Promise Me A Rainbow (23 page)

“Don’t—go—Ms. Holben!”

“Well, then stop crying so we can talk. Here. Let’s wipe your face.”

She disentangled herself from Sasha’s grasp to reach a wet washcloth on the bedside table. “Look up here.” She gently washed Sasha’s face. “Take some tissues.” She held the box so Sasha could reach it. “And wipe your nose.”

Sasha sniffed loudly.

“Tell me how you feel.”

“My—stomach—hurts, Ms. Holben!” She threw her arms around Catherine again, and Catherine held her tightly.

“All the time? Or does it come and go?”

“Comes and goes. Oh, Ms. Holben, it’s hurting bad!”

“Don’t hold your breath, Sasha. It makes the pain worse. Breathe like we practiced in class. That’s it!”

Catherine waited until the contraction ended, her eyes meeting the eyes of the nurse, who stood waiting with the monitoring equipment in her hands. “Now, Sasha, didn’t I tell you you had to be a good mama to your baby
before
it gets here?”

She said something into Catherine’s shoulder that could have been yes.

“And didn’t I tell you to help the nurses all you could when you went to the hospital?”

This time she nodded.

“I know you feel bad, but it’s time for you to be a good mama to Treasure. And it’s time to help this nurse here. She needs to hook you up to the machine so she can hear Treasure’s heartbeat, so she can take care of her—and you. Are you going to do it?”

“Don’t go, Ms. Holben . . .”

“I won’t, Sasha.”

“Is it going to—hurt?”

“No. Beatrice didn’t say anything about it hurting, did she? It’s like wearing two belts. One up high and one on Treasure’s heart.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure, Sasha. If it hurt, I’d tell you.”

Catherine lived to regret those words almost immediately. The monitor was hardly in place before someone came in from the lab to take a blood sample.

“Is it going to hurt?” Sasha asked again.

Catherine sighed. “Yes, Sasha,” she answered because Sasha was waiting to see if she would tell her the truth.

“How much?” she asked, her mouth trembling again.

Catherine held her thumb and forefinger apart about an inch. “That much,” she said. “Not as much as when your stomach hurts.”

Satisfied, Sasha took Catherine’s hand and held out her arm.

Catherine lost all track of time. She soothed, cajoled, coerced, whatever it took to get Sasha to participate in the procedures to monitor the condition of her unborn child. The contractions intensified, and the same nurse came in to start an IV.

“Sasha,” she said, “this is one stick, so we don’t have to keep giving you shots like we’ve been doing. One instead of a lot. What do you say?”

Resigned, Sasha capitulated easily this time, and Grandmamma Higgins was allowed back into the room.

“They won’t give my Sasha nothing to eat,” she said to Catherine. “This child ain’t been fed nothing. She needs something now.”

“It’s better if she doesn’t eat,” Catherine answered, holding the woman’s gaze and trying to make her understand what she didn’t want to say in front of Sasha. “The IV fluids—the water that’s running into her arm—has sugar in it and something to make her contractions stop. They’re not starving her, Mrs. Higgins.”

Dr. Clarkson came in. “I gotta do what I gotta do,” he said to Catherine as he put on an examining glove.

“I don’t like it!” Sasha wailed, but she didn’t put up the same fight as she had over the monitor.

“Feet together, little one,” Clarkson said to her. “Sasha! That’s mighty fine! Let’s see what’s happening here.”

He did the vaginal exam, and his glove came away bloody. He quickly peeled it off and turned it wrong side out so Sasha wouldn’t see.

“Yutopar’s not holding her,” he said to Catherine.

“I told you Treasure’s coming,” Grandmamma said. “It don’t matter what you do.”

Clarkson rubbed his hand tiredly over his forehead. “You’re right, Mrs. Higgins. We’re going to have to take Sasha into the delivery room.”

Sasha began to cry in earnest.

“Catherine, I want you to come into the delivery room.”

“Clarkson, I haven’t helped with a delivery in years—”

“Don’t give me your resume. Just let me see your little bod in scrubs PDQ, okay?”

She still hesitated. She didn’t mind going with Sasha, but she knew doctors. When one gave them an inch, they expected a mile, and the mere fact that she wasn’t an employee of the hospital wouldn’t matter at all. She was too rusty to get involved in a complicated delivery.

Clarkson motioned frantically toward Grandmamma Higgins with his eyes, his back turned so the old woman couldn’t see him.

“
Okay
?”

“Okay, but don’t ask me where anything is.”

“Deal!” he said, shaking her hand. “Get going.”

“One more thing.”

“What?”

Catherine lowered her voice. “I think Grandmamma had better come into the delivery room with us.”

“Catherine—”

“She doesn’t understand anything about medical things, Clarkson. It will be better if she’s in there where she can see what’s happening. Trust me on this.”

“Ah, hell, Catherine!”

“I mean it.”

He sighed. “All right, but keeping a leash on that old woman is
your
job. You want me to tell the kid or will you?”

“I’ll do it.”

“You aren’t going to try to keep me out, are you, boy?” Grandmamma said.

“Who, me? No way. Catherine, I leave Grandmamma to you. And get rid of the hat,” he added under his breath.

Clarkson went out, and Catherine moved back to the bedside. She reached to gently touch Sasha’s face. “Sasha, it’s time for Treasure to be born now. Your grandmamma and I both are going into the delivery room with you, but we have to change our clothes.”

“Don’t go, Ms. Holben!”

“Sasha, it’ll be all right. I’ll tell you what. Your grandmamma can stay with you while I go change clothes, and then when I come back, she can go.”

“I’m scared, Ms. Holben!”

“I know. But you aren’t going to be by yourself. Now take your grandmamma’s hand. I’ll be right back.”

Catherine stepped into the hall. A nurse was motioning her to come in her direction, a few doors down.

“Here you go,” she said when Catherine walked in. “The scrubs should fit you—and I’ll leave grandmamma’s right here. And here’s your cap. I’ll put hers on top of her scrubs. You look tired, kiddo. You had anything to eat?”

“No,” Catherine said, realizing suddenly how hungry she was. She hadn’t even been out of the room since she’d arrived. She had no idea how long she’d been with Sasha.

“Here, take this,” the nurse said, tossing her an apple from a nearby paper bag.

“I don’t want to take your lunch—”

“Listen, you’re keeping Grandmamma occupied. You can have anything I’ve got.”

Catherine smiled and took a bite of the apple. “What time is it?”

“Twenty till one,” the nurse said, looking at her watch.

“Oh, Lord! I need to make a telephone call. Is there a phone I can use?”

“Use the one at the desk. Punch nine to get an outside line.”

“Thanks,” Catherine said again. “I appreciate it.”

“Hey, I told you, you handle Grandmamma, you get whatever you want.”

The nurse left, and Catherine changed hurriedly, taking big bites of the apple as she went. She had no idea it was so late. She walked to the nurses’ station and borrowed the telephone book to look up Joe’s number.

Maybe it was better this way, she thought. If she broke their date and he asked her again, she’d know whether or not he was serious.

The phone rang, but it was a long time before anyone answered.

“Charlie?” she said, because the voice wasn’t deep enough to be Joe’s.

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“This is Catherine Holben. I need to talk to your dad.” She could hear the sound effects of a computer game in the background.

“He’s not . . . back from church . . . yet. He and Fritz . . . probably stopped at . . . McDonald’s.”

“Then can you tell him something for me?”

“Oh . . . sure.”

“Tell him something’s come up.” She realized that he was totally engrossed in whatever he was doing and she had better keep it simple. “Tell him I can’t go with him to the builders’ association meeting this afternoon. Tell him I’ll call him later.”

“You got it, Catherine.”

“Are you sure you know what to tell him?”

“Um . . . you’re . . . no, up . . . something’s come up and you can’t go to the . . . builders’ association meeting. And . . . you’ll call him.”

“Right. You won’t forget?”

“Me? I never, ever forget. I am . . .”

There was a big explosion from the computer game.

“ . . . Super Memory!”

“Thanks, Super.”

“Anytime, Catherine.”

She stood grinning and holding the receiver, and she tried to push aside the disappointment she was feeling at not being able to see Joe. For once she didn’t agonize. She wanted to see him but she couldn’t. It was as simple as that. How she wished she were walking with him and Fritz on the beach.

She took a deep breath. She had to return to the problem at hand. Clarkson was doing everything possible to stop Sasha’s labor, and it wasn’t working.

She walked back toward Sasha’s room, trying to get in a few more bites of apple on the way. She could see several of the new mothers in their rooms as she passed, women primping for the arrival of their newborns. None of them was as young as Sasha.

Grandmamma was waiting at Sasha’s bedside, and Catherine took her into the hall to show her the room where she could change.

“Your scrubs and cap like mine are in there on a chair. If it’s not the right size, you can look on the shelves for another one—or come and get me and I’ll see if I can find one for you.”

“You’re good to my Sasha,” the old woman said, putting her hand on Catherine’s arm.

“I like Sasha very much. I want everything to go all right for her.”

“We’re going to have to see about that, ain’t we, Teacher?”

Catherine looked into the old woman’s eyes for a moment, then nodded. Grandmamma may be ignorant of medical procedures, but she understood the situation perfectly.

“I’m going to work a root for you, Teacher. I’m going to work one for you that’ll make the sun shine on your back door.”

Catherine smiled. “I can always use a little sunshine, Mrs. Higgins.”

“Ms. Holben!” Sasha called, and Catherine went back inside to take her hand.

“It hurts
bad
, Ms. Holben,” she said, punctuating it with a little mewing sound as another contraction came. “It’s hurting me, and it’s hurting Treasure.”