Nina Wright - Whiskey Mattimoe 07 - Whiskey, Large (31 page)

“Ack! Stop him!” I cried.

The last thing I needed—well, one of the last things I needed—was a large exuberant dog bouncing all over me while I tried to postpone giving birth. Chester hurled his whole body at Diggs, which that slowed the doodle a little. Dogs love kids, and this kid loved dogs like crazy. In seconds, they were rolling around on the ground together. Abra declined to participate. She chose instead to sniff her private parts, a pastime she could enjoy for hours.

In addition to their elegance, Afghan hounds project an air of detachment and ego strength that we tend to equate with British royalty or Hollywood super-stardom. Think Princess Diana or Nicole Kidman. On the other hand, Affies can be total clowns. Consider Abra’s serial thefts and sexual hijinks. Leave it to my missing hound to show up at a crime scene with a presumed-dead doggie boy-toy and then totally ignore her human. By that measure, all was well.

Suddenly, the air filled with sirens, their screams surging. I, who usually loathed sirens, was thrilled to hear these. The good guys were coming, finally. Could Mom and Jeb be far behind?

“Hang on, Baby,” I whispered. “Mama’s going to launch you in a real hospital.”

That was the plan. Jenx arrived on the scene followed closely by the State Boys and a county sheriff’s deputy. Two ambulances came next, the first for me and Baby, and the second for the crazy unconscious lady who hurt my favorite neighbor and tried to take my child. A couple of burly paramedics transferred me from the Town Car to a gurney with the grace and goodwill of power-lifters.

Chester, who was still rolling on the ground with the doodle, yelled, “Diggs is trying to tell me something!”

Abra glanced up from her personal business and set up a racket that’s rare in her breed. She wouldn’t stop barking, and neither would Diggs.

Both dogs, Chester explained, had urgent messages to convey to two-leggers, and they wanted him to translate. Facing Abra and Diggs on all fours, Chester listened, barked, panted and snorted. Idly, I wondered if having a broken nose made talking canine harder or easier. Abra and Diggs did their
de rigueur
butt sniffing and circled him several times. Finally, they sat alongside him and took turns “telling their tales” by not only wagging their tails but also yipping, whining, and even growling. For his part, Chester was hardly silent. He had his own repertoire of doggie sounds and appeared to ask a lot of questions. The hounds had answers.

Although the process was noisy, it didn’t take long. Hugging both dogs, Chester looked toward us humans and shouted, “I think I know where Jeb is, and he’s all right!”

No part of that announcement was lost on me.

“Somebody do what Chester says and go find my husband!” I bellowed between contractions.

One of the nice strong EMTs did his best to soothe me.

“Everything’s under control, ma’am,” he said.

In response, I laughed as maniacally as any woman in my circumstances would. When another siren drew near, I strained to see the black and white, hoping against hope that Jeb would leap out and rush to me. Instead, Roscoe flew through the passenger-side window. I expected trouble, given Abra’s tantalizing ways, her new doodle lover, and Roscoe’s recent record of low self-restraint. Fortunately, the EMT turned my gurney away from the action just in time. That was one doggie-sex free-for-all I did not need to see.

I was severely distracted by my own issues. Secured by a belt and attached to at least one tube that I was aware of, my body, especially my back, felt crushed by hyper-gravitational forces. I was no longer responsible for the range of foul sounds coming from my mouth. Mere seconds before I said something nobody should hear, the EMTs loaded me into the ambulance.

“Breathe, Whitney,” commanded the first voice I had ever taken orders from. “You’re in late-stage labor.”

I had already figured out what stage of labor I was in, but I didn’t tell that to my mother. I needed my breath for more important purposes, like saying how glad I was to see her.

“Are you all right?” I whispered.

“I’m fine, dear, and happy to be here with you.”

“You were right about Helen, Mom.”

“I underestimated Helen,” she said sadly. “Never in a million years did I think she would hurt a child.”

“She hurt me, too,” I indicated my bruised nose, which had stopped bleeding, “and she was going to steal Baby.”

Mom’s face darkened. “Until today, I thought Helen was sly and needy, not evil. She showed up at your house, insisting I help her look for an extra leash in the garage. Of course, I knew you had no extra leashes, but I agreed to help her search. She stun-gunned me. The next thing I knew, she was using those stupid promotional hankies Cassina gives away to gag me and bind my hands and feet. Later, you, Anouk, and MacArthur were on the other side of the breezeway door. Even though I could hear you, I couldn’t call for help or warn you that Helen was crazy.”

I asked Mom if she had heard the commotion caused by Sandra and Napoleon’s sexual escapade.

She winced. “That may have been my fault. I shouldn’t have dressed Sandra in all that bling.”

I wanted to know how she managed to get free. Mom grinned smugly.

“Helen isn’t as wily as she thinks she is. She forgot to take my smart phone. When the stun wore off, I was able to work it out of my pocket and call 9-1-1. I saw your texts and your tweet, so when Brady arrived with Roscoe, we used my stalking app to pinpoint your location.”

The way Mom beamed, I knew she planned to tell this story a thousand times to her friends back in Florida. I only hoped she wouldn’t head south too soon.

A brand new agony reduced me to a wail.

“Is she fully dilated?” Mom asked the EMT, who was busy assessing the situation.

“She’s crowning,” he replied, adding for my benefit, “Try not to push.”

So this was crowning. A scorching pain accompanied by pressure in places that made me want to do only one thing—push. I yelled again, then I heard Chester’s high-pitched shout through the still-open ambulance doors.

“Whiskey! We’re following the dogs to find Jeb. Everything’s going to be fine!”

Although I couldn’t see him, I imagined the little hero flashing a thumbs-up.

The ambulance doors banged shut. Settled next to me, Mom held my hand and calmly issued the instructions we’d practiced in birthing class. She may have been my second-string coach, but I was mighty grateful to have her at my side.

If Chester and the dogs were right, Jeb was safe and not far away. Sure, my hubster had some explaining to do, but even in the throes of childbirth, I surmised that Helen was somehow responsible for his absence. My man, Baby’s father, would join us just as soon as he could. I was pretty sure, though, that Baby was going to get here first.

As much as I had hoped
to launch Baby in a hospital, that didn’t happen, but childbirth in the back of an ambulance beats childbirth in the backseat of a Lincoln Town Car.

Crazy evil Helen Kaminski had been right about one thing. Baby was a girl. My big, strong, healthy daughter entered this world at 4:47 p.m. on April 18th, just moments before our ambulance pulled into the Emergency Room portico at Coastal Medical Center.

I heard her cry, and that was when I started crying. Mom cried, too. Even the baby-catching EMT, whose name was Marcus, looked a little choked up.

“We don’t usually have this much fun on a ride to the hospital,” he said.

When he offered me my swaddled child, I thought my heart would explode. Even without Jeb there to share the moment, it was a life changer, the most fantastic experience I could imagine. I had a child. A healthy, safe child.

Also, I had every reason to trust that Jeb was safe, assuming Chester had been as accurate as usual in his animal-language translation. The kid deserved a career in the canine U.N.

Professionals were standing by ready to whisk me and my daughter to wherever new mommies and babies get the care they need. I still had a placenta to deliver and a tear in my nether regions that required repair. My daughter—my daughter!—needed to be cleaned, weighed, measured, and tested in the various and sundry ways all newborns are.

Mom promised to produce Jeb.

“You can’t make that guarantee,” I said.

“Of course I can,” she declared. “He’ll be waiting for you in your room.”

Mom had an uncanny way of keeping promises, stun guns and sadistic drivers notwithstanding. When, almost two hours later, an orderly finally delivered me to my hospital room, my handsome husband was there. Scraped, soiled, sweaty, and visibly exhausted, Jeb had never looked better to me. Apparently, the feeling was mutual. Jeb couldn’t seem to stop kissing me, and I kept kissing him back. We were both crying, too. Sure, we had crazy, intense stories to share, but those would come later. Holding on to each other—mouth pressed against mouth, then against eyes, ears, hair, hands and back to mouth again—there was no need to speak. When a nurse brought in our daughter, we cried even more, counting every perfect fingernail, toenail, and eyelash.

The lactation specialist showed me how to nurse. I wanted to protest, until I saw my baby at my breast. She “latched” immediately. The kid knew how to suckle, and I had milk for her. Why on earth would I refuse to share?

As she drank greedily—and noisily, I might add—Jeb beamed at us both. Something opened up inside me, a kind of lightness I couldn’t remember feeling before in thirty-five years of living. At that moment, in that hospital room, with my baby at my breast and my husband at my side, I experienced the most incredible surge of joy and peace. The world was glorious. So what if I was overweight and out of shape, and I had a busted nose? Marriage and motherhood rocked.

Hell, if I had known being a mom could feel that sweet, I might never have tried to avoid it. It wasn’t all going to be easy, of course. A lot of it would be downright terrifying, but as long as Jeb and I loved each other, and we could keep the likes of evil Helen Kaminski at bay, I knew we would survive and thrive.

After a nurse laid our daughter in her own tiny bed next to mine, I dozed off. Once during the night I woke to nurse her. Jeb sat in the chair by my bed, watching his wife and daughter. I could count on three fingers the number of times I had ever seen Jeb cry, and this was one of them. He wrapped his arms around us both as I fed our child, then he laid her lovingly, tenderly back in her crib. I must have drifted off again.

Later, much later, I stirred. This time, Jeb lay next to me snoring softly while Baby dozed in her crib. We were the definition of new domestic bliss.

Suddenly, I sensed rather than saw someone else in the room, someone standing by the door nearly buried in shadow.

“Hello?” I said.

Jeb didn’t move a muscle. I blinked, thinking it was Leo. But how…?

“Congratulations, Mama. You did good work,” whispered MacArthur.

Yet my late husband was surely there in spirit. I felt his goodness all around me. When MacArthur laughed softly, I recalled Leo’s warm, rumbling guffaw. A little of his optimistic protectiveness surely lived on in the Cleaner.

“I’m so happy,” I told him.

“Of course you are. Your daughter is beautiful, just like her mother.”

“I’m happy because my daughter is here, safe, and so is my husband.”

I asked MacArthur if he had heard about Helen.

“Shhh. We’ll talk about Helen later,” he said. “Go back to sleep so you can dream about all the good things to come.”

I liked that idea, so I closed my eyes. I opened them again.

“Wait, what about Chester? Is he all right?”

“He’s perfect. And he’s a hero.”

Of course he was. Not only had he clobbered Helen before she could take my baby, but he had also translated what Diggs and Abra knew about Jeb so that the authorities could find him. I would learn the rest after I got some sleep. My eyelids were heavy, so heavy, and everything that mattered was absolutely fine.

The next thing I knew, the room had filled with warm morning light. Although the Cleaner was gone, and so was Jeb, Baby and I were not alone. Chester had reported for duty. Unnecessarily wearing a surgical mask and latex gloves, he cradled my daughter expertly in his arms.

Seeing my favorite kid holding my brand-new baby immediately turned me to mush. I jerked them both toward me in one big hug. Never mind how my body ached. Chester was family.

He said, “I always wanted a sister.”

At least that’s what I think he said. His voice was muffled by the surgical mask and my insistent hug. I kept him and Baby pressed against me while I wept with joy. After a moment, I loosened my grip. Chester laid Baby back in her crib and presented me with a fresh stack of Cassina Enterprises handkerchiefs. I realized they would make great diapers. Before I blew my nose, I told him he could lose the mask since my room was not a sterile environment.

“I just want to protect her,” he explained. “It’s what big brothers do.”

Then he relayed a message from Jeb that he had gone home to shower and change. Chester surveyed my bed.

“You let him sleep here with corn dust all over him?”

“Like I said, it’s not a sterile environment.”

Chester and I compared our broken noses, neither of which would require surgery to mend. Although I had a hand mirror by my bed that we could have used to study our wounds, neither of us touched it. I doubted we’d ever use a hand mirror again.

Food service delivered a breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and sausage, which I shared with Chester. The whole time we ate, we watched Baby sleep. Every detail of her smallness mesmerized Chester. Chewing his toast, he hunched over her crib, scrutinizing every inch of her.

“Babies are a lot more colorful in person than in my on-line class,” he enthused. “This one is really pink.”

We made plans for all the things he could teach her. Things like nano-systems that Jeb and I lacked the brainpower to comprehend.

“I kind of feel like I’ve practiced being a parent with you,” I told Chester. “I’ve worried about you, and I’ve wanted to take care of you, and I sure couldn’t help loving you.”