On the Divinity of Second Chances (33 page)

She turns to me and smiles sweetly with tears in her eyes. “So glorious and so short.”

I take her hand and begin to walk, and try to just appreciate what’s left of autumn instead of dwelling on the inevitability of winter.

Olive on Childbirth
(October 22)

Flap-toe-heel. Ouch. Yeow. What’s that? Flap-toe-heel. I hold up my giant belly and keep dancing. Shuffle-ball-change, shuffle-ball-change—splash. Splash? I look at the puddle on the floor, and then look up at Grandma Pearl and the other Thunderellas.

“Come on, ladies, it’s showtime!” Grandma Pearl shouts to the others. “Hazel, you have the biggest car, can you drive?”

“I can drive,” Hazel answers. “How far along is she?” I hear her whisper to Grandma Pearl.

“Only eight months,” Grandma Pearl whispers back.

Outside, snow and dried leaves flurry in the air. Yowza! There it is again! I work to breathe in the strong wind. Fiona gets in the front of the Impala with Hazel, while Beatrice and Grandma Pearl guide me into the back between them.

“Punch it, Hazel!” Grandma Pearl calls out. Hazel hits the gas and off we go.

Yow-yow-yow-yow-YOWZA-YIKES-YEEHAW!!! That hurt!

“That was two minutes,” Fiona announces.

“Oh, dear. Look at that,” Hazel says as she stops the car. She parks it and gets out. I can’t see what is going on.

“Hazel! What are you doing? We don’t have time for this! We have places to go, Hazel!” Grandma Pearl says.

Eee-eee-eee-eee-EGADS! Christ on a bike!

“One minute forty-five seconds,” says Fiona.

Hazel comes back with a duck in her hands. She hands it to Fiona to hold. “Be careful of her wing.” Then she turns to Grandma Pearl and explains, “She has places to go, too. Someone shot her wing. She wasn’t able to migrate. She needs us.”

“Just
go
!” Grandma Pearl shouts.

Ja-ja-ja-ja-JUMPIN’ JEHOSHAPHAT!

“One minute thirty-five seconds,” Fiona says.

“This baby’s coming fast. I don’t think we’re going to make it to Rapid City,” Beatrice says.

Hazel begins to sing a song in Lakota.

Ah! AAAAHHHHH! I bend over with the contraction and feel all kinds of hands on my back. I start to rip off my clothes.

“Here, Olive, lean back on me and let your grandma deliver your baby,” Beatrice says while stroking my hair. I breathe in short puffs.

Hazel stops singing. “Olive, you will have an easier time if you squat on that seat and brace yourself against the front seat. Let gravity help you.”

I put my feet up on the backseat and grab the front seat as my next contraction hits. I curl into myself and try to hush a scream. The duck squawks when I quietly scream. I start to cry. I don’t think I can do this.

“One minute twenty seconds,” says Fiona.

“Beatrice, there’s a blanket behind you. Put it under Olive,” says Hazel. Beatrice wedges a fleece blanket between my feet. “Pearl, squeeze the tops of her hips. It will help the bottom of her pelvis open and relieve some pressure.”

Holy-holy-holy-holy-HOLY SHIT! I am going to rip in half! The duck squawks a little louder this time.

“One minute five seconds,” Fiona tells us.

Hazel begins to sing again. The snow starts to fall harder and Hazel has to slow down, unable to see the road.

OH, DEAR JESUS, MAKE IT STOP! Squawk-squawk-squawk-squawk. I really feel the baby move with that one. I whimper and try to bend over to see if I see a baby yet.

Beatrice gently rubs my back as Grandma Pearl gets down on the floor to try to get a look. “Fiona, is there a flashlight up there?” Grandma Pearl asks.

“Glove compartment,” Hazel interjects in the middle of her song.

With one hand, Fiona holds the duck and with the other opens the glove compartment and digs out a flashlight. I take it from Fiona and hand it to Grandma Pearl, who’s still on the floor, and let out a whooping scream. The duck screams, too.

“She’s crowning!” Grandma Pearl shouts.

Hazel stops singing again. “Olive, listen to me. Your body knows what to do. That baby knows what to do. When you have contractions now, sing out, ‘Come on, Body!’ I am singing to Great Spirit and to your baby. I am asking Great Spirit to help and I am telling your baby this is a good place.”

COME ON, BODY! COME ON, BABY! OH, MY GOD, COME ON, BABY! COME ON, BABY!

“We have a head! One more big one, Olive!” Grandma Pearl coaches.

COME ON, BABY! COME ON . . . baby. I feel the baby slip out and I reach down to catch her, but Grandma Pearl’s hands are already there. Beatrice holds me tightly. I watch my tiny baby in Grandma Pearl’s hands and can’t believe my eyes. She’s alive. Overwhelmed with relief, I cry and cry.

“Boy!”
Grandma Pearl shouts to a chorus of cheers. Fiona looks back, her eyes as big as saucers, while the duck begins to squawk softly with my little boy’s soft cries. “And you thought it was going to be a girl!”

OH! OH! “What is this? I thought it was over! A A AH!” I shout.

Hazel quickly turns around and explains, “Placenta.”

Beatrice takes the blanket from under me and wraps it around me as Grandma Pearl hands me my tiny boy. I hold him close, looking down to study this new person. My heart overflows and I begin to cry again, this time not from my body ripping open, but from my heart. Beatrice pulls me back onto her so I can lie back a little and rest while Grandma Pearl messes with my placenta.

“Pearl, keep that placenta attached until we get to the hospital. That baby’s pretty early.” Then Hazel looks at me in the rearview mirror and says, “You did good, Olive.”

I open the blanket so Grandma Pearl can place my boy on my chest, and then I wrap the blankets around us again. I’m in love. I’m so in love I might burst.

“Hazel, crank the heat, will ya? We have to keep this little baby very warm,” orders Grandma Pearl. I hear the noise of Hazel cranking the heat up a notch.

The car is quiet as we drive slowly in the snow flurries the rest of the way into Rapid City.

When we finally reach the hospital, Hazel pulls up to the ER entrance. First Grandma Pearl, drenched in sweat, her straight gray hair sticking to her forehead, gets out. I hear the click of her tap shoes on the concrete. With Beatrice’s help, I scoot over and out (ow!), wearing nothing but a blanket and my flip-flops, baby wrapped up tight inside my blanket. My hair must look as bad as it feels. Fiona gets out at the same time, sweaty, with a suspicious bump under her navy peacoat and a beak sticking out between two buttons. Hazel puts on her hazard lights and gets out with Beatrice. The five of us thunder into the ER, trying not to slip on our own dripping sweat in our slick, noisy tap shoes and flip-flops, click-clickclickclick, with Grandma Pearl shouting, “We’ve got a babeeeee!” and Fiona leaving a suspicious trail of duck feathers behind her. I feel the assurance of my little boy moving a little, and peek down my blanket to admire him. A nurse rushes over to me with a wheelchair and whisks me away.

Pearl on Fences and Integrity
(October 24)

Now, it’s one thing if Dean’s cows get into my sunflowers and wreak havoc, but I can’t have them getting into Olive’s safflowers and flax next year. I feel like Anna’s just waiting for her to fail and I’ll be darned if I’m going to let that happen. I load up a couple hundred yards of coiled barbed wire, a few new T posts, and some tools into the bucket of my tractor. It’s too heavy to carry. Phil and Anna are bringing Olive and the baby home today; I want everything to be perfect. I sure don’t want Dean’s damn cows running all over our gathering.

This tractor makes my butt hurt. It needs to be said. Plus, it really puts my old-lady bladder to the test.

There goes Dean on his stupid four-wheeler. I hate listening to that damn thing. Look at him, riding around like some kind of idiot instead of fixing his fences so that an old woman doesn’t have to. What kind of poor excuse of a man makes an old lady fix his fences to keep his cows out of her livelihood? I watch him and imagine using him for target practice. I have lots of time to imagine on the long, long ride out there.

You know, I don’t think Dean has ever done a thing to maintain these fences. In fact, I don’t think these fences have been touched since Martha Peterson lived here. If there’s one thing I absolutely cannot stand, it’s a lazy farmer. Dean is lazy. I take the fence-post driver, put the cup over the top of my T post, grab both handles, and start slamming. When it hits the top of the metal T post, my whole body rattles. Jesus, what kind of man makes an old woman jar herself all up like this? I hate him. I really try not to hate anyone, but I sure hate him. I spend all day repairing his negligence, all damn day, when I should be home with Beatrice, preparing cookies and cider and, later, supper. Dean is a waste of my time. As the hours pass, I pound in more T posts and think about all I should be doing at home to prepare for the arrival of everyone. That was a lot to dump on Beatrice. Eventually, I start to feel guilty and decide to go back.

I get back onto the torture machine commonly referred to as a tractor and begin the jolting ride back home on the little road that follows the fence line, as if jarring myself to death pounding T posts all day wasn’t enough. I should have peed before I started home. The seat belt hits me right in the bladder. I return to thinking about all that needs to be done at home and flip the tractor into fourth gear to hurry back. I really have to pee. I start to look for the house, but can’t quite see it. I wonder what Beatrice is doing. Oh, shit! I realize how much I jerked the wheel when I hit that last bump, and feel the tractor begin to go over. Oh shit oh shit oh shit!

“Miss Pearl! Miss Pearl! Miss Pearl!” I hear Dean’s panicked voice. Miss? Since when does Dean call me Miss? Oh, Jesus, I must be dead. Wait, I can’t be dead. My arm hurts too much . . . unless I’m in Hell, which would explain the arm pain and the presence of Dean. “Miss Pearl!” I open my eyes. There’s Dean jumping off that four-wheeler I hate so much. “Are you okay?” Do I look okay? What a stupid son of a bitch. “You’re pinned. I’m going to go get my tractor and call you an ambulance! I’ll be right back!” Everything gets fuzzy and dark, so I just close my eyes and give in to it.

The ground rumbles, and I hear a loud noise. “Now, Miss Pearl, don’t you worry. I’m going to get you out from there! You just relax!” Relax? Dean revs his tractor engine and the chain on the bar near my ear clinks as it tightens. I feel the tractor go up, up, and back upright. He jumps up in my cab with me, rolls up some newspaper into a tight tube, and takes off his flannel shirt. Ew, wish I hadn’t seen that. He puts the roll of newspaper next to my arm and makes a sling out of his shirt. “Now don’t you worry, Miss Pearl, you’re going to be okay. The ambulance is going to meet us here.” A breeze hits me just right and I’m aware that I have indeed peed on myself. Oh, dear God, please take me now; I just can’t bear the indignity of Dean seeing me with pee all over myself. He’s going to tell everybody. What’s worse is he’s going to love telling everybody.

“Dean,” I whisper.

“Yes, Miss Pearl?”

“Dean, I am embarrassed,” I just say.

He looks me right in the eye and says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Dean, I believe I have peed all over myself.”

Once again, he looks me square in the eye and says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Could it be? Could it be that there is a gentleman in Dean who would not acknowledge my condition? Clearly, I am hallucinating.

“The ambulance will be here any minute, Miss Pearl. Just you hang on.”

I hear the ambulance drive up the field, stop, and a man yell, “Is there a gate nearby? We need to get through the fence!” The pain in my arm is so intense, I start to go gray again, but not before I hear the crushing of the fence under Dean’s tractor. Thank you, Dean, for I have now just crushed my arm for nothing.

The next time I open my eyes, the paramedics are stabilizing my arm and lifting me into the ambulance. I immediately pass out again.

Anna on Family
(October 24)

Phil and I pull up to the farm with Olive cradling Kelly in the back of our car. “Now remember,” I say to her, “you always have a home with us. You can always change your mind.”

“Welcome!” Beatrice hollers to us. “I just made some sweet rolls!” I take a deep breath and prepare to try my hardest to be nice to one of the two women who are working to prevent my grandchild from having a father in his life, and who enabled my daughter to have a medical crisis without medical insurance. I honestly don’t know if I can. Considering the euphoria I feel looking at Kelly, I’m surprised with myself, but I just can’t ignore how Olive’s setup here terrifies me.

Beatrice bubbles over with enthusiasm at our arrival. “Olive, honey, I made you two nice beds, one on the sofa and one in the guest room, so you can take your pick.”

“Thanks, Beatrice. I’ve been dreaming of hanging out with you all in your living room for days.”

“I don’t know where Pearl is. She went off to fix some fences earlier today and I haven’t seen her since. I’m sure she’ll be back any minute. Anyway, come on, come on in and unwind from that long drive.”

We shuffle in, get Olive and Kelly settled, and drink juice and eat a sweet roll. It’s awkward. I really don’t have anything to say to Beatrice.

“Um, so, Phil, I understand you’ve been picking up the bagpipes this summer,” Beatrice says to try to fill the silence.

“Yes. I even played in the Trailing of the Sheep Parade last month,” Phil said.

“That sounds like fun,” Beatrice says.

“It was,” Phil agrees, and then there is that awkward silence.

I hear a car, and then a knock. Jade quietly calls out, “Where is everybody?” Her hair looks pretty and smooth, and her burned-orange dress is uncharacteristically tasteful. Josh stands behind her, smiling warmly at us, wearing a very nice white shirt, slacks, and some shiny black loafers.