17. Bonnie
BONNIE
On Thursday afternoon, the day after Cricket is born, I put my phone on the hospital tray and call my husband.
The staff say we can go home tomorrow if Cricket and I keep doing well.
They have given me feeding instructions I have read more than once.
Her first follow-up is Monday, with a feeding check the following Wednesday.
Cleo has gone downstairs to bring back something to eat.
She knows I am making this call. She offered to sit beside me, and I told her I wanted to do it myself.
Gage answers so quickly I wonder whether he has been holding the phone.
“Bonnie?”
“She’s here.”
He says nothing. I can hear a horse moving somewhere near him.
“Our daughter. She was born yesterday. Wednesday, July twenty-ninth.”
“Are you both all right?”
“Yes. We’re still at the hospital. I’m sore and tired, but we’re all right.”
The horse noise stops. A door closes.
“Yesterday,” he says.
“Yes.”
I hear him sit down. I know the sound of that office chair, the loose fitting he never fixes.
“You had her yesterday.”
“I did.”
“You went through it and I didn’t even know. Bonnie, I?—”
He stops it himself. I hear him swallow whatever came next. The office chair creaks under him.
Cricket moves in the bassinet. I keep watching her while he breathes on the other end of the call.
“Was somebody with you?”
“Cleo.”
“The whole time?”
“Yes. She was wonderful.”
He asks about the birth. I tell him it took most of the day, that the staff helped me, that Cricket cried before I could finish saying hello. I do not give him the whole day. I cannot bear to retell it while I am still learning how to get out of a chair without wincing.
“What does she look like?”
“She’s got dark hair. Not much. She keeps putting one hand beside her face.”
He makes a sound I have never heard from him. I look down at my lap because listening feels too private, though I am his wife and this is our child.
“I’m calling her Cricket,” I say.
“Cricket.”
“I started before she was born. It stayed.”
He repeats it more softly. I remember the names we tried in bed, laughing at the ones that sounded wrong with Redfern. None of that prepared me for telling him who she is through a phone.
“Can I see her?” he asks.
“I want you to meet her. I need to work out a day.”
“Today. I can leave now.”
“Gage, I’m not asking you to come today.”
“I can get to Pueblo tonight.”
I believe him. I can picture him reaching for the keys, relieved to have something he can do.
“I need a few days at home first.”
He starts to speak, then stops. I wait, holding the edge of the hospital blanket so tightly that the seam hurts my finger.
“You knew where I was,” I say. “This wasn’t because you couldn’t find me.”
“No.”
“I didn’t want you at the birth,” I say. “I needed to get through it with the person I chose.”
“I would have stayed with you.”
“I needed to be able to say I was frightened. Or that something hurt. I couldn’t spend the birth wondering whether you thought I was being difficult, or whether you’d tell Tawny what I said.”
He starts to answer, and I grip the blanket.
“I know you said the calls had stopped. I still didn’t feel safe telling you those things.”
He cries then, quietly enough that I almost mistake it for a bad connection. Hearing him hurts. I keep my eyes on Cricket and let him cry.
Cricket begins to fuss. My breasts ache at the sound, and I lift her, getting her settled before I continue.
“Next Wednesday would work,” I say. “You can stay in town. Come in the afternoon, after her appointment.”
“I’ll be there.”
“I’ll send the address.”
“Bonnie—”
I wait.
“Thank you for calling me.”
I cannot answer that without crying. I ask if he wants a photograph, and he says yes so fast that I have to bite the inside of my cheek.
I send one Cleo took later yesterday, when Cricket had opened her eyes.
It shows my daughter against the yellow shirt from my hospital bag, one cheek flattened against me.
I hear the message reach him.
“Oh,” he says.
I look at the baby in my arms. Her mouth has opened in the small, determined way I am beginning to recognize. I tell him I need to feed her and that I will send directions later.
“All right.”
“Gage?”
“I’m here.”
“Meeting her doesn’t mean I’m coming home.”
There is a pause. “I know. I still want to meet her.”
After we hang up, I sit with Cricket and try to get her latched comfortably. It takes a few attempts. When she settles, I cry without moving her.
I am relieved he knows. I am afraid of seeing him. I want him to walk through the door and understand everything I have already told him, so I will not have to put our daughter down and explain it again.
I will be home by the time he comes, with a few days to learn what she needs before I open that door.
Cleo taps on the hospital room door with a plate in her hand. I tell her to come in.
“How did it go?”
“He’s coming Wednesday.”
She sets the plate where I can reach it. “I’ll move my afternoon lesson on Wednesday.”
“You don’t have to supervise us.”
“I was going to make lunch.”
She sits in the chair beside my bed and asks if, when he comes to the cottage, I want her beside me or at her house. I tell her I want her nearby. She nods and passes me a fork.
The food is already cut into pieces I can eat with one hand. I take a bite while Cricket feeds. When my phone lights up, I wait until I have swallowed before looking.
She’s beautiful. I’ve found a room in town. Wednesday, after the appointment.