lark but the baby turned her face away, burying it in Zack's sweater. Diana
tried to ignore the wrench she felt.

"I've called Carl, and my folks," Zack said
crisply. "By now they've probably left."