HAPPILY EVER BEFORE (21 page)

“A situation?
Losing your dry cleaning is a situation. This is a God damn emergency!” Grace whimpered. 

“She says you have to keep pushing to get it out.”

Grace could no longer hold back her tears. “Are they trying to prepare for me for the baby? If having a baby is worse than this, just kill me!”

Before George or Clair could answer her, Jack, holding a bouquet of flowers, opened the door. All he saw was Grace on the floor in the fetal position. Well, the fetal position for a woman who was eight months pregnant and Clair and George crouched down beside her. He panicked and ran over to her.

“What are her vitals? What happened?” He started taking her vitals.

Grace did not want him to see her like this.
“Oh my God, no!
You have to leave! Why are you here? Get him out of here.
NOW
!”
A sobbing Grace begged him.
“Leave, leave, leave.
I don’t want you to see me like this.” Utter humiliation gave Grace the strength she needed to crawl to the bathroom.

Jack freaked out. “What the fuck is going on?”

Clair followed Grace while George grabbed Jack’s arm and stopped him from doing the same. Grace’s knees welcomed the cool black and white tile of the bathroom floor. Once she was as close to the toilet as she could get, Clair helped her up and sat her down. “Make him go home--
NOW
! And you leave, leave me alone!”

Clair quickly left and closed the door behind her. For twenty minutes she, George, and Jack paced in the living room as they heard the most unimaginable sounds coming from behind that door. Grace pushed like she had never pushed in her life. At this point she felt so hot and sweaty she pulled her arms out of the sleeves of her dress and worked it as best she could over her head where it got stuck on her hair clip. Grace struggled to pull it loose, but it wouldn’t budge. Tired and cranky, she left it where it was and closed her eyes for a few moments. She whispered to her pregnant belly. “Sweetie, Auntie Mommy is very sorry for whatever discomfort this may be causing you.” And then, with all the energy she could muster, she made her final sweat inducing-eye-bugling-body-trembling-I-really-think-I’m-going-to-die-push and slowly, but surely, the eagle landed.

Covered in sweat, arms trembling she grabbed the toilet paper, wiped her ass and caught her breath. Well, she thought if I can do that I should be able to have a kid. That’s when she started to laugh. The realization of the impending labor hit her. The fact that it was going to be so much more painful than what she just went through wouldn’t hit her for a few weeks. For now, Grace was grateful for the stool softener she would soon be popping like M&M’s and the promise of the epidural when in the throes of labor. She grabbed a washcloth from the tub, ran it under the sink and then patted down her face. When her body finally stopped its tremors and the feeling returned to her legs, Grace pulled herself off the toilet and flushed. That’s when she heard that water rising-toilet-hissing-shit-so-not-going down sound. A horrified Grace turned to see what the problem was.
“Holy shit!
It’s a God damn cannon ball!” she whispered as she stared at the biggest, roundest, hardest looking piece of human feces she ever had the misfortune to call her own. It didn’t move. It was too big and too dense that the water had no choice but to fill up around it. “Go down, go down! Please go down,” she anxiously pleaded, willing it to flush away, but it wouldn’t listen. Grace, who hadn’t stood for the past three hours, had a bit of head rush, her legs began trembling and then her knees gave out. She grabbed the towel rack to steady herself, but it popped out of the wall and clattered to the ground. Grace landed on her ass with a thud. That was all Jack needed to storm into the bathroom. He found a disheveled, naked, dress sitting on top of her head, crumpled on the floor Grace. She sighed. “It wouldn’t flush.”

As Clair and George raced in behind him, Jack knelt down and gently pulled the dress off of her head. “Are you hurt?” he tenderly asked.

“No.” Grace struggled to get up. Jack got into position, helped Grace onto her feet and lifted her into his arms. As he carried her out the door, he spied the plunger in the corner and kicked it over to Clair and George. “Good luck ladies!”

Grace, exhausted, sweaty, and reeking of God knows what felt so loved and safe in Jack’s arms. “I love you,” she whispered. Jack smiled down at her. “No, no I don’t mean it as a thank you,” she implored.  “I love you. In that all seeing, all knowing, all loving forever way.” Then she called herself an idiot and nestled her head into his chest.

Jack carried Grace into George’s bathroom. “I love you, too. In that all seeing, all knowing, all loving forever way.” Then he sat her down, put her feet inside the tub, took off his shoes, climbed in, grabbed a washcloth, turned on the water, and started to give her a sponge bath. They were quiet.
Grace,
exhausted and happy about her declaration and his reciprocation of love and Jack, relieved and happy about her declaration and his reciprocation of love--no words were needed.

“HOLY SHIT!” broke their reverie as Clair and George screamed in unison.

“It’s a God damn cannon ball!” yelped Clair.

“Well, the diamond you get her better weigh as much as that!” gasped a hysterically laughing George.

And as Jack gently ran the washcloth across Grace’s back, her sister and best friend were about to experience an entirely different meaning of take a plunge or in this case take a plunger, but really, why quibble?

Once Frigidaire confirmed that mother and child were okay and that Grace had miraculously avoided getting hemorrhoids from her bathroom catastrophe, it got Clair to thinking. About what you ask? Well, as a mother-to-be who wasn’t about to experience the joys of labor, she had plenty to think about. What color to paint the room, where to put the crib, is it tempting fate to set up the baby’s room before the baby was born? However, one thing she kept coming back to was something Sal had said the first day they met. Imagine what you could do to help someone if you actually got involved. “I’m one lucky girl,” she thought, “and I should be doing more for other people.” Clair’s interest, or as Henry called it, obsession with world peace, the environment, organic food, organic baby products, and saving the children reached the breaking point one drizzly Saturday when they had gotten up before the crack of dawn to make it to the recycling center, a peace rally, and a compost class. After Henry had gone to Home Depot to replace all their light bulbs with eco-friendly light bulbs, he came home to find Clair cleaning puree off the ceiling when an attempt to make her own baby food went awry. “No more!” Was all Henry could manage as he watched his wife, mop in hand, standing on the kitchen counter and cleaning their
ceiling.

“No more what?” Clair craned her neck to see if she could find any splatters.

Henry walked over, lifted her off the counter, carried her to the kitchen table, sat her down and looked her in the eye. “I appreciate that you want to save the world, the polar bear, the eco system, and children born into war and poverty. Not all in one day, okay? There are limits of what we can do and how we can do it. So, instead of doing everything at once, how about we pick one or two causes and do the very best we can with those?”

 “I just don’t want to be one of those people who give money,” Clair said.

“If we give money to the right places we can do a lot of good. We have a lot of money and, so we can do a lot of good.” He stopped her from arguing. “We will make this house as environmentally sound as we can.” Henry kissed his wife. “We will vote in every election, we will volunteer. I’m even open to composting, but we will do it all within reason, okay?

Clair grinned. “I guess I have been going a bit overboard.” Henry laughed as his wife leaned in and kissed him. “But, I think we should start funding micro-financing to people living in third world countries.”

Henry stopped laughing. “Excuse me?” And thus was the battle cry of the Clair Higgins save the world revolution.

George hung up the phone. “That was another yes!”
Clair and Grace high-
fived
.
“So far, we’ve got seventy-five potential investors attending. You know, when most women find themselves unemployed or knocked up they’re not as lucky as we are.”

Clair squealed. She was so excited because George had said exactly what she wanted to say. “I’ve been thinking and doing research and…”

“Driving everyone crazy with your new found zeal to save human existence!” cracked Grace.

Clair ignored her.  “I found this organization called
Kiva
that provides micro-financing to people living in third world countries. I think we should give a percentage of every sale to them. We can help women get on their feet with a small amount of money. Well, what’s small to us is large to them.”

“She’s got a point.” George grabbed a trial tin of cookies and broke it open.

Grace poured George a glass of milk and sat down. “You’re preaching to the choir. It would be nice to give that shot to another woman, but what happens if Sweet Mama’s is a bust?”

“We can still take a chance without losing our shirts and most women in third world countries barely have a shirt!” Clair implored.

“Enough, Joan of Arc, next thing you’ll be telling us you have visions of Angels,” laughed Grace.

“I’m in!” said George and Grace as they
clinked
their milk glasses.

Clair beamed. “Now, how do I tell Patricia I don’t want a baby shower? It’s a waste of money and all those gifts, I don’t need them.”

 “Ease your way into it. Mom doesn’t care, but with Patricia it’s a whole other level of social obligation.”

“Why don’t you donate it?” George asked.

“Donate it?” asked Clair as her eyes lit up.

George explained, “
since
you’re going all Oprah on us, why not have the baby shower, but donate the gifts to charity?”

“Oh, that’s a great idea!” Clair reached for the milk and cookies then peered at George. “Hey, this investor tasting is in less than two weeks are you sure you have everything under control?”

“Man, you can turn on a dime, eh? It’s marketing, it’s my thing. If I need your help I’ll ask,” George sighed.

“If she doesn’t see to-do lists everywhere, she doesn’t trust the system,” Grace cracked.

“It’s a disease. I’m working on it,” laughed Clair.

“Maybe we can find you an OCD support group,” George said, “or you can come to my AA meetings.” Clair and Grace laughed. George grinned. “You know, I like this. Our business has a better chance
karmically
if we’re attached to a charity. God loves that.” And with that, Grace set out to perfect her cookies, George set out to perfect the tasting, and, well, Clair set out to perfect the world.

“White?”
Patricia sniffed, as she looked into the baby’s room.
“White?”

 “Henry hates the color yellow and I can’t stand the color green and nothing else seemed appropriate for a baby’s room.”

“Once you hang the pictures and get the crib and changing table put together it will look great!” Diane scooted out of the way for the two Henry’s and Sal as they carried boxes of furniture into the baby’s room.

Henry, Sr. put down the box he was carrying. “Who’s putting this stuff together? Is the store sending someone?”

Henry smiled. “Nope, I’m doing it.” He then put down his side of Sal’s box.

“Alone?” An alarmed Henry, Sr. asked. “Need I remind you of the camping debacle of ninety-one, the Christmas tree massacre of ninety-five, and the entertainment center crash of just six months ago?”

Henry sighed as he looked at Sal, then at his wife. “He’s being dramatic.”

“No,” Patricia said as kindly as she could. “He’s being accurate. How hard is it to put together a tent and a pop up tent at that? And if I recall, that Christmas your grandmother was nearly impaled by the star. Are you really sure you want to put together your child’s crib?
The place where your baby sleeps?”

Sal spoke up. “He can do this. We can do this. I’ll help him. I’ve put together a ton of cribs. It’s time for Henry to man up. If he’s having a boy, we better show him the error of his clumsiness, so the kid doesn’t take on his ways and if it’s a girl, well, daddies are supposed to be able to take care of everything.”

Henry laughed. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, but if by we you mean my father he’s worse than I am.”

“I am not!” Henry, Sr. argued. “I built a perfectly respectable tree house.”

Patricia pulled Diane and Clair out of the room. “You boys go ahead and prove your manliness, but remember our grandchild will be sleeping in that crib.” Clair trailed behind them as they headed toward the kitchen. “How did you decide on bed times and disciplining and stuff like that?”

Diane looked over her shoulder at her daughter. “We did what felt right.”

“Why?” Patricia asked as she made her way downstairs.

“All the baby books say that you should make sure you’re on the same page and don’t have such different parenting styles that you confuse the kid.”

“Just understand that as Grandparents, if we disagree, we’ll do everything in our power to undermine you,” cracked Patricia. “Rule number one, spanking is a last resort.”

“Potty
train
them by the time they’re two and a half.” Diane followed Patricia into the kitchen.

Patricia sat at the table. “Don’t let your kid intimidate you; you’re the boss.”

“But, not an asshole--there’s a difference,” said Diane.

Clair sat down overwhelmed. “What if I do it wrong? I could create a serial killer or worse a conservative republican.”

“We haven’t even had the baby shower yet. One day at a time,” Diane said.

“About this baby shower,” Clair hesitantly ventured, “I was thinking--no gifts.” Clair took a cheesecake out of the fridge and hit the button on the coffee maker.

Patricia was mildly offended. “Over the past thirty years I’ve been forced to attend the wedding, baby, and divorce showers of every person I’ve ever known and since you insisted on a small wedding I didn’t get my payback, but now?”

 “She doesn’t have to have gifts. It’s not as if they need them,” defended Diane.

“There are two great organizations Newborns In Need, which provide newborn kits to impoverished families in the
U.S.
and The Mennonite Central Committee that sends the kits to hospitals and refugee camps overseas. If we include the organizations wish list in the invitations we could donate everything.” Diane gave Clair a squeeze as she cut herself a slice of cheesecake.

 “Do you really think a diaper genie is going to save the world?”

“No, but we have more than we need and I’d rather share it with someone who needs it then let it go to waste.”

 
“Fine, but if there are no gifts and no games Grace is getting her ass on a scale and we’re guessing her weight.”
Clair hugged Patricia. “And to show you that I’m serious I’ll match every gift you get,” Patricia peered at her. “Any other big ideas you’d like to share?”

“Do you think the Country Club will let
America
’s Second Harvest pick up the leftover food?” Clair asked.

 “I’ll see what I can do.” There was a loud thump from the baby’s room, followed by a long expletive rant. Patricia sighed. “Promise me you’ll have a professional check that crib.”

“I promise,” laughed Clair. And Clair, never one to break a promise or hurt her husband’s’ feelings, hired a professional handyman who came over a week later and put the furniture together correctly.