Chapter Twelve
February marked its last days with a tornado out in West Texas. The sirens blew at midnight and woke Monica and Fiona both up. They grabbed robes and a couple of blankets and headed to the cellar in the backyard.
“Hurry!” Monica yelled above the roaring wind as she opened the cellar door.
“Two things you never do to a pregnant woman during her last week. Number one is tell her to hurry, and number two is to ask if she’s hungry. She can never hurry, and she is always hungry,” Fiona said as she started down the steps into the shelter.
“Hush!” Monica barked as she closed the door. “And don’t you dare go into labor until this storm has passed.”
“Not to worry. Baby girl isn’t due until next week. Look.” Fiona held up her telephone. “It’s five after midnight. March is coming in like a lion, which means by the end of the month, it will be tame as a baby lamb. Huh-oh!”
Monica had been in a storm shelter as a child and had firsthand knowledge that a tornado could sound like a freight train. She didn’t want to scare Fiona, but that was exactly what she heard for a good ten minutes. Then everything went as quiet as a church mouse during a sermon.
“Does that mean we can leave now?” Fiona sounded desperate.
“Are you afraid of small underground quarters, or do you have to pee again?” Monica asked.
“No, but I don’t want you to have to deliver this baby. My water just broke, and what I thought was another round of Braxton-Hicks seems to be real contractions. We shouldn’t be driving in this weather, but …”
Monica threw the door open to find stars in the sky and black swirling clouds moving off to the southwest. “But nothing. Let’s get to the house, throw on something other than baggy sleep shirts, and get moving. I’ll call Mama on the way.”
“You’ll stay with me, won’t you?” Fiona asked as she waddled up the steps, a touch of fear in her tone.
Monica took her by the arm and helped her maneuver the stairs. “Of course. I’m your birthing partner and you are mine.”
Within fifteen minutes, they were in Monica’s SUV and headed out of town. Monica saw a pile of rubble where her library used to be, but she couldn’t think about that when Fiona was holding her stomach and groaning.
“Cross your legs. Don’t you dare have that baby in this vehicle. I might do something wrong, and the family would never forgive me.”
“Then drive faster because I really want to push,” Fiona said between clenched teeth. “I saw the library is gone. Is that one of your signs that we should get serious about the job in Hatch?”
“Yes, it could be one of my signs, but right now we have to concentrate on the baby that’s coming tonight. But you can’t be at ten already,” Monica said.
“I was having pains before supper, but I figured they were those damn Braxton things again, so I didn’t say anything,” she groaned.
“That means you’ve been in labor for hours. Hold on just a little longer. We’re less than a minute from the hospital.”
Fiona began to pant like she and Monica had been taught in the birthing classes. “Stop this car and let me push this baby out. It hurts too bad to wait.”
Monica left a trail of tire marks when she braked at the emergency room door. A couple of nurses ran out, put Fiona in a wheelchair, and took her right into one of the rooms with Monica right beside her.
“It’s coming right now,” she yelled.
“Honey, it will be hours. Just get on this bed and let us check you,” an elderly nurse said in a soothing voice.
“I’m telling you, this baby is coming right now,” Fiona screamed.
Monica helped her onto the narrow bed and held her hand while the nurse and an attendant stripped off Fiona’s sweatpants.
“Good Lord!” the nurse squealed. “Get a doctor in here. I don’t even care which one, just get one.”
Another nurse ran out of the room and came back in less than a minute with a young female intern. “This is the only one available,” she said.
The intern barely had time to glove up before Fiona gave a hard push and the baby was there screaming at the top of her little lungs. They wrapped her in a blanket and handed her to Fiona, who immediately began to cry.
“Look at her, Monica. She’s perfect, and she has dark hair like you,” she said with tears dripping onto her sweatshirt.
Sweet Jesus, Monica thought. She had seen the birth up close and personal, and soon it would be her turn to go through that very same experience when her time came to give birth.
She wished that Spencer could be there to hold her hand, feed her ice chips, and be the first one to see their child.
But like the old adage said: If wishes were candy and nuts, everyone would have a Merry Christmas.
“Eight pounds on the dot, and twenty-one inches long,” The intern wrapped a name tag around the baby’s wrist and then one around Fiona’s. “The pediatrician will be in soon to check her out, but to me she looks just fine. We’re going to move you to a private room.”
“We did it.” Fiona grabbed Monica’s arm. “Your turn is next.”
Monica bent down and kissed her sister on the forehead. “You were so brave. I just hope when my baby comes that the sun is shining and there’s not the aftermath of a tornado to drive through in the early-morning darkness. Have you decided on a name?”
“Does she look like an Emma to you?” Fiona asked.
“I don’t think so, but she is your daughter, and you can name her anything you want, except Martine Garcia after our grandmother. We already have her name.”
“How about Stormy?”
“That would sure be appropriate,” Monica agreed. “How about Stormy Lin, spelled L-I-N, like the first three letters of Mama’s name.”
“I like it,” Fiona said. “I’m tired, sister. This birthing business wears a person out, but don’t leave me. At least stay until Mama arrives.”
“I wouldn’t dream of leaving. Not until they say I can take you and our little Stormy home with us. She is so pretty. I can’t take my eyes off her.”
“She looks like you with all her dark hair,” Fiona said. “Now you’ll have a boy that has blond hair like me. I think the little turd wouldn’t show us their equipment during the ultrasound so you’d get to be surprised.”
She crossed her fingers and held them up. “I don’t care what sex the baby is. I just want to see some of Spencer in him or her.”
Her cell phone rang, and her mother’s picture popped up on the screen. “I’m twenty minutes out. Is Fiona all right? What has the doctor said?”
“That everything went smoothly. Baby Stormy Lin is here. I would show you a picture of her, but Fiona is shaking her head. She says she wants to see your reaction when you first see her,” Monica said.
“But Mama, we barely made it to the hospital in time. Her regular doctor didn’t even get here in time to deliver the baby. ”
“It sounds like Stormy is a perfect name for her, then. We’ll be there soon. Don’t look all the pretty off her before I get my chance.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it.” Monica laid a hand on her baby bump and wished with all her might that Spencer knew that he was having a child. He had said that he wanted children. He was getting a baby and didn’t even know it.
Spencer’s phone rang when he was on the way down the stairs to have a cup of tea with Polly that Sunday afternoon. When he saw Walt’s name pop up on the screen, he hurriedly accepted the call.
“Hello, Walt,” he said. “I could use some good news.”
“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Walt said when he called Spencer. “Which do you want first?”
“The good,” Spencer answered.
“We found Monica Smith. She was a librarian in Alvera, Texas until a couple of weeks ago. Small town located down south of El Paso. And now for the bad news. A tornado wiped out the library, and according to my man on the ground out there, she and her sister moved somewhere in south central New Mexico to live with their parents. At least we’ve narrowed down the search to one state.
With a little more searching, we might find her in a few days. ”
Spencer had been holding his breath and suddenly let it out in a long whoosh. “Keep looking, please.”
“Of course,” Walt said. “The woman who we sent to talk to the folks said that her sister had been living with her and doing volunteer work at the library until she had a baby. The little fellow was born the same night the tornado went through that little town and did some major damage. Sister’s name is Fiona for sure.
I’ll tell my lady on the ground to stay with it. ”
“Thank you,” Spencer said. “I really want to find her.”
“Then it’s full steam ahead,” Walt said. “I’ll call you when we find out more.”
“Thanks.” Spencer ended the call.
“No luck?” Polly asked.
He shook his head. “But she’s somewhere in New Mexico, and her name is really Monica Smith. Her sister is Fiona Smith.”
Polly set a cup of hot tea in front of him. “You mean that famous model?”
“Yes, and she’s just recently had a baby.”
“How about that? She kind of dropped off the social media pages about nine or ten months ago. I guess that’s the reason.
She never went by Smith, though. Her modeling name was Fiona Martine.
I only knew her last name was Smith because one of her fans mentioned it on Facebook.
Maybe that will give the investigator enough of a lead to find her.
Little towns thrive on gossip, so someone will be able to point them in the right direction.
I guess that absence really does make the heart grow fonder. ”
“I hope so in her case as well as mine,” he said.