Samson and Sunset (16 page)

  After a lovely lunch and a little girl
talk, Cookie gathered everything up and headed downstairs. All this
time I was having strong contractions, but I hadn’t let it show. I
went downstairs and asked Maggie if she would give me a ride to the
hospital.

  “What? You’re not in labor, there’s no
way!” she said. “You don’t even seem like you’re in pain.”

  Well, I convinced her that I needed to
go and she called Sterling in from the shop. He showered fast and
got dressed. Then the four of us went to Hudson, stopping at Mom
and Dad’s to drop off Kelly and grab my overnight suitcase. Maggie
kept saying, “I know this is false labor, they’re not going to keep
you, Kathrine.”

  I have to give Sterling credit, he put
the pedal to the metal and we made good time. I know they thought I
was crazy, since I showed no sign of discomfort, but I was having
severe contractions; I was just determined to prove I was no
weakling.

  After checking in, we were taken to
the fourth floor—no elevator for me. Maggie and Sterling took the
elevator while I walked up the four flights of stairs, in hard
labor with a little nun behind me saying, “Honey, I can’t let you
do this, I just can’t let you do this!!”

  Sterling and Maggie waited in the room
next to mine, (Maggie still saying they would send me home) and the
nurse came in for the cervix check.

  “Good grief!” she said, “Get the
in-house doctor, she’s a ten and crowning!”

  They wheeled me on a gurney into the
delivery room, and a doctor I didn’t know arrived shortly.

  “Don’t push, don’t push,” they kept
saying as they tried to strap my wrists into the handles.

  “Stop it,” I said, “I don’t need
these.” But they did it anyway. Well, two could play at that game.
I made my hands real narrow and slipped them right out of the
straps. Hell, they were so busy they didn’t even notice.

  Finally, I heard, “Push, push,
Kathrine!”

  I pushed hard.

  “Well, we have us a head,” the doctor
said, “now we need another big push and we’ll have us a baby.”

  Us? What’s this ‘us’ stuff about?
Where was he when that little sperm swam through my body, grabbed
the arm of an egg and danced her up into my womb? Don’t remember
seeing him there. All these little thoughts kept me from thinking
of the pain.

  One more big push, and I heard a
cry.

  “Is my baby a girl or a boy?” I asked
immediately.

  “You have a son, Mrs. Westover,” the
doctor said.

  They gave me a peek at the baby before
whisking him off to the nursery, where he would be weighed,
measured and bathed.

  ***

About half an hour later I was back in my
hospital room. This was so exciting for me; soon I would be nursing
my son, something I’d been cheated out of with Kelly, as she was
allergic to breast milk (we’d had to put her on goat’s milk.)

  At this point the door opened slowly
and Maggie and Sterling crept in with big smiles on their faces.
Maggie’s smile was sheepish.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. “You
were
in labor. And I didn’t believe you. I’m so sorry
Kathrine. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Of course,” I said tiredly,
smiling.

  Sterling was grinning from ear to ear.
“Well, here he comes,” he said as the nurse walked in holding my
baby. “The little man of the hour.”

  Maggie rushed over and intercepted,
grabbing him—so Maggie was the first family member to hold him.

  Sterling looked at me and said,
“Kathrine, would you mind if I call Shay and tell him he’s got a
son?”

  I could see how important it was to
him, so I said, “Sure you can.”

  Sterling got the number out of his
billfold and used the phone in my room to call the hotel. The guys
had already gone to the dining room, so they connected him there. I
could tell Shay was shocked, and Sterling was having so much fun
giving him all the stats.

  After about a minute of “yeah,”
“uh-huh,” “very handsome,” “we had no idea! She was very brave,”
and, “four pounds, ten ounces,” Sterling turned around and said,
“Shay wants to talk to you, Kathrine.”

  I took the phone and said, “Shay, I
left the property, are you mad?”

  “What are you talking about, Callie,
are you alright? I love you so much. I can’t believe I missed the
birth of my first child!”

  I could hear the sadness in his voice.
This was an important event in a man’s life. And this was the
second time I’d given birth without a husband in the next room,
coming in afterward to hold my hand. Still, I didn’t want him to
feel any worse, so I didn’t let it show in my voice. I just
said:

  “Well, when are you coming home?”

  “Tonight!” he said. “I’m leaving right
now. I’ll be there in about five hours. I love you, princess.”

  Maggie and Sterling said they would
leave so I could rest, which was fine with me; I wanted to call my
parents. I told Kelly she had a baby brother—meant nothing to her.
But Mom and Dad were elated, of course.

  Well, Maggie and Sterling left and we
were alone at last. I looked at my beautiful baby boy. He had
lovely, olive-toned skin and enough light blond hair to make a tiny
curl on top of his head. He looked like me in baby pictures. As I
was looking him over and admiring him, a nurse came in with a
bottle.

  “No, no,” I said. “No bottle. I’m
going to breast feed him.”

  “Well, the order sheet says
bottle-feeding.”

  “Who gave you those orders?” I
cried.

  The nurse gathered the baby up out of
my arms. She could see I was getting hysterical.

  “I’ll send in the head nurse,” she
said.

  Moments passed; seemed like an
eternity. When the head nurse arrived she had a form with her and
she explained to me that my husband had requested the baby be
bottle-fed.

  You could have knocked me over with a
feather. Back then the husband did have that kind of power. I was
devastated, and began crying profusely. The nurse explained to me
that I had no choice now anyway; I had been given two shots in
delivery to dry up my milk glands.

  “It’s too late, dear,” she said with
kindly detachment.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
After they got me settled down, I bottle-fed my baby boy, but I
told the head nurse:

  “My husband will be here in about four
hours and under no circumstances is he allowed in my room. You put
a No Entrance sign on my door. I don’t want to see him ever again.
If you let him in here, I will go to the director and file a
complaint against this hospital.”

  ***

I was resting when I heard Shay’s voice
outside my door. “I don’t care if she doesn’t want to see me, she’s
my wife and I’m going in there! You just try and stop me.”

  The door burst open.

  “Get out, Shay,” I cried. I began
shaking. “I hate you. How
could
you? How could you do that
to me!”

  He walked over to the bed, bent down
and hugged me. I stayed stone cold.

  “Callie,” he said gently, “what’s
wrong? What happened? Is the baby alright?”

  “You know what’s wrong. Don’t play
innocent with me.”

  “Callie,” he said wearily. “I made it
here in three and a half hours. I outran two state patrolmen by
ditching them down a dark road. I can’t even think. What could I
have done, princess? You need to tell me. I don’t like seeing you
like this.”

  “You told the doctor I couldn’t breast
feed, so they gave me shots to dry up my milk and now I have to
bottle-feed. You knew how important that was to me.”

  “What in the hell are you talking
about, babe? I’d never do that. I know you wanted to breast-feed;
we decided on that.”

  “Well, the nurse has a paper that says
the husband requests the baby to be bottle-fed,” I whimpered, a big
tear streaming down my face. He caught it with the tip of his
finger, kissing the place where it had run down my cheek.

  “Hold on a second,” he said and left
the room.

  When he got back, the nurse was right
behind him with the baby so Daddy could see him for the first time.
I settled down quickly—didn’t want to upset my son. My heart
softened as I watched Shay hold his new son ever so gently.

  “Callie, he’s wonderful,” Shay said,
rocking the baby gently, looking from his little face to mine. “You
have beautiful babies.” He was beaming. “I can’t wait until you’re
pregnant again. You’re so beautiful when you’re pregnant.”

  “Are you crazy? I just gave birth
about five hours ago and you want me pregnant again? Not
happening!”

  Shay brought the baby over to my side
of the bed and sat down.

  “Are we going to stick with the name
we picked out?” I asked.

  “I think we should, I like it. You
picked it.”

  “Wesley,” I murmured. Shay nestled our
baby into my arms. “Welcome to the world, Wesley Wilson Westover,”
I whispered.

  ***

After a while the nurse said it was late and
she thought Shay should leave and let me rest. He kissed the baby
and I goodbye, promised to be back in the morning, and then out the
door went Daddy. The nurse took Wessy, I was given a sedative, and
off to la-la land I went.

  ***

In the morning Shay came back and lifted me
gently toward him to hold me.

  “Callie,” he said, “I’m very upset
with Maggie. She gave those orders to the doctor, because she
didn’t want you breast-feeding in front of Sterling. So Maggie and
I aren’t speaking right now.” He put his arms around me sadly.

  I let this new information sink in.
While Shay held me, I flashed on the argument I’d heard between
Sterling and Maggie while I was getting orange juice, the day she
threw the cup at him.

  “Listen, Shay,” I said. “Don’t be
angry with your mom. She’s just insecure. It’s not good for the
children if we’re all at odds, and we all have to live together.
Let’s forgive and forget. That’s what love and families are all
about, anyway.”

  “I don’t know how you are always so
forgiving, Callie.” Shay kissed me sweetly and whispered in my ear,
“I’m getting in there with you and making love to you. I want you
pregnant again, princess!”

  Thank gosh he was grinning, because my
words were, “In your dreams big boy!”

  ***

We had expected Wessy around the middle to
last part of January, and he’d come in the tail end of December.
Now it was New Year’s Eve and I’d be in the hospital. It got me to
worrying about what Shay would do without me there.

  One good thing, I got a roommate.
Katie Palmer. She and her husband, Jim, were the same age as Shay
and I, and they had a little boy as well. So we had some things in
common. It was about 1 in the afternoon on the 31
^st
and
both of our husbands were there, the babies with us. I told Shay I
was sorry our big New Year’s Eve Party had been squelched.

  “Don’t worry about it, Callie, there’s
always next year,” said Shay. Then he excused himself and was gone
for about half an hour. I was starting to get a little worried,
when he reappeared. He exchanged a few words with Katie’s husband,
that I didn’t catch, and the two left the room together. We heard
their voices in the hall, but not what they were saying. We
exchanged looks.

  “Men,” said Katie. “Who can figure
them out?”

  Around 5 p.m. our dinner trays came
and there were two extra trays. How sweet, they brought supper for
Jim and Shay; that was fun. The four of us ate together and told
each other stories, laughed a lot.

  They came to pick up the empty trays
at 6:00. I hadn’t eaten much, I was starting to feel anxious;
visiting hours were over at 8:30, and I knew Shay would be leaving
for the night (this was a Catholic Hospital and the rules were
strictly enforced.)

  After they cleared away our trays, a
maintenance man came into the room and installed a box on the
dresser that looked like a record player. I didn’t give it much
thought; figured maybe the hospital just did that on holidays. Then
two guys brought in a round table and placed it in the corner of
the room. Guess this was just hospital routine. My thoughts were on
Shay and what he would be doing while the whole world partied.

  “Callie, don’t be so tense,” said
Shay, holding my hand. “Relax! It’s Saturday night and you and
Wessy are coming home Monday morning. That’s not far off.”

  I smiled weakly, thinking: Yes, but
before that Shay Westover will be out on the town alone on New
Years Eve. There would be some awfully happy women out there. Plus,
I’d be spending another night without his body next to mine. I
wanted him close, to feel his heart beating, my head on his
chest.

  At 8:00 (I knew the exact time,
because I was watching the clock,) the door to our room opened. It
was Cookie and Joe. They had several boxes with them and they were
all smiles. It took them several trips to bring in all their boxes.
(Cookie, of course, had already been there several times. She had
knitted Wessy a little mint-green blanket and a matching sweater,
hat and booties.)

  “What’s all this?” I asked.

  Cookie just smiled and began unpacking
the boxes. What emerged was a red tablecloth, which Cookie smoothed
over the round table the men had brought in earlier. She also
unpacked a vase with fresh winter flowers from the hot house, a
small punch bowl with six stemmed, crystal glasses; three food
trays with sandwiches; turkey, ham salad, roast beef and a huge
bowl of chips; her famous dip, a tray of cookies and fudge, and two
huge jars filled with her wonderful Christmas punch. She poured one
jar into the punch bowl and sat the other on the counter.

  “For a refill,” she said. Then I saw
her wink at Shay as she turned around and poured a clear liquid
into the stored punch, spiking it with a little Vodka. She knew the
hospital rules, but she always referred to broken rules as God’s
rules.