Morgan's Child (27 page)

"Don't bring up things like that, or I might get even more nervous, energetic or excited," Morgan warned before racing into the bathroom and back with a cold cloth.

Kate closed her eyes, sucking on the ice, and Morgan went to the door and stood there for a moment watching litter and leaves and even a soda-pop can blow past in the wind. He found a waterproof poncho beside the door and tugged it over his head, grabbing the flag before rushing outside.

Below the bluff, angry breakers churned and crashed on the shore, and the wind was so powerful that Morgan had to struggle to remain in a standing position. The flagpole was perhaps thirty feet from the door of the quarters, and he hugged the flag close and ran for it. Rain streamed into his eyes so that he could barely see well enough to find the clips that would secure the flag to the rope, and as he struggled with them he heard a sudden loud
cr-ack
above.

Lightning!
was his first thought as he dropped to the ground. When he opened his eyes, he realized that it hadn't been lightning at all. It had been the wooden flagpole, old and probably rotten, that had snapped off about halfway up and been flung toward the woods.

Slowly Morgan picked himself up and ran back into the quarters. Kate stood at the entrance to the sitting room, gripping the wall and staring at him with eyes as dark as two coals in her pale face.

"What—"

"The flagpole snapped. You'd better get back to bed," he said. Without divesting himself of the dripping poncho, he helped her back into the bedroom, where she climbed back on the bed, and he pulled the poncho off and threw it in a corner.

"I could be in labor for hours yet," Kate said, trying to smile.

"How long will this storm last?" Morgan asked.

"No telling. It depends on whether or not it's stalled off the coast. Uh-oh, here it comes again," Kate said, grimacing at the onset of the contraction.

"Pant, Kate, like we learned in class," Morgan said, and, with visions of the neighbor's beagle in her head, Kate panted. She wanted to ride the pain, to stay above it, to remember that she was experiencing what women had experienced since time immemorial. She tried to take heart in the fact that she was becoming part of an exalted sisterhood united by this one all-encompassing, all-important experience.

"And to think this is only the first stage of labor," Kate said after the contraction was over. None of her lofty thoughts helped at all. Actually, she felt as if her mind were out of her body during contractions, looking on as an interested spectator not involved in any way. Her body seemed to have taken over her whole being with a will of its own, that will being the intense need to expel the baby. If this was childbirth, it was not as she had expected, to say the least.

Morgan was consulting the book again. "The average time for the first stage is eight or nine hours with the first baby," he told her.

"This seems to be moving a lot faster than that."

Morgan held her hand through the next contraction and the next and the next, talking her through them in a strong, sure voice.

Kate began to lose track of time. She dozed between contractions even though she tried not to, and she had no idea how long it had been since the first one when Morgan said close to her ear, "You're in first-stage transition. I think."

"Is it time to boil the water yet?" she asked, trying to be funny. But her humor fell flat.

"I thought you said you were going to hold off until we could get you to the hospital," Morgan said in a frustrated voice, and in that moment she realized how hard this was for him.

"Believe me, Morgan," she said, "if I could be like an oyster and change sex, this would be the time to do it." But he didn't even smile.

Poor Morgan, he's accustomed to having everything his way. He didn't bargain for this,
she thought before a
wave of nausea rippled through her. And then she stopped thinking about poor Morgan because she could only think about poor Kate.

Chapter 14

Kate had never considered Courtney a wise woman, but now, in the middle of labor, she thought maybe Courtney had been on to something after all. One thing was for sure—she was not giving birth effortlessly, steeped in joy and sensitivity. She was hot and sweaty and grunting like a pig.

It seemed as if one contraction was no sooner over than the next one stabbed through her, cutting like a chisel and splitting her in two. Always there was Morgan's voice in her ear, fading and growing stronger like the wind itself. "Push, Kate, that's right."

Kate struggled to breathe exactly as Morgan instructed, and the breathing helped. She felt grateful to him for making her attend the childbirth class where she'd been given rudimentary instruction in how to do it. But she couldn't thank him because she was too busy getting this baby born.

She was surfacing from one of the fiercest contractions yet when Morgan suddenly wasn't there anymore.

"Morgan!" she cried, thinking she was yelling at the top of her voice but hearing no more than a weak squeal, something like a squalling piglet.

And then she heard his voice in the kitchen saying, "Hold on, Kate, I'm getting scissors and things," which was when she realized that there was no changing this, that she was going to have this baby, and Morgan was going to deliver it.

Another contraction, after which Morgan reappeared, his anxious face wreathed in light like an angel's.

"You can bear down now, Kate, hard," Morgan said, and Kate trusted him and blindly did what he said, pushed until she was worn out with it and she couldn't push anymore.

"Fine, darling Kate, keep it up," Morgan said, and Kate became aware of Morgan lifting her up and cradling her in his arms. His embrace was tender and strong, and his voice whispered in her ear, and her hands gripped his, and she struggled to push again.

Time blurred, grew faster, fell away. She managed to raise her head and saw Morgan's waiting outstretched hands, so capable, and she heard his voice saying, "I see the head, Kate. Push as hard as you can."

"I am," Kate said, putting every bit of energy she possessed into the next push.

"Almost," Morgan said. "You're doing fine."

Kate pushed through the pain, unable to hear Morgan's words, only the gentle tone of his voice.

A cry. Not her cry, but a baby's! No stronger than the call of a gull at first, and then a great lusty wail of outrage.

Morgan said exultantly, "It's a girl, Kate. A fine, healthy girl!"

A cool cloth blotting her face, and Morgan's wide smile, and Kate thought,
Joanna was right. Childbirth is a travail of tears.
Then her own tears began, but they were no longer tears of pain but elated, happy tears.

Morgan laid the baby against her breast, a fine fat baby with ears whorled like little pink shells and hair like gossamer threads of sunshine.

"She's gorgeous, Kate, a perfect little doll," Morgan said, and Kate smiled a rapturous smile as she reached for Morgan's hand.

It was then that the exhaustion, complete and utter, struck, and Morgan murmured something soothing and spirited the baby away, and she heard Morgan moving about in the kitchen. Kate dozed, waking up in the night to see the baby in a box at the foot of the bed and Morgan beside her, propped up on pillows and his eyes closed.

"Morgan?" she said faintly.

His eyes flew open.

"Do you need anything?" he asked.

"No," she said. "Only—" How could she tell him what she felt in her heart? How could she tell him that she felt connected to him as she had never felt connected to another person in her whole life, that the experience of giving birth with him by her side had affected her so deeply that she would never be the same?

"Dearest Kate," he said. "You did yourself proud. It wasn't so bad, was it?"

She eyed him balefully. "It hurt like hell," she said, reaching for his hand and bringing it to her lips before falling into a deep and dreamless sleep.

* * *

The next morning the baby began to stir when Kate did, and Morgan roused himself to lift the baby out of her cardboard-carton bed.

"Are you hungry?" he said to the baby, sitting on the edge of the bed so Kate could see her. The baby was a tiny scrap, a red-faced mite, but Morgan's big hands were gentle with her.
He'll be a wonderful father,
Kate thought suddenly, and the thought gave her great joy.

"Give her to me, I'll feed her," Kate said, holding out her arms.

"You weren't planning to nurse," Morgan pointed out. "I've rigged up a makeshift bottle, and there's plenty of canned milk in the cupboard."

"But—" Kate said, touching the baby's cheek. The baby seemed so fragile, so delicate.

"Here, you hold her and I'll see about a bottle," Morgan said.

"No, I want to nurse her, Morgan. When—when I hear her cry, my milk begins to flow."

"Oh," Morgan said, looking taken aback.

"It's the most practical thing for me to feed her, isn't it?" Kate asked anxiously.

"Yes. Yes, I suppose it is," Morgan said, backing out of the room and leaving Kate alone with the baby.

Kate gazed at the baby, at the petal-soft eyelids and the sweetly rounded cheeks. The baby didn't look like Courtney, and she didn't look like Morgan. Her looks were all her own, and she was the most beautiful thing Kate had ever seen in her life.

The small rosebud mouth rooted against Kate's breast, and Kate parted her nightgown so that the baby could take her nipple in her mouth. The baby's mouth closed over the nipple, and as the gentle tugging commenced, Kate settled back on the pillows, lulled into contentment.

"What will you name her, Morgan?" Kate asked, almost a week after a smiling Dr. Thomas had pronounced both mother and baby in the best of health.

"Pearl," he said.

They were sitting at the kitchen table in the quarters eating dinner, the baby sound asleep in her new bassinet beside the stove.

"Why?"

"Pearls grow from little grains of sand that somehow find their way into an oyster's shell. The embryo was implanted in you and grew and—well, it's a jewel of a name for a jewel of a baby," Morgan said. "And I want to name her Pearl. Whatever I want, I get. You told me so yourself."

"Me and my big mouth," she said.

Morgan leaned over and kissed her. "Quite a lovely mouth," he said, and they smiled at each other until Kate got up to lift the waking Pearl from her basket and went to change her diaper.

* * *

As August waned, Kate, Morgan, and baby Pearl moved to Teoway Island.

Not that Kate found it easy to leave Yaupon Island. She knew she might never return.

"I wish I could climb to the top of the lighthouse one more time," Kate said wistfully. "From there I could see everything—the boardwalk across the marsh, the lodge, all of it," but Morgan only warned her with a look.

Instead, Kate, who was after all still recovering from childbirth, made her way through the dunes to the beach, walking barefoot, and sat for a long time staring out to sea as little sandpipers scampered nearby, barely ahead of the waves.

A chapter in her life was closed. It was time to move on. She had known it was coming, but that didn't make it easier to bear.

She still had no job, despite sending out scores of résumés. But at least it was true that someone still needed her. Pearl was totally dependent on Kate, and Kate felt empowered by the baby's need. Morgan and Pearl provided a bridge to the new life that would eventually come. Kate was as dependent on them as they were on her, which was fitting and right.

Change would come—eventually. Kate knew it was inevitable, and she was sure Morgan did, too. For now, they could help each other and perhaps they would always form part of each other's support network.

They had briefly discussed the advantages of living in Morgan's house in the city.

"If we stayed at the Tradd Street house, you would be near Joanna. She could help you with the baby," Morgan had said.

"I can take care of the baby myself," Kate replied, prepared to be stubborn.

"You said you weren't good with babies," he reminded her.

"I
like
taking care of Pearl," Kate said, and amazingly this was true.