Book of Mercy (21 page)

She sought the old feelings she usually met on the road, the feelings of freedom and adventure and forgetfulness. But on this trip, no dotted lines, no voices on the radio, could distract her. She still saw Fancy in her mind, still felt life leaving the deer in an exhausted huff. She could not forget the mess her life was in—alone, on the side of the road, with a child anxious to come and no hospital, or husband, in sight.

A pain corkscrewed up her middle, turning her inside out. Antigone bit her lip. She tried to remember how the perky Lamaze teacher told them to breathe. She tried Sam again, and this time someone answered. “Where the hell have you been?” she cried.

“Sorry, technical difficulties,” Sam said. “You okay?”

“Talk to me,” she begged.

She pushed her back against the corner of the Mustang’s backseat, stretched her legs across it, and listened to Sam’s comforting voice. She followed his words through the twisting trails of pain, grasping on for dear life to images and moments they had shared. “Remember that time at the beach,” he said. “That sand crab attacked me, and the pelicans . . .”

“No birds, pelicans or storks,” she grunted.

“Okay, okay, breathe. In and out like with the waves.”

“I can’t do this. I don’t want to do this anymore.”

“Hang on, honey. I’m coming. Breathe, Tigg, just breathe.” On and on Sam talked and she listened, the phone on the floor beside her on speaker, both hands clutching the seat with white knuckles. She gritted her teeth. “Don’t fight it,” the Lamaze teacher had told them. Fight? Someone give her a white flag; she was ready to surrender. Only Sam’s voice was real, her only strength, and she clung to it.

More than once Antigone thought she was going to die that night. She thought the pain would just carry her away, and she would never see Sam or Ryder again; she’d never get to meet her baby. She was going to die, she sobbed, and so she made promises to the universe.

“I’ll be a good girl. I’ll stop stirring up trouble. No more binge driving. No more talk radio shows. I’ll be the perfect mother. I’ll bake cookies and make things with craft paper and pipe cleaners. I’ll be nicer to everyone—even Irene. I’ll even close the library, if only you’ll keep my baby safe . . .”

Sam and the highway patrol reached Antigone at the same time. It was close to 7:00 a.m., and the sun was struggling to punch its way through the overcast sky. The officer took one look at Antigone, radioed for paramedics, and announced, “This baby’s not going to wait.”

“No kidding,” Antigone cried.

“It’s too soon,” Sam said.

“Not according to this little one,” said the officer.

And so, Antigone, Sam, Ryder, and a highway patrol officer named Ginelli brought into the world a perfect baby girl in the backseat of a red Mustang convertible. Ginelli, with seven children of his own, was an expert and calmly directed operations. When it was done and Antigone and baby were each wrapped in crackling space blankets scavenged from Ginelli’s emergency kit, Sam turned to Ryder and said, “Well, that involved more blood and screaming than I ever want to see or hear again.”

“I’m with you,” Ryder said.

Sometime, during the hollering and panting, the skies had cleared and the snow had stopped. Outside the sun was bright, glistening on the snow-covered hills. Inside the car, bundled in the backseat next to Sam, an exhausted Antigone watched Ryder instruct her husband on how to hold his new daughter.

“You gotta support her head. Like this.” Ryder leaned in through the window and positioned Sam’s hands.

Sam cupped the baby’s head with his big hands. It was amazing, Antigone thought, that their daughter was almost exactly a handful, fitting nicely into her father’s palm.

“There’s nothing to her. I’m afraid I’ll crush her,” Sam said.

“First-time fathers,” Officer Ginelli laughed.

Sam’s cell phone rang. Ryder reached into Sam’s shirt pocket and retrieved it. It was William.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, if Sam can figure out how to hold a baby,” Ryder said. “It’s a girl. Star nailed it—as usual.”