Why Sarah Ran Away with the Veterinarian (19 page)

“But this one, Dear God,” I swear out loud, “even if it kills me, this one will see the light!”

“What's that? Mrs. Brighton?” the nurse asks. “Need something?” She walks over to my bed.

“Nothing,” I say. I try to read her name tag. Debbie something. “Nothing, Debbie,” I say, “not yet.”

This morning I knew I was close. I told Jack. He said it wasn't time, even double-checked his calendar. “False labor” he said in a voice uncomfortably close to Andrew's. As soon as he left for work, I drove straight to Dr. Fleming's office. He sent me to the hospital, but I came home first and called Donna. Her phone was busy. I usually drive whenever Donna and I go somewhere together but I couldn't by the time I reached her. She didn't ask me to. She spun her Honda in on two wheels, loaded me, then squealed out the driveway. She seem to enjoy the drama of it all.

The whole time she was talking. “Now Sarah, remember two things—breathe and relax. Breathe little short breaths like this—haa, haa, haa, haa, haa—during the pain.” She looked straight at me the whole time she panted.

“I get it!” I shouted, “Watch where you're going!”

She glanced at the highway for an instant then back to me. “And relax. Breathe during the pain and relax in between. That way you save your energy for pushing.”

“I thought you passed out after five minutes,” I said, not feeling up to my usual patience with Donna.

“That was Andrew. He passed out. I went under. That's another thing to remember. If the pain gets too bad, make them give you dope. It's not like you'll be an addict or anything. Just tell them you want dope, and fast. Here we are,” she said, turning into the parking lot somewhere between fourth and fifth gear. Donna stayed with me until I was admitted. She hurried out to make calls, then came back soon. That was about 11 this morning.

Jack didn't get here until 1 p.m. I assumed Donna had called him. As Jack would say, I “assumed wrong.” He came in shouting at Donna, calling her I'm not sure what all. I was having a contraction at the time. But when it was over, I made them both leave. I was tired of Donna's chatting and I didn't want Jack to see me this way. Besides, I knew he was dying to look up the survival rate of a seven-month-old fetus. And too, I hear you can say just about anything when you're under Demeral or some other pain killers. I didn't want to take any chances. The nurse told me not to feel bad about the shouting, that families can act really strange at births and deaths. She said she'd seen a lot worse.

Must be about 2 now. There's a clock. Hard to see lying flat on my back. Wish I had my wrist watch. Haven't worn it since I stopped wearing rings. Micheal said I freed my hands. He didn't even have a pocket watch. Said he could tell the hour by the sun, and minutes don't matter that much when you're outside. That's what I'll do—imagine I'm outside looking at pretty things like sunsets and opal clouds and mountains. At least until the pain comes back.

Since last September I felt the pull of the mountains, calling me to come hide in the forests, to lose myself in the slopes and peaks and valleys.

In the summer it's too warm, too hazy to actually see the mountain ridge from our back yard. But you can see green hills rising toward morning fog. And sometimes after a rain when a little cold front moves through, you can see the long blue waves of mountains rise up behind the green hills.

By late November and December, I can see them almost every morning. And in the evening, if the clouds are just right, the sun lights the western sky with fiery pink, and the earth reaches up to meet it with layers of evergreen and cobalt blue. Sometimes I cry. It's so beautiful. And it pulls me so. Jack says, “Good God, Sarah, cry over something ugly, not beautiful.” And I know such a sight should be calming but it sends my restlessness leaping out in flames. Like the morning I left with Michael. I've wondered if I would have gone in haze or fog too thick to see the mountains.

Whatever the pull, by last winter I was feeling it again so strong I could hear a voice calling me by name. I tried staying busy but the voice grew louder and louder. “Escape mechanism,” Andrew would say, or “prenatal nerves” or “the voice of your own subconscious.” Maybe so. I didn't tell Jack. But when he phoned out of the blue and asked me if I wanted to go to the mountains, I took it as the hand of Providence. Jack didn't actually say “mountains” but he did say “trip” and he let me do the choosing. Close enough.

It was spur of the moment, totally unlike Jack. Usually he has to research geographical climate, peak season, room rates, and exact distance before we do any traveling. But this time we just left, not even certain where we were going. We took our time—also uncharacteristic of Jack—and we drove back roads, stopped at lookouts and little mountain stores.

I kept searching for a country store, like Papa's, the one Mama and Aunt Kate grew up in. Mama had been on my mind since Aunt Kate's talk with me, not Mama as Mama but as Vivienne, a pretty girl longing for something she couldn't find at home.

Most of the stores were geared for tourists—rubber tomahawks, jointed plastic snakes, Taiwan baskets, ceramic bears. But we ran across one store, not as big as Papa's must've been, but the same atmosphere as Aunt Kate described. The Frasers owned it, Annie and Clem. They were what Byron and Shelley and Keats would have called “noble” in their simplicity and closeness to the earth.

Annie had a rhythmical quality about her. Her voice was sweet and sad and joyful all at the same time. She told stories about babies and animals and kinfolk, more mythical than real. I grew dizzy on her voice. So dizzy I almost fainted. She had me lie down on a bed in the back room of the store: The headboard was beautiful, burled walnut that shone almost golden in the light of the window. I rubbed it with my open palm.

“It's alive,” Annie said. “When you fall asleep, the wood grain whirls all around you. But it moves back in place when you wake up.” I stared at the swirls, thought I saw movement.

“You come up here for answers—didn't ya?—where everything is alive, where everything seems right,” she said, touching her hand to my forehead. I nodded. “No fever. You just overwrought.” She lifted her hand and stared into my eyes. I closed them but I could still feel her stare. “I can read eyes,” she said. “Not just the seeing part but the lines around 'em. Can tell if you're lucky, how many babies you goin' have, if you got enemies, things like that. Even chilrun have lines, not so many but they have 'em.” Her voice drifted in and out like the tones of a dulcimer.

“You got restless eyes,” she said, “green like oak leaves in summer. Done caused you problems. You and ya lovin' ones.”

“The baby,” I said, not opening my eyes. “Tell me about the baby.”

She ran her fingers around the outside corners of my eyes. “You lost babies already, ain't ya?” I nodded. “This baby goin' be special—if it lives.”

“Boy or girl?” I asked.

“Hard to know the way ya carrin' so tight and all. Hope for a boy.”

“Why?”

“If it's a girl, I hate to tell ya, she'll break your heart. Her pa's too.”

“What if it's a boy?” I asked quickly.

“If it's a boy, he'll bring you and his pa together. You got problems?”

I didn't answer.

“Either way, this baby's special, you'll see it around the eyes.” She squeezed my wrist.

I fell asleep. A while later, Jack woke me and we left.

I didn't tell Jack what Annie had said. I wasn't even sure if she had actually said anything or I had dreamed it. But I thought about it all the next day as we wound through the Nantahala Forest. Jack had predicted ice, and he was right, as usual. Tree trunks and mountain laurel and sheets of granite all slick and shining with ice. Most of the time, he drove in second gear, a slow-motion, almost soundless ride through a land of silver. Annie's words seemed even more prophetic.

Wish she were here now. I can almost see her, feel her presence. “Annie?” I say out loud.

“I'm Debbie,” the nurse says, her hand on my wrist. “You're doing just fine, Mrs. Brighton. But don't you want somebody from your family with you? Mr. Brighton or your sister? We'll make them behave,” she adds with a smile.

“No,” I say. “Not yet.” I feel a new contraction. Rising white hot from the small of my back. Pressing upward straight through me. It's worse … getting worse … worse. How did Donna say to breathe? I grip the bed railing. Try to relax, I tell myself, it'll pass … relax … my brain whispers, relax … It passes. I catch my breath, wish I were somewhere else. For some reason I think about my family all seated around the Sunday dinner table.

The Sunday after our mountain trip, we had dinner at Donna's.

“Sarah, I want to hear all about your trip,” Donna said right after the blessing. “Daddy, have some casserole and pass it on. It's Chinese. Real easy. You just put in some of those Chinese vegetables, they come in a can. And a can of chicken.” She glanced at Andrew. “Only, I had to use tuna. Sent Andrew to the Dixie store, you know I always go, but I was doing Daddy's laundry.” We both looked at Daddy. He was sniffing the casserole. He dipped out a spoonful and passed the dish to me.

“Andrew got tuna by accident.” She looked back at Andrew. We all did. “Tell them why, honey.” He didn't speak. “Because,” she said stroking him on the arm like a child, “he saw the ‘Chicken' part of ‘Chicken of the Sea' and bought it! He didn't realize they were talking about fish!” Everybody laughed. Except Andrew. He made a weak attempt. “Then he forgot the water chestnuts. So I just used pecans. You know you can substitute. I forgot to write down chow mein noodles—that wasn't Andrew's fault—but I had a can of tater sticks on hand. They're just as crunchy.” She passed the peas to Andrew. “Now tell me about your trip.”

“Ice,” Jack said. “All the way from Nantahala to this side of Brevard.” He looked at me and smiled. “But we met an interesting couple, didn't we?” He pressed his knee against mine.

“They had a country store,” I said, spooning a little casserole, as little as I thought I could get by with. “Aunt Kate, it must have been like Papa's—oiled wood floors, rows of huge glass jars, tools—nothing touristy.” I passed the Chinese tuna to Jack.

“And a wood stove,” Jack added. He looked at the casserole, then at Donna. She was zeroed in on his spooning hand. He dipped out a serving no larger than mine and passed the dish quickly to Kate. She waved it by and sent it to Andrew. Andrew graciously received it and made two grandiose scoops. Donna beamed. Daddy rolled his eyes.

“The Frasers,” Jack said. “Annie and Clem Fraser, the mountain couple. They both spoke this thick mountain dialect. Andrew, you would have enjoyed that.” Andrew was scraping tater sticks off his casserole. He looked guilty. “Mr. Fraser said he farmed a little too. His wife delivered babies.”

“And she could read the lines around your eyes,” I added.

“Now that's interesting,” Donna said. “Don't skimp on the casserole. Law, I forgot the Jello salad. It's orange with carrots and pineapple. It's real pretty. I did it in a mold like Mama used to.” Donna headed for the kitchen.

“Sure she didn't read palms?” Andrew said, reaching for a roll.

“She read eyes, lines around the eyes.”

Andrew split the roll in two and pushed the casserole toward Charlotte. Charlotte pushed it toward Scarlet. “Guess she surmises the more lines, the older you are or the more ultraviolent rays you've been exposed to. A wrinkle-reader of sorts.” He seemed pleased with himself. He loaded a blob of Chinese tuna minus the tater sticks onto his fork, smiled, and popped it into his mouth like he'd made a point. He chewed a few times then quit smiling.

“She didn't talk about age or sun,” I said, feeling slightly annoyed. “She said even children have lines.” Charlotte and Scarlet looked at each other. “She can tell how many children you've had, if you're lucky, if you have any enemies, things like that.”

Donna came back to the table carrying a platter of Jello chunks. She set it in front of the twins. “Couldn't get it out of the mold in one piece,” she said. “It'll taste just as good.” Scarlet rolled a chunk onto her plate and pushed the platter toward Charlotte. Charlotte did the same.

“Did she do you, Sarah?” Donna asked. She looked at the casserole, three-quarters full. “Maybe it needs to set. Some dishes taste better the day after, lets their flavors mingle. Like Mama's vegetable soup.” We all nodded. “We'll have it tomorrow.” My side of the table nodded again. Andrew and the twins looked desperate.

“Did she do you?” Donna repeated, sliding her chair closer to the table.

“Do what?”

“Tell your fortune. I heard you saying something about reading eyes.”

I looked at Jack. He was staring at me. “Not really,” I said, “but she did seem to notice things.”

“The man told me,” Jack added quickly, “that neighbors came to his wife to find out when to plant.”

Daddy perked up. “I used to know a man who could do that,” he said. “Emmet, Emmet … I forget his last name. I was a little boy at the time. He could read the moon—the rings around it, its color, things like that. My own daddy wouldn't plant 'less Emmet gave him the go-ahead.”

“Did he charge anything?” Andrew asked, lifting his eyebrows.

“Not that I recall,” Daddy said, staring in the distance. “Course, we probably kept him in vegetables.”

“Every culture,” Andrew said, slipping into his lecture voice, “has its own brand of mystics and psychics, depending on what's important to them: winning battles, proliferating, farming. Most are fakes and most have a price.”

“Like fortune cookies!” Donna said. “That reminds me—Wilene down at Holly's Hair and Then Some said that new Chinese restaurant out on the bypass is okay but they use too much MG.”