Shelter Mountain (30 page)

“Aw, Melinda…”

She grabbed his wrist and dug her nails into him. “Do you think this is my
first
choice?”

He thought briefly about suggesting, again, that she try to hold off. But he knew he was not in the driver’s seat here, plus he was resisting the urge to look at his wrist to see if she’d drawn blood. It was going to be impossible to get her to listen to reason. He’d always been good at following orders—he’d do that again. “Gotcha,” he said.

“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Spread out a blanket at the foot of the bed, down there. A small blanket for the baby. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, in my bag here, get out two clamps and a pair of scissors. The suction bulb. We’re going to need a basin for the placenta—a large bowl or saucepan will do. Then go into the bathroom, roll up your sleeves and scrub your hands up to the elbows with soap, lots of soap and the hottest water you can stand. Dry with a clean towel. When
you get back, done with that, there’s going to be a bigger circle. Okay?”

“Okay.” He opened the bag. He had to hold up a couple of things before she confirmed he had a clamp. The suction bulb was a complete mystery. As this process was going on, she reared up again and with a loud and very primal grunt, was bearing down. She held on to her thighs and pushed until her face was red. He took the flashlight on instinct, shining it on her pelvic floor. Oh, Christ, he thought. That circle of hair that was his son’s head was indeed getting larger. He supposed there was no point in telling her to stop that. “How much time do we have?” he asked.

“Go. Wash. Don’t screw around.”

“Done,” he said. But it was awful, standing at the sink sudsing himself while she was in the bedroom, groaning and grunting and pushing his baby out of her. He wanted to yell at her to stop that, but he knew it would only piss her off. When he got back to the bed, he reached for the flashlight and she yelled, “No! Don’t touch that! Pick it up with a clean towel! Hand it to me!”

He looked around and upon locating the towels up by her pillow, he took one and passed the flashlight to her. She struggled to sit up a bit and held the flashlight, pointing it down. “Holy shit, Mel,” he said.

She thought she knew what that meant. She collapsed back on the pillows and looked at her watch. It had been almost an hour and a half since Rick lit out of here. Where the hell was John? “He’s coming, Jack,” she said weakly, collapsing against the pillows.

He took the flashlight from her with the towel and said, “Gimme that.” He propped it on a rolled-up towel so that it shone on the field of birth and said, “Okay, now you can think about one thing.”

“Giving birth?” she asked.

“Two things,” he amended. “Giving birth and telling me what to do.”

On the next contraction, she pulled herself up, grabbing her thighs, and the baby’s head, crowning, grew larger. “Holy shit,” Jack said again. Three more pushes and the baby’s whole head emerged. “Oh, my God,” he said.

“Jack, look for a cord around the baby’s neck. It’s purple and ropey. Ahhh,” she said, struggling against another contraction. “Use your index finger to see if you can feel anything around the baby’s neck. Ahhh!”

Right at that moment, the front door slammed open with a bang.

“John!” Jack yelled. “John, come
on!
”

John, soaked and coming into the bedroom at a pace far too leisurely for Jack’s tastes, appeared. Jack started to stand and John said, “Get back in there, man.” He peered into the field. “Good. You feel for a cord?”

“Yeah, but what the hell do I know?”

John let his coat fall off his shoulders. He grabbed the flashlight and brought it in closer. “Nice,” he said. “Jack, get your hands in there—she’s going to bring him out. Be ready.”

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Jack asked, really at the end of his tether with this business.

“You’re there, Jack. Now.” He looked over Mel’s raised knees. “Little push, Mel,” John said.

Mel gave a grunt and a shove and the baby came sliding out, neat as pie.

“Hold him face down, your hand on his chest, and rub his back,” John said. Before Jack had even accomplished that, the baby was crying. “Ah, good,” John said. John spread a blanket on Mel’s abdomen. “Good work. Put him down right here. Let’s get him dried off and wrapped nice and warm.”

Jack’s hands were shaking as he did so, wiping the
muck of birth from his son’s little body. Mel was straining up to see him, her fingers reaching toward him to touch him. For a moment Jack was paralyzed. Trans-fixed. Before he could close the blanket around him, he stared at him in sheer wonder. His son. Brought right out of his wife’s body. Naked, covered with muck, squalling, and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. His little arms and legs were flailing, his mouth open in a wail. He was so tiny, Jack was thinking, when John said, “Jesus, Melinda, he’s big. Where were you keeping him?”

“Oh,” Mel said. “That feels
so
much better.”

John was finally in the ball game, gently massaging Mel’s uterus. “What a woman,” he said. “No stitches necessary.” He applied the clamps to the cord, handed Jack the scissors and told him where to cut. Jack, finally numbed by an event in which he’d felt entirely helpless, did as he was told, freeing the baby from his moorings.

“Good work,” John said. “Let Mel have her baby, Jack. I’ll wash and help with the cleanup.”

John disappeared into the bathroom while Jack lovingly lifted the baby. Mel was tugging at her T-shirt as Jack was handing her the baby. She held the baby’s cheek against her warm breast, running her fingers over his perfect head. The baby stopped crying and appeared to be looking around. Mel glanced up at Jack and gave him a little smile.

“Come on, little guy,” she cooed, serene, totally focused on her son. “Do your job here. Stanch the bleeding, bring out the placenta.” She pinched her nipple to fit the baby’s mouth, trying to entice him with it. Jack felt a river of emotion run through him. He didn’t know if he was about to burst into song or faint. He dropped to his knees to be closer and watched Mel tickle the baby’s mouth and cheek with her nipple and then the baby turned his head instinctively and clamped on, took hold, suckled.
And Mel said, “Oh, my! You’re very good at this.” Then she looked at Jack, who knelt by the bed, dazed. She smiled weakly and said, “Thank you, darling.”

He leaned closer to her, his face next to his son’s head. “My God, Melinda,” he said in a breath. “What the hell did we just do?”

An hour later the lights came on and Preacher was on Jack’s front porch, looking for information. John had helped clean Mel up and washed the baby, helped Jack get clean sheets on the bed and was ready to leave them. “There’s no point in taking them out in this weather,” John said. “They’re in good shape. You need a sedative, man?” he asked Jack, laughing.

“I could use one, yeah. Got a good single malt in that bag there?”

“Wouldn’t that be convenient?” He slapped a hand on Jack’s back and said, “You did a good job, buddy. I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah? What choice did I have? It was all her.”

“Show Uncle Preach the baby. I’m going home. And I think you have like
tons
of laundry to do.”

“Tons.” Jack laughed.

Jack carried the baby to the living room and let Preacher have a peek. “You deliver him?” Preacher asked.

“It wasn’t my idea,” Jack said.

Preacher grinned hugely. “Looks like you did okay.”

“I’m not looking to do it again, however,” Jack said. But he smiled. Where’s Paige? Chris?”

“Rick’s standing guard,” Preacher said. “Wearing my sidearm. He’s a little too happy about it.”

“Yeah? Well, you better get back there. Disarm him.”

Jack put the baby back in the cradle next to Mel, whose face had resumed those soft, beautiful lines that had been there prior to her hard work. He went around the house
collecting clothes, towels, sheets. He laundered, he cleaned, he set the house back in order. At nine o’clock there was a soft knock at the door and he opened it to find Preacher had returned. He lifted a bottle. “John said you might need a sedative,” he said.

“Yeah. Come on in. Be real quiet.”

Jack found a couple of glasses and Preacher tipped the bottle over them. Then he lifted his glass, Jack lifted his, and Preacher whispered, “Congratulations, Dad.”

Jack threw back the shot and when he brought back his head, his eyes were misting over. “My wife,” he said in a whisper. “You have no idea the strength that took. She was amazing. I watched her face—she went to a place of power I’ve never been. And then, when I handed her the baby, when she put my son against her breast…” He took another swallow. “When she nursed my son, she was in another place—there was such peace and love…. God,” he said.

“Yeah,” Preacher said. “That was God.” Preacher opened his arms and gave the man a huge hug, patting his back.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” Jack whispered.

Preacher clamped strong hands on Jack’s upper arms, giving him a little shake. “I’m real happy for you, man.” And then he left, Jack quietly closing the door behind him.

At midnight, Jack blew out most of the candles and sat in the rocker by her bed. By his bed. He lifted the baby to Mel at two in the morning and watched, mesmerized, as she nursed him for a few minutes on each side, burped him and handed him back to Jack with sleepy instructions to change him. Which he did.

At 5:00 a.m. he repeated the process of lifting his crying son to his mother’s arms, again watching as she breast-fed him. Again, changing him and cleaning him
up. He held him and rocked him for an hour before putting him back in his cradle. At eight in the morning, it happened again, a feeding and changing, and Jack had not taken so much as a nap. He had watched every rise and fall of his son’s chest, each breath, frequently reaching out to gently touch his perfect little head.

At nine in the morning he heard the sound of saws and he went to the front porch. He couldn’t see that far down the road because of the fallen tree, but he knew what was happening—Preacher was having the road cleared.

At noon, Mel got out of bed. He was astonished by the fact that she sat up, put her feet on the floor, stood up and stretched. “Ah,” she said. “I think I’ll have a shower.”

“Are you all right?” he asked.

“I feel so much better.” She put her hands in the small of her back. “My back doesn’t hurt anymore.” She walked into his arms, hugged him close and said, “Thank you, Jack. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Yeah, I think you could have.” He looked down the length of her.

“What’s the matter?”

“After seeing what you did last night, I can’t believe you can stand.”

She laughed softly. “Amazing, isn’t it? The way a woman’s body can open up and deliver a child that size? You don’t realize it yet, but that was a very wonderful experience you had. Delivering your own child.”

He kissed her brow. “What makes you think I don’t realize it?”

She touched his face. “Have you slept?”

“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m still too wired.”

“Well, maybe you do realize it. I’m going to get cleaned up a little, then I have things for you to do.”

“What things?” he asked. “I did my laundry.”

She laughed at him. “Jack, we haven’t eaten anything.
And you have phone calls to make. You have to go into town. I heard saws—you think your truck will be pulled out by now?”

“It’s sitting in front of the cabin.”

She shook her head. “This place. The way people just act on instinct, without being asked. Okay, I’m starving. I’m going to clean up.”

When she got out of the shower, he had a bowl of hot soup waiting for her. “You sure you’ll be all right here by yourself?” he asked her.

“I can take it from here, cowboy,” she said, diving into her soup.

Jack hurried through his phone calls while Paige and Preacher packed up a nice takeout for him—a scrumptious stew, bread, some sandwiches, fruit and pie. He quickly foraged for some groceries from the kitchen—eggs, cheese, milk, juice. Jack couldn’t be away from them for long—he hurried back to the cabin. He found Mel and the baby napping, so he stoked the fire and leaned back on the couch, his feet stretched out in front of him on the chest that served as a coffee table. A kind of mellowness had settled over him, almost like having had a tranquilizer. He thought he might be visiting heaven, it was so sweet.

A couple of hours later, he felt her fingers threading through his hair and he opened his eyes. She was sitting on the couch beside him, holding the baby. “Has he eaten?” Jack asked.

“And eaten and eaten and eaten.”

“Give him to me,” he said, reaching for his baby. He kissed his head. “God,” he said. “I still can’t believe it. You know how I feel? Like I’ve never been happy before in my life, because this is so…This is just so much bigger than the happiest I’ve ever been.” He
touched her cheek. “No one’s ever done anything this great for me, Melinda.”

“That’s good to know, Jack,” she said with a laugh.

“Kiss me,” he said, leaning toward her. She obliged him, covering his lips in a deep and loving kiss.

“Did you make your phone calls?”

“Uh-huh. Joey’s coming, but I hope you don’t mind—I asked her to give us a few days. I want to be here with you, alone, for a little while.”

“That’s fine. Till you come down to earth. How about things at the bar? Aren’t you needed there for Paige?”

“Ron and Bruce are taking turns, hanging around. Am I going to come down to earth? It doesn’t feel like it’s going to happen.”

“It’s going to happen,” she said. “But I hope not right away. I really like you like this. All sweet and overwhelmed.”

“I like me like this, too.”

After school, Rick went to Mel’s cabin instead of to work. He tapped softly at the door and it was opened by Mel. She smiled sweetly. “You okay?” he asked.

“I’m wonderful,” she said in a whisper. She put a finger to her lips and reached for his hand, drawing him inside. “Be very quiet,” she whispered. “Come here.”

She led him into the living room. Jack was asleep on the couch, his feet up on the trunk. She gestured to the chair. “Give me your jacket and sit,” she said. He shrugged out of it, handing it to her, and did as he was told while Mel left the room. She was back in seconds, carrying the little bundle. She took the baby to Rick and put him in his arms. Then she went down on one knee, very nimbly for a woman in her condition, and put her arm around Rick’s shoulders, her face near his face.