Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Cabarita Beach
Mima glanced down to see a puddle forming beneath Kate’s chair. “Are you contracting?”
“I’ve had this cramping feeling for a while now. Do you think that’s what it is?”
Mima shuffled over to Kate and took her hand. “How long has the cramping been going on?”
Kate bent over in pain, her eyes squeezed shut. She held her breath at first until Mima encouraged her to breathe. Then she burst out with, “It started yesterday, but I didn’t think it was a big deal. I’ve had those Braxton Hicks pains for weeks. It didn’t seem much different to that.”
“You’ve had contractions for twenty-four hours?” Mima didn’t want Kate to panic, but she was starting to feel the beginnings of it swirling in her own stomach.
Kate offered her a wan smile. “I guess so.”
“Okay, honey. We have to get you to the hospital.”
“Really? Can you call Alex first? He wants to drive me. He said so this morning when he was getting ready for work. He’s not supposed to be at school since it’s summer holidays, but he went in today to get ready for the new school year. He’s got my overnight bag in his truck.”
“Of course,” Mima replied. “I’ll call Alex. You just stay right here and relax. It’s your first baby, so I’m sure you have plenty of time. I’ll let the hospital know you’re coming as well. Can I get you anything?”
“Maybe a pillow for my back. I have this horrible aching pain…”
“Coming right up,” Mima replied. She shouted instructions to one of the waitresses, who ran to get Kate a pillow, while Mima hurried to the office to make phone calls.
Mima dialled Alex’s school, but no one answered.
The next time she called, it went to voicemail.
And the third time, a receptionist took a message and promised to pass it on to Alex, but there was no one else around, and she couldn’t be sure when she could get away to walk around the campus and locate him.
Mima did her best not to get frustrated with the young woman, but it really was irritating that she seemed so nonplussed by the whole situation.
After she hung up the phone, she listened for the dial tone and called the hospital to inform them that Kate would be on her way soon.
Then she called Reeda at home. Reeda declared that she’d been tasked with bringing the music for labour, so they couldn’t start without her.
After that, Mima found Bindi tidying up in the library at the inn and let her know what was going on.
Bindi promised to come as soon as she’d finished helping a guest find the book they wanted.
Mima chortled to herself as she traipsed back to Kate, who was now swaying on her hands and knees on the floor.
It was finally happening, they were having a baby.
“Oh, honey,” Mima said, pressing both hands to her own cheeks. “Everyone’s on their way. Look at you. Are you in pain?”
Kate nodded, her face scrunched up. Bindi burst into the room, her eyes wild. “Where is she?” She spotted Kate on the floor and hurried to embrace her. “Are you okay? Why are you on the floor?”
She helped Kate to her feet. Kate was breathing hard.
“I’m fine. It hurt, so I got down on the floor. I don’t know why. I can’t think straight. We should go. Is Alex close? He’s going to drive me.”
“Alex will be on his way shortly, but I don’t think we can wait for him, love.” Mima exchanged a worried look with Bindi, whose face had lost all its colour.
“No, we’ve got to get you to the hospital. Now,” Bindi added.
Mima took one hand while Bindi took the other, and they led Kate through the back door and onto the verandah, where she stopped for another contraction.
Kate groaned. “I don’t want to be here. I can’t do this. Let go of me—I’m leaving.” She threw Mima and Bindi off and staggered towards the stairs leading down to the garden.
Mima followed her. “Honey, stop! You can’t go anywhere.
You’re in transition. You’ve got to stay put.
The baby is coming.” She reached for Kate’s hand.
“It’s too late to go to the hospital now—if you get in that car, you’ll give birth on the side of the road.
Come over here. We’ll get you some towels.
You’re going to be okay.” Mima nodded to Bindi, who rushed inside.
Kate followed meekly, letting Mima pull her by the hand. “How do know I’m in transition?” She let out a loud cry, which devolved into a groan.
Mima rubbed a circular motion on Kate’s lower back. “Because you’re acting nutty and trying to escape.” She tutted softly. “It’s a classic sign. I was a midwife, remember? I’ve seen it a thousand times. And I know you’re going to be fine because I’m going to help you deliver this baby.”
Kate pressed her hands to the verandah railing, and leaned forward to breathe deeply. “Okay.” She didn’t say anything more, her eyes squeezed shut. She was focused and had retreated into herself. Mima recognised the look. The baby was coming.
Seagulls called in unison in the distance, followed by the keening of the hooded plovers that often camped out in the parking lot.
Someone had arrived at the inn and disturbed their day.
Mima often wondered why these plovers had the instinct to build their nests and then raise their very vulnerable young chicks running around a car park, but they returned every year without fail.
She’d grown fond of the little plover family and prayed each year that at least one of their babies would make it.
These were the thoughts that flitted through her head as she helped Kate get comfortable on a cushioning of towels.
Just then, Reeda burst through the back door, frantically waving a discman with headphones about. “I have the music!”
“There you are, sweetheart. I need your help over here.”
Reeda froze, swallowing. “What’s going on? Why are you sitting on the verandah?”
“We’re about to have a baby,” Mima said, pressing one finger to her lips in the universal sign to be quiet.
Reeda understood, placed the discman on a nearby chair, and squatted beside Kate.
“I’m here, Katie. It’s all going to be fine.”
Kate didn’t respond. Her eyes were still shut as she rocked back and forth. Reeda took Kate’s hand.
“Is she okay?”
Mima nodded. “She’s focusing on what she needs to do. And we’re here to support her.”
Bindi returned with a small blanket. “I thought this might do to wrap the baby in. And I called for an ambulance. I tried the school again, and they said Alex had already left. So, that’s good news.”
“I’m glad to hear it. Now, Reeda, will you please go behind Kate to cradle her and hold her up in a seated position? Bindi, you sit beside her and encourage her. I’m going to catch the baby.”
Ten minutes later, with one final push and a grunt, the baby was born.
He was a good-sized little boy, pale at first, but soon pink with the life of his first breath.
Kate reached for him with a cry of delight and held him to her chest. Reeda helped Kate unbutton her dress, and within moments, the boy was feeding.
Everything had gone well with the delivery, and Mima was glad to see that the baby looked healthy and strong.
She didn’t have sterile equipment like she’d used when she worked as a nurse decades earlier, so she didn’t do more than watch with a joyful countenance and help cover the baby with the blanket.
All of the women exchanged a look, beaming with happiness.
“Congratulations, Katie!” Reeda said, with tears in her eyes. “You were amazing.”
“That was incredible,” Bindi added with a sob. “So beautiful.” She leaned over to kiss Kate on the cheek.
Kate’s voice wobbled as she spoke. “I can’t believe it. He’s finally here. Isn’t he perfect?”
They all agreed that he was as perfect as a baby could be.
Mima thought she might burst with the pure joy of the moment.
She couldn’t sit on the floor any longer, so she lumbered to her feet and found a chair, grunting with the effort since she’d lost feeling in her feet about ten minutes earlier.
But it’d been worth it. Kate was well, the baby was healthy, and all was right in the world.
Alex arrived a minute later and instantly became a doting father.
Bindi retrieved a camera from the office and took photographs by the dozen.
Reeda stood back to watch, letting Alex and Kate have their moment together.
Before long, an ambulance pulled up beside the inn, and Reeda hurried to meet the paramedics to show them where to go.
Within minutes, Kate had left in the back of the ambulance with Alex and her new baby.
Reeda and Bindi followed behind in the Land Rover.
They’d offered to drive Mima, but she said she’d wait for Jack, and they would go together.
Then she found herself alone in the quiet, her adrenaline quickly fading.
She cleaned up the towels and carried them to the laundry.
Then she put away the discman and tidied the verandah, using a bucket of water to wash it clean as best she could.
She returned inside to find that the staff had mopped the dining area, cleaned up after lunch and left.
The entire inn was peaceful and still. No guests in the downstairs area, no one in the kitchen.
It was as if everyone had simply vanished, and she was grateful for the quiet—she needed a few minutes to herself to decompress after everything that’d taken place.
It’d been a long time since she’d delivered a baby, and it had brought back so many memories.
Some happy, others painful, all dredged up within her a sense of nostalgia for a past she’d never revisit and loved ones she’d never see again.
A ball of emotion was lodged in her chest that made her want to cry, but she didn’t have time for that.
She had to get to the hospital to be with her adopted family.
In the office, she made a phone call to Jack’s cottage to let him know what was going on.
He said he’d pick her up just as soon as he finished getting dressed.
He’d been fishing and couldn’t show up to the hospital smelling of fish guts.
She quite agreed with him on that. Besides, there was no rush now. The hard part was over.
As she sat there in Kate’s desk chair, she looked around the office space, marvelling at how much things had changed over the past year.
Yet this room looked almost exactly the same as it had for decades—the walls were newly painted, but the framed photographs that hung on them had been there for as long as Mima could recall.
An image of Edie, Paul and little Keith when they’d first arrived at the empty block of land, then another of them in front of the freshly constructed inn.
Still more of Keith learning to ride, and then him and Mary with their three girls on the beach, salty hair dripping down the sides of their faces.
Those were happy days, before the car accident that took Keith and Mary away from them all.
When the phone rang, the jangle made Mima startle and set her heart racing.
“Heaven’s above!” She pressed a hand to her jittering heart as she picked up the receiver to answer it. “Hello, Waratah Inn. Mima speaking.”
“Is this Jemima Everest?”
“Yes, it is,” she replied, a frown creasing her forehead.
The voice turned jovial. “I’m glad I found you. This is Susan from Find My Family on Channel Seven. I’m calling to find out if you’d be willing to come on the show to be reunited with a long-lost family member.”
Mima’s heart stood still. “What? Who? What are you talking about?”
“The son you gave up for adoption has contacted us forty-four years later, and he’d like to be reunited with you. Are you willing to come on the show to meet him?”
The receiver dropped from Mima’s hand to the desk with a thud. She stared at it as the heat drifted from her body, leaving her cold and shaking. Her son? Was this a prank call? How could it be true? Her son was dead, and no one else knew he’d ever existed.