35. Lucy
35
LUCY
M y parents and I do a lot of talking on the long drive home.
Then we sing.
I had forgotten about that tradition.
We could be goofy, doing rounds of “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.”
Neither Matilda nor I can stay awake when Mom launches into her old lullabies.
I’ve made the right choice.
The ride is hard on me, and more than once, we pull into hospital parking lots when the belly pains feel like contractions. But when they settle down with water and rest, we move on.
I know my parents are serious about trying to mend things with me when they keep ordering veggie burgers on the route.
People can learn.
Could Court have?
We were too new, I remind myself. We don’t have to be a couple to raise a baby. But New York isn’t right for me, and it’s time to face that we will never be in the same place. Court’s family lives in Colorado, less than an hour from us, and I’m happy to let them be involved.
Maybe Court will visit them often, and Julian will know that side of his family.
It will be enough.
But despite all these pep talks, when we pull up to my childhood home, turn Matilda loose in the yard, and I finally climb into the narrow twin bed from my youth, I can’t stop crying.
I weep myself to sleep, wake up weeping, and fall asleep again.
Mom checks on me and, worried I would get dehydrated and have contractions again, brings me water, juice, grapes, and anything she thinks will replace the fluids that refuse to stop leaking from my eyes.
But on the third day home, I finally come out of it. I get up and head to Jasper’s room, where my parents have been working since we got back.
My parents sit on the floor, assembling a baby swing a lot like the one Court bought.
Dad looks up. “We got your old crib out of the attic. It wasn’t quite up to the new standards, but I fixed it by adding more rails.
I run my hand along the pinewood crib. Every other rail is newer and carefully smoothed and varnished. Inside is a pale-yellow set of sheets and matching blanket. Strapped to one end is a faded plastic piano with fat keys I vaguely remember.
“Was that mine?” I ask.
“It was!” Mom says. “I didn’t think it would work, but it does.” She pulls herself up from the floor. “You loved to kick it with your feet and make sounds. You would laugh and laugh.”
“There are pictures of that, aren’t there?”
She nods. “That’s probably why you remember it.”
I push on one of the keys. A single bright note comes out. It strikes a chord deep within me, a core memory lost in the decades.
“You’ve done a lot of work.”
Dad screws a metal bar onto the swing. “We decided to take off a few weeks, then your mom will go back to finish out her notice, and then I’ll go back once she’s home again. Once the baby room is done, I’ll get started building a small shed for Matilda and her baby.”
They’re rearranging their lives for me, creating space for us. It’s hard to trust that this is a good thing. The fear and resentment won’t go away that easily. But they’re trying.
Jasper’s old bed is pushed in the corner, covered in a new neutral green spread.
Mom waves a hand on it. “We decided to keep it for whoever is doing the night shift. We ordered a rocker that should be delivered tomorrow, too.”
“You didn’t have to do all this.”
Mom’s face gets serious, and seeing her expression makes my eyes prick with emotion. “I think we do. We didn’t see you for almost five years. We have to change. We have to fix this to deserve a place in your life. And Julian’s.”
I almost hug her, but I’m not quite ready to reach out yet. “Is Matilda okay?”
Dad looks up. “She’s living it up in the yard. I won’t have to mow again for a long while.”
Mom walks over to the window to look down. “She ate all my roses, but we’ll call it restitution.”
“Oh, no! You loved those.”
Mom shrugs. “I never tended them, anyway. Hired a man to come do it. She’s saving me money.”
I walk up beside her. Matilda stands in the shade on a milk crate Dad must have put out for her. She presides over the yard.
“She looks happy,” I say. It’s probably just as well we’re not next to each other all day right now. She’s still avoiding me. I’m hoping it wears off.
“She’s doting on your dad, that’s for sure,” Mom says, turning back to the room. “I’d be jealous, except she’s already knocked up by some other male.”
We all laugh at that, and I think, this is going to be okay.
“Did you milk her?” I ask.
“Your dad did,” Mom says. “Don’t forget, he was raised with goats.”
“I was!” Dad turns the swing upright and pushes the button. It moves smoothly back and forth.
“Look at that!” Mom says. “It’s perfect.”
“It makes a weird sound, doesn’t it?” I ask.
“I don’t think it’s the swing,” Dad says. He shuts it off.
The strange pitter-patter continues, and then I realize something’s crawling on my ankles.
I look down.
No, my ankles are wet.
It’s raining on my ankles.
Mom lets out a shriek. “Your water broke! Bradley, get the bag. We’ll call the neighbors to feed the goat. Lucy, let’s get you dried off and to the car. I’ll call Dr. Fresno and tell him you’re coming. I sure hoped we would make it to the appointment tomorrow so you could meet him, but here we are.”
I feel stunned, and the tears fall all over again.
The baby’s coming. Julian’s coming.
And Court isn’t here.
I left him.
I shouldn’t have left him.
“Where’s your phone, Mom?” I ask.
“In my bag. We’ll call Dr. Fresno’s office from the car.”
“I want to tell Court.” I’ll have to look up his office number. I never memorized his personal number, and I left it in my old phone.
“We’ll let him know,” Mom says. “Let’s get to the car.”
By the time I change and load up, the first contraction has hit. Fear overwhelms me. This is happening. I’m having a baby.
I pant my way to the hospital. “Call Court,” I tell Mom.
“Tell me his number,” she says. “We’ll get him told.”
But I still don’t know it.
“Pickles,” I try to say.
“You want pickles?” Mom asks.
“No…” I grip the door handle, unable to say anything more as I ride out the pain.
“I ate so many pickles when I was pregnant with you,” Mom says. “You can’t eat until they assess you. But we’ll get you some as soon as we can.”
I want to correct her, to tell her no, he works at Pickle Media.
But every pain grips me with an unnatural terror. It’s hard. And it hurts.
We arrive at the hospital, and Dad rushes around to my door to help me out.
I’m loaded into a wheelchair and taken to a room. It all happens quickly: the changing, the exams, the discussions, the plan. They call my original doctor, then the one in Warwick, then decide they don’t need the records, really, as I’m progressing.
And then they give me an epidural, and all is well.
I’ll just sleep right through this childbirth…