The Secret to Hummingbird Cake (19 page)

“Great job!” Laine, ever the cheerleader, patted my shoulder.

“Shut up, Laine, and get out of my face.”

“I know you don't mean that.” She smiled and wiped my forehead.

“Oh, yes, I do mean it.” I caught my breath, waiting for the next contraction that was about forty-five seconds away. I tried not to watch the fetal monitor, whose waves alerted me when another contraction would begin. Why did they even have it pointed in my direction? I sure wasn't likely to miss it.

Why, oh, why had I wanted to experience natural childbirth? It was like saying you wanted to experience someone peeling your fingernails off or having a root canal without the gas. Doctor Davis should have told me I really wanted the epidural when I assured him repeatedly I didn't. This was excruciating. It was worse than any injury I had ever suffered on the softball field. Worse than torn ligaments and pulled muscles and a bloody nose. I could have all of those at the same time and not even touch this pain.

Surely something was wrong. This couldn't be normal. Jack kissed my hand.

“Don't kiss me again. Not
ever
!” I snatched my hand away. But then the contractions returned, and I grabbed his hand back as quickly as I'd discarded it. I pushed and pushed until I couldn't push any more, then fell back against the bed.

“You're making progress, Carrigan,” Doctor Davis said. “Don't quit on me.”

“I can't push again.” I grabbed the front of Jack's shirt. My breath came in gasps. “They're coming too fast. I'm too tired. I can't take another one. Please don't make me push again. Make it go away.”

He looked so pained and pale I felt sorry for him. He kept telling me I never had to do this again, that he never wanted to
see me hurt this way again. That he'd get a vasectomy tomorrow. That was the best idea I'd heard in years. I even offered to perform it myself, only my version involved a rusty hatchet and some rubbing alcohol.

“It won't be long now, baby, I promise. Just try again, okay? Just a few more times—”

“Go to hell.” I flung his hand away and turned to Laine, who was on my other side. “I know you have drugs in your purse,” I said. “I know what they are. Give me something, anything, please!”

Laine looked dumbfounded. “Carri, I can't give you cancer drugs!”

Great. Here I was, stuck with Susie Sunshine. All she was missing were pompoms and a short skirt.

“Useless . . . Get out of my sight.” I turned back to Jack. At least it gave me some small amount of satisfaction to see the pained look on his face. I wanted him to suffer. He had killed me!

“Carrigan,” Doctor Davis said, “if you will give me one more hard push, I promise you I'll hand you a baby.”

My eyes pled with Jack. “Please, just leave it in there. I can't,” I said. “Too tired, I can't do it again.”

“Look at me, baby,” Jack said, wiping my face with his hands and kissing me. “You are the bravest, most beautiful girl I have ever known, and I love you so much. Please, just one more time and you can stop. I promise. Just one more time.”

I looked into his eyes, so full of love and concern. He was
so good to me. Even when I didn't deserve it, he was good to me. But I still wanted to kill him.

“Once more and that's it.” I ground the words out through gritted teeth. “That's it, you hear me?”

I looked at the monitor. The last wave of contractions was almost here. I took a deep breath and prepared to push. If it didn't happen this time, I would just go ahead and die on this table. I was remarkably all right with that.

I shut my eyes tight, locked my jaws together, and pushed. I felt the scream through my clenched teeth, felt the release, and then relief came at last as I collapsed on the bed.

I had done it. I opened my eyes and saw tears roll down Jack's face. I heard Laine gasp in awe and heard Ella Rae hit the floor when she fainted. Then I heard my baby cry.

“It's a girl!” Doctor Davis said. “A very mad little girl with a whole lot of red hair!”

“Is she all right?”

“She is perfect,” Doctor Davis said. “Give me a couple of minutes and she's all yours.”

I was crying, Jack was crying, Laine was crying, and Ella Rae was being helped into a chair by two nurses. We watched as they cleaned the baby, weighed her, and wrapped her up tight in blankets. Doctor Davis brought her to me and put her in my arms. “Congratulations, Mama and Daddy,” he said. “She's an eight-pound beauty. You did good, Mama.”

All I could do was stare at her. Perfect, indeed. A perfect little beauty with pouty pink lips and a tuft of red hair. I knew as soon as I touched her that my life would never be the
same, and I didn't want it to be. This soft little helpless creature wiggling and squirming in my arms tugged at my heart in a way I had never felt before.

How could that happen in thirty seconds? Surely there was a word for this stronger than love. Holding her made me feel like I had come home after a very long trip that I hadn't really wanted to go on. I couldn't take my eyes off of her. I hadn't even known I wanted her, but her existence somehow soothed me. My life up until this very moment seemed like a series of hits and misses. Then someone had placed this gift in my arms that I didn't deserve, and now my life made complete sense. Just like that.

I'd heard the word
miracle
thrown around all my life. But tonight my infant girl changed my whole perspective on the world just by entering it. If that wasn't a miracle, I didn't know what was.

I held her up to Jack, and he carefully took her from my arms. I'd only seen Jack cry once in my life, when his grandfather died. Watching him hold our daughter for the first time was one of the sweetest moments of my life. Like me, he just stared at her.

Ella Rae finally hobbled over to us and rolled her eyes. “I am
so
embarrassed,” she said.

Laine and I both laughed, finally breaking up the tear fest.

“In the immortal words of Tommy Weeks,” Laine said, “it ain't a party till somebody hits the floor.”

“I just couldn't take all that grunting and pushing business,” Ella Rae said. “I'm glad that's over.”

“The show was tough on you, huh?” I made a face. “You should've been in my seat.”

“I was fine until that first . . . thing came out.”

“What thing?”

“I don't know what it was,” Ella Rae said disgustedly. “There was stuff coming out of you all night!”

I was horrified. “Tell me you didn't take pictures.”

“Take pictures?” she said. “I couldn't even look.”

“Thank God!” Ella Rae was the official photographer for the event, but I had told her repeatedly not to get anything that showed me in a less than flattering light. Meaning, don't snap pictures of my business.

“By the way, Carrigan,” Laine said, “you had some pretty harsh words for me tonight. I was only trying to help.”

“Seriously?” I said. “I expected you to start turning cartwheels any minute. You were like an NFL cheerleader. It was very annoying.”

“I actually thought at one point you were gonna take a swing at me.”

“Too much energy,” I said, “or I would've.”

“Look,” Laine whispered. She pointed at Jack and the baby by the window. He was holding her close to his face and whispering. She looked as if she were watching him and understanding every word. Ella Rae, thankfully, had the presence of mind to snap a picture of it. Jack just kept on whispering.

“I told you what kind of man Jack Whitfield was, didn't I?” Laine said softly.

I smiled and wiped at the tears. “Yes, you did,” I agreed. “You always did.”

“Okay, okay,” Ella Rae said, “that's enough of the
Little House on the Prairie
crap. Bring us the baby, Daddy!”

Jack walked over and handed her to Laine. “Hi, baby,” she said. I had to look away. I was intensely aware of this moment between my daughter and my best friend.

“Her name is . . .” I faltered. “Jack, tell them. I can't do it without blubbering.”

“Ladies, meet Ella Laine Whitfield,” Jack said.

Their jaws dropped. “Are you serious?” Ella Rae asked.

Laine pursed her lips together in an effort not to cry.

“We'll call her Elle,” I said.

“Hi, Baby Elle,” Laine said. “I'm your Aunt Lainie.” She kissed her face lightly. “You are such a pretty girl. I love you already. I have so much I want to tell you.” She paused and kissed her again. “So much to say and not so much time.”

That cut us all like a knife. I was physically exhausted from the birth, and I was emotionally and mentally exhausted by the explosion of feelings that flooded my heart and my mind. I was still in awe of the wonder of her birth just minutes ago. How she was just a promise, and suddenly she was real and breathing and mine.

Then I was crushed by the reminder of how fragile life is. When Laine told my child hello and good-bye in the same breath. This bubble we'd been living in was delicate and precious, but bubbles don't last forever.

“There are a lot of people outside waiting to meet you,
little girl,” one of the nurses said. “There must be thirty people out there.”

“Y'all better take her out there, Jack,” I said. “The family will be dying to see her.”

Laine gave the baby back to Jack, and he held her close to my face for a kiss. “Tell Mommy we'll be right back. We just gotta meet some people.”

I kissed her and adjusted the blanket around her little face. “Don't stay out there too long,” I said. “And don't let anybody hold her . . . She's . . . little, you know?”

Jack smiled. “Already turned Mama Bear?”

They slipped out the door to introduce my daughter to her family, to all the people who would love her and mold her and shape her into a woman one day. I could already imagine how loved she was going to be. Laine's heartbreaking and heartwarming words to my baby played over and over in my mind.
Not so much time
. I began to cry.

Doctor Davis stood by my bed and put his hand on my arm. “I know what you're thinking, but it's a happy time, Carrigan,” he said. “Don't look down the road right now, just look at today. She's a beautiful, healthy baby. Concentrate on what you have.”

“Thank you, for everything,” I said.

“You're welcome.” He patted my shoulder. “They will get you to a room shortly, and I'll be around in the morning to check on you.”

I closed my eyes and tried to follow his advice. He was right. Of course there was so much to be thankful for. And I was thankful.

Much later that night I woke up and realized I had managed to hold on to that thought. I opened my eyes to see Jack sitting by the window holding Elle and telling her what a big world there was outside. He told her there were ponies to ride and wagons to pull and puppies to love. And then he said the most beautiful thing of all: “Daddy waited a long time for you, little girl.” I drifted back to sleep happier and more at peace than I'd been in a very long time.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

We brought baby Elle home two days later to a house full of people. I was a nervous wreck. I wanted everybody in the house to provide me their full medical history including a report on the last time they sneezed. I didn't say that, of course, but I had a buffet of assorted hand sanitizers available for all the germ-laden people salivating to hold my baby. You would think they were a horde of strangers fresh from the CDC instead of Elle's grandparents and family.

This new, strange, and overpowering need to protect had taken me by complete surprise. Every time someone passed her to another pair of hands, I envisioned them as a petri dish swimming with the most horrible diseases ever known, including the plague and something that made your head explode. I'd seen that one on a horror film when I was fourteen.

As I watched my daddy fumble with Elle's pacifier, I wondered if he'd been working in his garden this morning, if he'd
used fertilizer, if he'd washed his hands afterward. Suddenly, Elle grew a third hand in my head. I took a deep breath.

“Hey,” Laine said, “come see.” She held her hand out to me.

I looked back at my daddy, who was now holding the pacifier by the bulb. I almost died. Luckily, Jack took it and said, “Here, let me try.” I had given Jack the “don't you dare put your nasty fingers on her binky” speech last night at the hospital. Jack had been thoroughly briefed on the importance of clean hands.

“I don't know if I should leave,” I said.

“Carrigan,” she said, “come on. We're only going to the kitchen. She'll be ten feet away. If there's an outbreak of chicken pox, we'll have time to save her. Now, come on. Follow me.”

Ella Rae was waiting in the kitchen and smiling at me when I walked in. She stepped away from the huge island and there sat a Hummingbird Cake under a glass dome. I squealed and threw my arms around Laine.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Laine laughed. “You are very welcome. I hope it's as good as you think it is.”

“Oh, it will be,” Ella Rae said. “She wouldn't let me cut it until you got here. I've been mad at her all day.”

“Ella Rae,” Laine said, “you didn't have a baby.”

“If that's the ticket, I better eat two pieces of this one.” Laine and I laughed.

“What are we waiting on, ladies?” I hurried to the cabinet to get a plate and grabbed a fork and knife on the way. I lifted the glass dome and closed my eyes. “Ahhhh . . .” I could smell
that cream cheese frosting and the toasted pecans sprinkled on top. I couldn't wait to taste it and cut a large slice. The first bite was everything I knew it would be. Pineapple, banana, the faint taste of cinnamon and something . . . something I just could never put my finger on. But today I wasn't going to try. Today I was just going to enjoy this cake. Period.