A Summer in Sonoma (14 page)

“I can understand that. In case you didn't get the
message, I'm real tight with my mom and dad. They hung in there with me when I was in trouble a lot, when I tested every rule they came up with. Losing either one of them would hurt real hard.”

“Our histories plan our futures,” she said. “I think some of that explains how I could end up fighting for my life in the front seat of an SUV….”

He frowned. “How?”

“Walt, when you get down to it, I have no family. No real family.”

“You have your stepdad and siblings, even if they're halfs.”

“It's not the same. I never got close to Frank or the little kids, and now the oldest one has started college—to her I was just an occasional visitor since she was five. When I was a kid, it was me and my mom—I was her life and she was mine. Then it was my mom and Frank and the babies and she was
so
happy. Even I was happy with those babies to take care of. I think the message I got was that a fulfilled life is one where there's a spouse and family. Ever since I separated myself from my mom and the little kids, I've always thought what I wanted from life was exactly what she had—someone who made me that happy and gave me children. It's possible I was trying too hard to make every guy who asked me out into that. I have an image of what I want my life to be, but none of the details. No instructions. My mom—she wasn't hunting. She never went out that I remember. I was never left home alone or with a sitter. She met Frank at the copy machine in her office and the rest is history.”

“Things happen like that,” he said. “Without much warning.”

“Really?” She smiled. “Something like that happen with you?”

“Almost everything. I never planned that eighteen-month ride—I was pissed and took off—and it changed my life. That bike shop, my first job when I got back? It was a little job fixing bikes, but it grew from a little store into a successful store, then four stores… I thought we were doing a good job, but I didn't know it was that good. I never saw that coming. And I've been there from the beginning. If you'd asked me ten years ago if I thought things would work out like this, I wouldn't have believed it.” He laughed. “Ten years ago, I thought I might end up in jail or something….”

“You love your work, don't you?” she asked, smiling.

“I do. Things just keep getting better there. And in my personal life, too—I mean, look at you in those shorts, Cassie. How could I ever complain? And we didn't exactly meet through a dating service.” He grinned at her.

“You've been real nice to me, Walt,” Cassie said. “You've turned into a real good friend.”

“Thanks, Cassie. I like hearing that. Wanna put your jeans back on and ride up the coast for a while?”

“I do. I like your silly bike.”

“There's a fish house in Bodega Bay—not fancy, but some of the best fresh fish you can imagine.”

“Do they all know you there?” she asked, shimmying into her jeans.

“Of course. I've been there a lot.”

“Of course,” she laughed.

 

Billy came home from the shop at ten-thirty after eight hours. He was all dusty from the saw, dirty from wood, grainy from marble and granite. The house was dimmed. There was a light left on in the kitchen over the stove and he assumed Julie was in bed, asleep. He was exhausted; he'd worked every day for the past six days, three of them twenty-four-hour shifts. Now he was facing four days off from F.D. in a row, but he'd spend all of them at the shop. He reached into the fridge for a cold cola, after which he'd shower off the grime and pass out.

“Billy?”

He turned toward the living room. “Jules? You still up?”

“Billy…” she said weakly. “I have a problem. I'm losing the baby….”

He rushed to the sofa and found her there, lying down, an ice pack on her lower abdomen. He knelt beside her and brushed the hair back from her brow. “What's going on?” he asked.

“I went to see Beth to confirm what we knew. I asked her to take out the IUD. She told me this could happen. It's happening. I'm bleeding a lot. I have to do something….”

“Did you call her? Ask her what to do?”

She nodded. “I have to go in now. To the hospital. We'll have to call Cassie or my mom to come over for the kids. I wanted to wait for you. I needed you with me.”

“Jesus, what if I'd been late!” He jumped up and headed for the phone. “You should've called me! I could've come right away.” Into the phone, he said, “Cass? We got a problem. Can you come over for the kids? I have to take Julie to the hospital. She might be miscarrying.” A pause. “Yeah, that's what I said. I guess she didn't tell anyone—she was upset. We can't talk about it now. I need you to come. Thanks.”

By the time Cassie arrived, Billy had Julie in the passenger seat of the running car. Cassie ran straight to Julie's window. “Miscarriage?” she whispered, an alarmed look on her face. “You didn't say anything about being pregnant.”

“I couldn't,” Julie said in a voice barely audible.

Billy leaned forward. “We'll talk about it later, Cass,” he said. Then before she could move fully away, he had the car in reverse, backing out of the drive. To Julie he said, “How bad is the bleeding?”

“Seems bad,” she said. “Scary bad. But I don't know—I've never been through this before.”

“What did Beth say?” he asked.

“She said to come in—”

“No. At your appointment. Why'd she take out the IUD?”

“I asked her to.”

“Is that what they normally do?”

She was quiet a moment, then she said, “No. But I wanted it out of me. She said it could go either way—it could affect the pregnancy, cause a miscarriage. Or maybe nothing would happen.”

“Why didn't you just leave it alone?” he asked.

“Because it was going to be a problem, either way. Same odds—maybe nothing would happen, maybe it would have to come out later with some risks, maybe it would be a high-risk pregnancy. If there were going to be problems, I wanted it over with. Early. Before we got used to the idea. Before the deductible got too high.”

He ground his teeth. “You made it pretty clear you weren't going to get used to the idea…”

“Billy…not now…”

“Shouldn't we have talked about it?” he asked. “Made the decision together? Fuck the deductible, I could get more hours in—”

“We couldn't talk about it!” she snapped. “You wouldn't listen! And when were we going to talk, Billy? You work all the time. You're hardly around. And when you are around and I try to talk to you, you just keep saying everything will be all right! That we have something special that doesn't include money! And that's for goddamn sure!”

“Would you prefer it if I got all freaked out all the time, like you?” he said, his voice rising to match hers. “Someone's gotta stay positive—what the hell are the choices?”

“One choice would be looking hard for a better-paying job! I didn't have these kids alone!”

“The job's going to get better-paying! I get a raise every year! We're up for a new contract and—”

“And that could take two years! Jesus, Billy, we're not
making
it! Don't you get that?”

He drove in silence for a couple of minutes. Then in a voice quiet and controlled he asked, “If you had wanted this baby, what would you have done?”

She started to cry. Through hard tears she asked, “You think I didn't
want
it? You think it's that simple? I'm
afraid
to have it! Do you know what it's like to have my mom stuff a twenty-dollar bill in my purse every time I see her? Having her pay for soccer uniforms and summer programs? To go over to her house and rummage through her refrigerator and cupboards for enough food to get us to another payday? To have to tell the kids no to McDonald's every time they ask?” She looked over at his beautiful profile. “I eat oatmeal for supper, or twenty-cent mac and cheese, to save the meat for you, so you have the strength to work seven days a week. Billy…” she said, putting her hands over her face to cry into them. “Billy, I've missed mortgage payments…I'm afraid of losing the house. There isn't enough… We're in such trouble.”

“Okay,” he said, reaching a hand over to rub her thigh. “Okay, stop. It's going to be all right….”

“It's not going to be all
right,
” she sobbed, shaking her head, weeping into her hands. “This isn't a recent problem! It's been like this from the beginning! I keep telling you, and you act like I'm just overreacting! There isn't enough money to pay the bills much less pay the bills and buy food! Every month someone goes unpaid so we can eat!” she wailed. Then, more softly, she said, “I gave it up, let it go, and it was the hardest thing I've ever done. And now God's going to punish me by
making me bleed to death! And maybe that's not…such a bad thing.”

“Jules! Stop it! You're not going to bleed to death, and I'm not going to lose you! You know I can't make it without you! Baby, calm down.” He pulled his cell phone off his belt. “What's Beth's number?”

“I don't know. I already called her. I didn't even bring a purse….”

Billy had other resources, given his paramedic job. He called the hospital and had her paged, an emergency. When she came to the phone, he said, “I'm bringing Jules—we're almost there. Listen, she's bleeding real bad, and she's scared to death and panicked. Meet us in E.R. in five minutes. Yeah, yeah, thanks.”

He reached across to Julie, put a hand on her shoulder and said, “I need you to calm down,” he said sternly. “We're going to make this right. I'm going to make this right—I'll figure something out. I love you, Julie. Now, come on—don't make this worse with hysteria. I need you…”

When he pulled into the E.R. loading zone, he told her to sit tight. He went around to the passenger door, lifted her into his arms and carried her inside. She laid her head against his dusty, gritty chest and wept.

Beth was right inside the door, wearing scrubs. She told him to follow and took Julie straight to an exam room. “She shouldn't be hemorrhaging,” she said softly. “Let me have a look before we get all worked up.”

Billy laid her gently on the exam table and a nurse was already there, helping Beth to get Julie out of her
clothes. Billy stood lamely watching. Over her shoulder Beth said, “Don't you have a car to move or something?”

“Who cares?” he shot back.

“By the time you get that done, I'll know where we are. Go. Do something. Give me ten minutes.”

“Don't you let anything happen to her,” he said, his voice a mixture of menace and desperation.

“Go,” Beth said, helping to get Julie set up for an exam, not looking at him. “Ten minutes.”

All the way to the parking lot and back, he fought panic and grief. Why's she doing that—eating mac and cheese and cereal like that? I eat good at the firehouse— I get more meat than I need in a week! I had no idea it was that bad. Why's she taking it all on herself? Why'm I letting her take it all on? Jesus, I'm losing my family. I don't even know what's going on with my own wife. Work…I thought if I just kept working…

When he got back to the exam room, Beth was just emerging, drying her hands on a towel. She had a slight smile on her lips. “It's not as bad as she feared. There can be a lot of blood, but she's not hemorrhaging….”

“She lost the baby?”

“Yes. I'm so sorry, Billy. It just happened—spontaneous—and the bleeding slowed right down. Listen, you understand, there was a chance of that, anyway, no matter what she decided to do….”

Not my wife,
he thought.
She has the iron uterus; she'd have carried the baby, but lost her mind.
But he looked at the floor and nodded.

“I'm going to do a D and C, make sure she's all
cleaned up and intact. Shouldn't take long. We'll watch her for a little while and then she can go home if you can arrange someone to keep the kids so she can rest tomorrow. There's a little recovery time involved.”

“I'll handle it,” he said.

She put a hand on his arm. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, lifting his head. “Yeah. I'll stay till she's done, till she wakes up, maybe till morning, to take her home. Cassie's at the house.”

 

Hard work was not uncommon for Billy; it had been a way of life since he was a teenager. His father suffered a construction accident when Billy was fourteen, his older brother sixteen. He never recovered; he was laid up for a year, then a jobless cripple for the rest of his life, which was short. There had been some disability insurance for a while, then unemployment and finally county subsistence, but it was a drop in the bucket. The boys went to work immediately, pitching in with what pittance they could contribute, the greatest contribution being that they covered their own expenses. His brother, Dan, went into construction at eighteen; their dad died a couple of years later.

Now Dan, married with kids, lived and worked in San Jose; their widowed mother lived with his family and took care of their kids so Dan and his wife could both work. Maybe part of Billy's problem was that he was used to tightening his belt, used to working two jobs.

But even with all those jobs, all that scrimping, his high school years had been memorable, positive. He got
good grades, was able to play some ball and he'd had Julie from an early age. He didn't have a car, but his brother did and Billy had been able to borrow it sometimes. Julie had a car; she'd drive him to work or pick him up when Dan couldn't. They could go out on cheap dates. All they really needed to be happy was the opportunity to get together with friends, go to school events or park and make out. All things considered, it had been sweet. Except for the fact that his mom and dad had it rough, his family life hadn't been as bad as it could've been. Everyone held up.