Between Heaven and Texas (10 page)

C
HAPTER 17

V
isiting hours were over. Donny had gone home; the whole family had. Everyone except her and Lydia Dale, of course, who was asleep in her room at the far end of the hall. Rob Lee slept in a clear plastic bassinet placed next to her, waking every three hours and bleating like a hungry lamb, demanding to be put to the breast.

Earlier that day, one of the younger nurses, Mandy, brought a wheelchair into Mary Dell's room and took her to visit Lydia Dale and Rob Lee. Donny trailed along behind. Mary Dell held her new nephew in her arms and smiled at her sister, said he looked just like her and not a bit like Jack Benny and thank heaven for that. They both laughed and Donny smirked a little.

Next, Mandy wheeled Mary Dell to the NICU, past two scrawny babies in clear plastic boxes with bluish skin so thin you could see their veins. Howard was not closed up inside a plastic box. He was sleeping in a regular bassinet, just like the one Rob Lee was in, though, unlike his cousin, he had heart monitor wires taped to his chest and an IV tube taped to his ankle. It was a little jarring to see him hooked up to tubes and wires, but he was sleeping peacefully, his tiny hands tucked up under his chin. Compared to those other, scrawnier babies in the plastic boxes, Howard looked plump and healthy.

Mary Dell felt bad for those other babies and their parents, but the nurse told her not to worry. They were fine, just a little small, having come even earlier than Howard. After a few weeks, Mandy assured her, those babies would fill out, go home, and be just fine. By the time they went to kindergarten, nobody would ever guess they'd been premature or be able to tell the difference between them and other children.

Mandy scooped Howard out of the bassinet and settled him in Mary Dell's arms. Donny stood looking on, frowning, as Mary Dell, at Mandy's urging, unbuttoned the front of her nightgown, exposed her breast, and tried to get Howard to nurse, but the baby wasn't interested and kept turning his head away. When he yawned, Mary Dell tried to shove her nipple into his open mouth, hoping he'd take the hint, but that didn't work either. After ten minutes, Mandy said she had to go check on some other patients.

“It can take a while for the preemies to get the hang of it,” she said as she took the baby from Mary Dell's arms and laid him in the bassinet, wrapping the receiving blanket around him so tight he looked like a tiny blue bean. “Don't worry, Momma. We'll try again tomorrow.”

Now Mary Dell lay in her bed, too tired for sleep, staring out a crack of her partially opened door into the twilight half-light that is common in hospital corridors, places that simmer down after dark but are never completely at rest, the maternity ward the most restless of all.

There was a shift change at ten. Near midnight, another nurse, a heavyset black woman with short-cropped hair, smiling brown eyes that radiated confidence, and a name tag reading “Roberta,” came in to take Mary Dell's temperature and blood pressure.

When she was through, Roberta stood by the side of the bed and said, “You been crying, honey? Baby blues?” She patted Mary Dell's hand. “You wait right here. I'll be back in a minute with something to help you sleep.”

She returned ten minutes later, carrying Howard.

“Can't leave him here all night,” Roberta said. “But he's good-sized. It won't hurt to pull him off the monitor for an hour. No need for Dr. Tibbets to know, though. He's a good doctor. Nice too, not like some of them. But he's young. Doesn't know everything there is to know about babies and mommas, not by a long shot. So, this has got to be our secret, all right?”

Mary Dell nodded and rolled slowly onto her side. Roberta tucked the blue-bean bundle into the crook of his mother's arm and smiled approvingly.

“There now. That looks just about right. You two take some time to get to know each other. I'll be back later.”

At first, Mary Dell just looked at Howard, studied his face, listened to him breathe, admired his eyelashes. Then, quietly, carefully, she loosened the blue blanket, pulled out his arm, examined his perfect tiny fingers and nails, made a bracelet of her thumb and forefinger, and circled his little wrist while Howard slept peacefully on, eyelids barely fluttering.

After a time, Mary Dell unwrapped the blanket completely, inspected her son's shoulders, torso, the two little legs protruding from the smallest diaper she'd ever seen, his feet and toes, the iodine-stained bandage on his belly that hid the stub of the cord that had connected them one to the other for so many months. She stroked his smooth, impossibly soft skin with her hand, traced the soles of his feet with the tip of her forefinger, eliciting a tiny twitch of response but nothing more.

Removed from the warm cocoon of the blanket, Howard twisted his little body. Mary Dell unbuttoned the top of her nightgown, pulled him closer, keeping him warm in the ample pillow of her breasts. Howard dozed for a few minutes and then yawned. Mary Dell placed the dark nipple of her breast between his pink lips.

At first, Howard did nothing, neither taking it into his mouth or pushing it out. After a minute or so, his lips quivered, clamped down, and Howard sucked at his mother's breast. Not very hard or for very long, just four feeble sucks in succession, but Mary Dell's heart pounded as she counted them off.

When he was finished and lay sleeping again with his cheek against her breast, Mary Dell made a cup of her hand, stroked her son's soft, dark hair, and told him he was a good boy, a smart boy.

Roberta returned a little before one, approaching the bedside with quiet, light steps, and said in a low voice, “Well? What do you think?”

“I think he's perfect,” Mary Dell said.

Roberta nodded. “That's what I thought too,” she said.

Roberta had been a nurse for longer than Mary Dell had been alive. In that time, she had witnessed a hundred times more joy and sorrow than the average person saw in a lifetime. Sometimes it was hard to watch. Sometimes, driving home to go to bed at the hour most people were just getting up, she cried quiet tears for her patients and their families. In spite of that, Roberta had long ago concluded that every baby was perfect, put on the planet for some good purpose, if only people would give them a chance to prove it. If the mother loved the baby, everything would work out some way or other.

Roberta felt good as she carried Howard back to the NICU. She'd bent a few hospital rules that night, but it didn't matter. This little baby was going to be fine. Thirty-four years on the maternity ward had taught her all about babies and mommas. Indeed it had. Roberta knew the face of love when she saw it.

C
HAPTER 18

O
n the day Lydia Dale and Rob Lee were discharged, Dr. Tibbets decided Howard was doing well enough to be moved from the NICU to the regular newborn nursery. Mary Dell would have been discharged that day as well, but she'd spiked a fever the night before, so Dr. Brownback decided it was best to keep her in the hospital until her temperature returned to normal. Mary Dell was happy to extend her stay. She couldn't imagine going home without Howard.

On the day before mother and baby were to be released, the entire Tudmore-Templeton clan, except Jeb and Cady, who were at their father's house watching reruns of
The Love Boat,
came to the hospital for a visit.

Mary Dell's fever was gone. She sat in a pink vinyl recliner, cradling Howard in one arm and Rob Lee in the other, clenching an unlit cigar between her teeth as Aunt Velvet snapped a picture. When that was done, the babies were handed to Lydia Dale and the photo op was repeated. Then the sisters and babies sat together for several pictures in various poses. The last of the series showed them holding their infants on their laps with arms draped over each other's shoulders, pretending to take exaggerated puffs on their cigars.

The babies were passed among the various relatives, so Velvet could take more pictures. Mary Dell crawled back into bed to watch the proceedings, smiling as she watched her father make faces at his grandsons and thinking about how good it would be to leave the hospital tomorrow with Howard in her arms.

“Honey, did you remember to bring the quilt from the nursery? I want to bring him home in it.”

Donny was sitting in a chair on the far side of the room with his head resting against the wall and his hat tilted low over his eyes, dozing.

“It's there in the bag with all the other stuff you wanted.” Donny pushed back his hat, revealing dark-circled eyes, and glanced down toward a paper grocery sack at his feet. Besides the baby quilt, the bag was packed with extra diapers, wipes, and the smallest pair of footie baby pajamas he'd been able to find in the baby's dresser, which would still be far too large for Howard, as well as Mary Dell's hair spray, teasing comb, jewelry, stockings, and going-home-from-the-hospital outfit—turquoise spandex leggings, an oversized bright pink jacket with big puffy sleeves, and her favorite pink cowboy boots. Mary Dell would have preferred something a little fancier for the trip home from the hospital, but this was one of the few non-maternity outfits she could fit into, and she hoped the puffed sleeves of the jacket would draw attention away from the pooch of her post-pregnancy waistline.

“Well?” Mary Dell said expectantly. “Could you get it for me?”

Grandma Silky jumped up. “Let the man be, Mary Dell. He looks all tuckered out.”

Donny began to protest that he could find the quilt, but Silky was already digging through the grocery sack.

“No, you just sit there and grab forty winks, Donny. Babies being the way they are, this could be the last sleep you get for months. Besides,” she said as she pulled Howard's quilt out of the bag, “I want a picture of me holding my great-grandbabies, wrapped up in their quilts. Give me those handsome boys, Dutch.”

Dutch walked across the room with Rob Lee, who was already wrapped in the blue-and-yellow Grandmother's Fan quilt Mary Dell had made. Silky laid Howard on the foot of the bed, removed his receiving blanket, and proceeded to bundle him in the orange-pomegranate-lime creation that was so diplomatically refused by Lydia Dale.

Howard hadn't made a peep all morning, but the moment Silky wrapped the quilt over him, he began to howl. His mouth gaped wide in protest, and his little face turned as red as a beet. Mary Dell puckered her lips and made clucking “there there” sounds, but her eyes smiled. Even crying and red-faced, Howard was adorable.

“Will you listen to that? Bawling like a calf! He hasn't made that much noise since the doctor popped him on the bottom. Poor little boy! What's bothering you, baby?”

Grandma Silky laughed. “If I didn't know better, I'd say Howard doesn't care for his new quilt.”

“Don't be silly, Granny. I don't even think he can see colors yet.”

Mary Dell scooped Howard off the end of the bed, unwrapping the quilt in the process. The moment she did, the baby stopped squalling.

Mary Dell frowned. “It just must be too hot for him. Either that or I forgot to take out a pin. Poor Bubba,” she crooned, peering into Howard's beautiful almond eyes, which were open now and gazing placidly at her face. “Did a nasty ol' pin stick the baby? Momma is so sorry. Yes, she is. She'll be more careful next time. Yes, she will.”

After posing for pictures with Silky, it was Taffy's turn. Aunt Velvet snapped a photo of her smiling, holding both boys, then beaming as she held Rob Lee alone, and once again, her expression stiff and her beam far dimmer, holding Howard.

After the shutter snapped, Taffy turned him around, looked into his little face, and started to weep. “Oh, you poor little thing! What's going to become of you? Oh, this poor baby!”

Dutch was at her side in an instant. “Hush now, darlin',” he said, patting her shoulder. “Hush.”

He looked up at Mary Dell, who was staring at Taffy.

“Don't pay any mind, baby girl. Your momma is just tired. Come on now, Taffy. It's going to be all right. Stop crying.”

But Taffy did not stop crying. Instead, she lifted her eyes from Howard's face to her husband's and back again.

“How? How is it going to be all right? Everything has gone wrong. First Lydia Dale gets a divorce, and now my grandson is born a retard!”

Mary Dell had heard that word before, of course, but never in reference to her son. Over the years, she would hear it used the same way again, many times. It would always unleash a flame of fury in her breast, but it never burned quite as high or hot as it did on that day, when that ugly, awful, dehumanizing word came from the lips of her own mother.

Mary Dell swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood up, her face as red as Howard's had been a few minutes before. Donny stood up too, touched his wife on the shoulder, but Mary Dell pushed right past him. She marched across the room and stood in front of her mother.

“Give me my baby.”

Taffy sniffled, wiped her eyes on her sleeve, got to her feet, and handed Howard to Mary Dell, who handed him to Donny before turning back to face Taffy.

“Now you listen to me, Momma,” she said in a voice that was low and fierce, a tone unlike anything any of them had ever heard her use before, “because I'm only giving you one chance. I'm not going to let you make my baby feel like he's not good enough, or smart enough, or
anything
enough to please you. It's one thing to do it to me, but I won't let you do it to my son. He is beautiful. And smart. And he's going to learn to walk, and run, and read, and go places, and do things you've never even
dreamed
of doing.

“And if you ever, I mean
ever,
call him retarded or use that word in my presence again, that will be the last time you ever see Howard or me.”

Taffy's jaw dropped and her eyes, already brimming, spilled over with a fresh wave of weeping. She started to speak, but Mary Dell wouldn't allow it. She lifted her hand and pointed a finger of warning, ramrod straight, at her mother's face.

“I mean it, Momma. Never again.”

Taffy's lips twisted. She let out a cry and ran from the room sobbing, the sound of her cries and footsteps echoing down the corridor. For a breath of a moment, the family stood stunned and watched as Mary Dell lowered her hand, walked back to the bed, and got in.

Dutch went to get Taffy. Donny got up and stood next to his wife's bed. Turning his palm backward, Donny laid his fingers on her forehead, feeling for fever. Her skin was warm to his touch, but not overly so.

“You feel all right? You want some water or something?”

She shook her head slightly, then turned and looked at him with a little spark of surprise, as if she'd only just realized he was standing there.