In the Heart of the Canyon (30 page)

Amy’s eyes darted about in terror.

“I know, I know,” Lloyd said. “You don’t care as long as it’s healthy. Don’t you worry,” he assured her; “we’ll take good care of you.”

JT decided that the best thing to do with Lloyd was to go along with him. “Lloyd’s right,” he told Amy. “You’ll be fine. All you gotta do is breathe. Just like Jill showed you.”

Just then Mitchell ducked under the tarp, out of breath. “I found a doctor!”

JT almost leapt up. He strode out into the sunlight to find himself face-to-face with a man wearing wraparound sunglasses and a ten-day beard.

“This is Don,” said Mitchell.

JT gripped Don’s hand. “What kind of a doctor?”

“GI,” said Don. “And I’m only a resident. I don’t know if I can really help.”

“You can definitely help,” said JT. Same quadrant of the human body, he thought. Good enough for me right now.

“Are you sure she’s in labor?”

“Yep.”

“How many months pregnant?”

“We don’t know. She’s only seventeen,” JT said. “Until an hour ago, she didn’t know she was pregnant.”

“How far dilated?”

Dilation! JT hadn’t thought of that. And his mind envisioned Mac’s knobby knees poking up out of the sheet and the doctor down between her legs, sticking his arm up to her throat.

“Nobody’s checked that,” said JT. “Move aside, folks!” he said, ducking back under the tarp. “Don’s here. Don’s a doctor.”

Lloyd finished blowing his nose into an old bandanna. He wadded it up and stuffed it back into his pocket for the next century.

“Lloyd’s a doctor too,” JT told Don.

“And what’s the girl’s name?” Don asked.

“Amy.”

“Hello, Amy,” said Don. He knelt close and moved a strand of hair off her forehead. “I’m Don.”

Amy simply stared back.

“Amy,” said Don, “do you mind if I feel your stomach?”

Amy shook her head. Don placed his hand on the wide pale swell of her stomach. His face remained solemn as he felt around, pressing gently. JT imagined him looking up with a surprised frown, saying,
Why, this girl isn’t pregnant! This girl just has to lose a little weight!

“Your assessment?” Lloyd inquired.

Don sat back. “I can’t really tell a lot. I did a rotation in obstetrics two years ago, so whatever I know is based on that. I can’t say exactly how many weeks along she is, but obviously she’s pretty far. And I’m guessing the baby’s head down. Which is good,” he told Amy. “You want your baby to be head down.”

Amy’s expression didn’t register this. He might just as well have told her of a new mathematical proof.

“But what I’d like to do is see if I can figure out how far dilated you are,” he went on.

Again, Amy’s face remained blank.

“When you’re in labor, your cervix dilates,” Don said. “Do you know what your cervix is?” He explained it in clinical terms, then told her to think of an upside-down pear. “And where the stem would be, that’s the cervix. Anyway, it has to stretch so that the baby can come out. That stretching part is called dilation.”

Amy flicked a bug off her leg.

“The more you’re dilated, the closer the baby is to being born. And the less you’re dilated—well, it means you have some more time.”

“Time! Oh, please,” Susan whispered.

“You might want to explain how you check for dilation,” Jill suggested.

“Oh! Well, to tell how dilated you are,” Don said, “I would have to do an internal exam. And what that means is, I’d have everyone clear out, and I’d insert a few fingers into the birth canal and measure your cervix.”

At this point he paused. Amy’s face still held no expression, and he looked from person to person, as though waiting for another prompt. Jill leaned forward and cleared her throat.

“Amy,” she said, smoothing the girls hair, “this is something we need to find out. It might be a little uncomfortable, but it’s nothing you can’t deal with. Not compared to these contractions, anyway.”

“Who gives,” Amy murmured, without opening her eyes.

“She’s right,” Susan said. “We have to find out.”

“Shut up, Mom,” said Amy.

Susan sat back. Without a word, she stood up and walked out of the tent.

“Let’s clear out,” JT told the small group that remained. “Let’s give Amy and Don some privacy. Lloyd, how about if you go check on Ruth? Make sure she’s drinking enough. I don’t want her getting dehydrated.”

“Certainly,” Lloyd said.

“Peter, go see what the boys are up to.”

“Yessir,” said Peter.

JT felt happy to be able to delegate jobs again. But as he shook the tingles out of his legs, he saw Lloyd out in the sun, smoothing the corners of his mouth. He walked over to the old man.

“Check on Ruth?” he prompted.

Lloyd took his hat off, ran his fingers through his hair, and put his hat back on again. JT pointed to the lunch table, where Ruth was busily rearranging the remains of deli meats into something that would look palatable to those who had not yet eaten.

“Oh yes,” said Lloyd, trudging toward the table.

“Lloyd,” said JT.

Lloyd stopped and turned, squinting.

“I’ll bet you were a great doctor,” said JT.

Lloyd shrugged. “I did my job.”

I
t was the timing that made it so bad, Susan told herself. That plus the context, being on the river and learning your daughter was, oh, in active labor. Whatever the reason, when Susan heard Amy tell her to shut up, she felt like she’d been stabbed.

Well, it wasn’t the nicest thing for her to say
, said the Mother Bitch.

Oh, it was rude; definitely it was rude. But the thing was, Amy was always telling her to shut up, and usually it didn’t bother her in the least. When Susan complimented her on a new T-shirt, for instance, or tried to commiserate about the stress of taking five AP classes.
Shut up, Mom
. Susan always saw it as an affectionate warning that she was laying it on a little thick; and while she didn’t like to admit it, sometimes it made her feel like part of a privileged club.

But not today. Today the three little words sent a jolt through her heart, so swift and damaging that she had to flee the tent.

She felt not only rejected by her daughter but humiliated and incompetent as well. What kind of mother didn’t know her daughter was pregnant? Didn’t she notice Amy gaining weight? Didn’t she notice they weren’t going through tampons at the regular rate? Didn’t she wonder why Amy was throwing up before school?

Why, she hadn’t even wondered if Amy was having sex! And what kind of mother didn’t wonder about that nowadays, with all the news reports, all the magazine articles about hooking up and STDs and middle-school girls giving blow jobs in the school bathrooms? What kind of mother didn’t at least speculate?

Susan, that’s who. And why? Because Amy was fat. Fat girls didn’t have boyfriends and didn’t have sex.

It made her want to throw herself into the river, to think she’d fallen for such a stereotype.

Oh, stop it now
, said the Mother Bitch.
It’s not like she has cancer
.

Susan knew that. She also knew that this was not the time to beat herself up for her mistakes or to cower from a few sharp words—not with Amy about to give birth under a makeshift tent at the bottom of the Grand Canyon. But she couldn’t stop hurting. All the other times,
Shut up
meant
Oh mom, you dork you
. Today, it meant
Go away. I truly hate you. I don’t want your help. Ever
.

“Susan?”

She turned to find Jill standing behind her. Susan instantly flashed on their foolish little cocktail hours, all their so-called meaningful talks about kids and husbands and whatever. This while her own daughter was walking around in labor.

Jill put her hand on her shoulder. Susan folded her arms tightly across her chest and moved away.

“It happens,” Jill said. “I’ve read about it. Anyone could miss it. Anyone—”

“Stop. Just stop. I’m her mother. I should have known.”

Jill fell silent, but if Susan had spoken too sharply, she didn’t care. Everyone could offer explanations, everyone could excuse her, but they weren’t in her position. Jill certainly didn’t know how it felt to realize you’d been so blind that you could fix your daughter breakfast and drive her to school and visit colleges and sleep next to her in a tiny pup tent—and not know. Jill had boys, not girls, and didn’t understand that from the moment Amy was born, consciously or not, Susan had been waiting for the day her daughter announced she was intentionally, happily pregnant, so that she, Susan, could exult, commiserate, advise. And now—to suddenly learn that an unplanned pregnancy had happened without either of them knowing!

A movement caught her eye, and she saw Evelyn shuffling toward them, a water bottle dangling from her finger. Susan bristled; she didn’t think she could bear the presence of this odd, serious woman who held a PhD in molecular biology but possessed no sense of how to commune with the human race.

Evelyn hesitated, then said, “Abo chipped off some of the ice from the cooler, and I gave Amy some ice chips to suck on.”

“Thank you, Evelyn,” said Jill.

Evelyn hovered.

“Don’t say it,” warned Susan.

“All right,” said Evelyn.

Startled, Susan looked at Evelyn, who was standing there awkwardly.

“What do you want?” Susan said harshly.

Evelyn thrust the water bottle at her. “Its mostly ice,” she said. “I thought it would help you too.”

Shamed by this token of kindness, Susan held the bottle against her breastbone. It made her feel cool all over.

“Thank you,” she managed.

“Let’s sit,” Jill said.

Susan shook her head in misery, but then she sat and hugged her knees to her chest. Jill and Evelyn sat down on either side.

“All right,” Jill began. “You didn’t know. You missed the signs. But Amy needs you right now.”

“Amy doesn’t need me,” said Susan. “Amy doesn’t want me, either.”

Evelyn looked anxious. “I don’t think that’s true,” she said. “Of course Amy needs you. Of course she wants you. How can you say she doesn’t?”

“Maybe because I’ve got some experience with a teenager, Evelyn,” Susan said. Evelyn looked down, and Susan knew she had hurt this childless woman who was never going to face these muddled issues. But Susan didn’t care. Hot tears spilled out.

“Why didn’t she tell me?” she cried.

“She didn’t know,” Jill said.

“But she didn’t even tell me she was having sex! Did she think I would scold her? Tell her she was too young? She was—is—but I would never have scolded her! I would have taken her to the doctor, and then the doctor would have examined her, and we’d have known, and we wouldn’t be here on the Colorado River with her going into labor!”

Jill and Evelyn both laid a hand on Susan’s shoulder.

“I’m a failure,” Susan sobbed.

“Phooey,” said Evelyn.

“In fact, I’m such a failure that not only do I not know my daughter is pregnant, but when she’s suddenly going into labor, all I can think about is how bad a parent I am. Isn’t
that
rich!”

Evelyn looked thoughtful for a moment. “So what you’re saying is, you’re a failure because not only have you failed your daughter, but in the process of failing her, all you can focus on is how you’ve failed?”

Susan sobbed harder. “And I’ve done this all my life too. I always make everything all about
me
. No wonder Amy doesn’t open up—she knows she’ll just have to sit and listen to me talk about how it was for me me me, way back when.”

Evelyn and Jill pondered this.

“I’ve just been trying so hard to connect with her,” Susan said. “And nothing works.”

“Maybe not until now,” Jill said gently. “But you can’t just walk away when she needs you the most. You have to be the strong one right now.”

“You certainly do! I’d lay down the law with that girl,” Evelyn declared, and she smacked a fist into her palm. “I’d say, ‘Amy, I don’t care what you say, I’m going to be right here by your side from start to finish!’”

Susan smiled wanly, for she’d had yet to witness this passionate side of Evelyn. She thought she would like to watch Evelyn teach a class sometime. Once she’d had a teacher who was passionate about wind patterns over the Pacific. By the end of the class, everyone else was passionate about wind patterns over the Pacific too.

She wiped her nose. “I’m not usually so thin-skinned.”

“I think it’s being on the river,” Evelyn said.

“Watching your daughter go into labor might have something to do with it too,” added Jill.

The three women helped each other stand up. Susan inhaled
deeply. Her eyes stung from salt and sun, and she wanted again to walk into the river and float away.

Instead, she gave a shaky little laugh. “My heart,” she said hoarsely. “I feel like its right here,” and she patted her arm.

“Well,” said Evelyn, “well, you just keep it right there, if that’s what you need to do.”

“How soon for the helicopter?” JT asked Abo.

“We’re next in line.”

JT drew a deep breath.

“Doing a swell job, Boss,” said Abo.

“Keep telling me that.”

“How can a girl not know she’s pregnant?” Abo asked, after a while.

“No clue.”

“Ever delivered a baby in the canyon?”

“Never delivered a baby, period. But we’re not going to deliver a baby. The helicopter’s going to come and it’s going to fly her away to the Happy Hospital and we’re going to have our Lava Falls Boating Club party tonight.”

“Do you really think we’ll be in the mood for a party?”

“No.”

Abo paused, frowning. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “How can you not know?”

Ruth twisted the cap of the mustard bottle and wiped off the little brown disk that clung to the nozzle.

“He’s probably just stuck in an eddy,” Mitchell told the two boys. They were standing at the downstream end of the beach. Matthew was looking through Mitchell’s binoculars.

“Do you see anything?” asked Sam.

“No,” said Matthew.

“Can I look?” said Sam.

Matthew handed the binoculars to Sam. Mitchell patiently showed
him how to adjust them to fit. “Just look for the red bandanna,” he said. “That would make it easy to spot him.”