Marie Sexton - Coda 06 - Fear, Hope, and Bread Pudding (14 page)

Cole kept his gaze on his lap. “It was a long time ago.” His voice was almost a whisper.

She nodded. “I know. But it was a happy time. Remember how it would be so warm inside, and we’d be so cold, and at first it felt like our cheeks were being sunburned?”

He nodded stiffly. “I remember.”

 

“And sometimes they’d have it without raisins, but if they didn’t, you’d pick out every single one and leave them on the plate.”

He made a soft sound—something that might have been a hiccup, but it might have been a laugh. “I don’t know why anybody puts raisins in pastries. It’s completely dreadful.”

Now it was Grace’s turn to laugh. “I couldn’t agree more.”

“They don’t serve bread pudding there anymore. They haven’t for years. Everything they serve now is premade. Nothing from scratch. Even the hot chocolate is instant.” Cole finally met her gaze. “Jon was right. I made it for you. I thought you would be pleased.”

She nodded and her eyes filled with tears again. “I know. I should have been. I’d give anything to be able to go back and live that moment again.”

“It doesn’t matter. It was only soggy bread.”

She laughed, then put her fingers over her lips as if she hadn’t meant for it to happen. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t say that when you served it to me.”

“Give him the other thing,” my father said quietly.

She glanced over at him, and I had a feeling she wished he hadn’t said anything. “He’ll think it’s silly.”
“I doubt that.”

She didn’t seem to share his confidence, but she pulled her bag onto her knees and began to dig through it. It was bigger than a purse. It had probably been her carry-on. “They still make these,” she said as she searched. “This is a newer edition, but the cover‘s the same.” She pulled a small red book from the bag and held it out to Cole.

In my years with Cole, I’d seen him hurt and surprised and vulnerable and even, on rare occasions, speechless. But I’d never seen him all four at once, the way he was as he stared at that book. He didn’t move to take it from her.

I tried to see what was so remarkable about it. It wasn’t a large book, maybe five inches by seven, with a red cover. I could see just enough of the spine to make out the word “Rome.”

“Is everything okay?” I asked him.

He didn’t move except to swallow hard, as if it pained him. “I have to go,” he said. “Jonny, maybe I’ll go open some more wine or something—”

He started to stand, but my father said, “Sit down.” It wasn’t a request. It was a command. It annoyed me that he’d be so rude to my husband, but Cole only sank wordlessly back into his seat.

The entire thing was making me crazy. I had no idea what was going on, but this certainly wasn’t the time to ask for explanations.
Slowly, Cole reached out. He took the book from her hand.
He stared down at it for the longest time, shrinking in on himself as he did. He didn’t open it, but he held it as if it were some kind of talisman, clutched in both hands. “I had no idea….” But his voice failed, and he stopped to put his hand over his eyes. I moved closer. I put my hand on his back. He took a deep breath, as if drawing strength from my touch. He finally looked up at her. There were tears on his cheeks to match the ones on hers.
“You had no idea of what?” she asked.
“That you’d even noticed.”
Her chin trembled again. She put her fingertips over her lips and closed her eyes. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks, but she didn’t seem able to speak. She nodded.
“We were supposed to be in Rome for three more days, and I begged him to leave early.”
“I know.”
“So we could see
you
.”
“I know.”
“And you….” His voice failed again, but it didn’t matter. Whatever he was trying to say, Grace didn’t need to hear the words.
She nodded. “I know, honey. And I’m sorry. There are a lot of things I could apologize for over the years, but that’s the one I regret the most. I thought you should know, if nothing else, that I realize how much I hurt you that day. And I’m so, so sorry.”
He put his hand over his eyes again. I wanted to pull him into my arms, but I wasn’t the one he needed. Grace came out of her seat and across the room. She got down on her knees.
This time, Cole didn’t duck away from her hug. He didn’t return it, but he let her put her arms around him. They sat there together, rocking a bit, their shoulders shaking, both of them completely silent as they cried.
I looked over at my dad, wishing somebody would tell me what the hell was happening. My dad smiled at me, not smug, but relieved. He held up his wine glass. “I don’t know about you, but I sure could use something stronger than this.”
I laughed, and so did Cole. He disentangled himself from his mom’s arms, not pushing her away, but smiling as he wiped his cheeks. “I have a bottle of scotch that cost more than some cars.”
“That’ll do.”
Cole set the book aside and went into the kitchen, but he was back seconds later, and without any scotch. Instead, he had his phone in his hand, and his face was bright with excitement.
“Taylor’s in labor!”

C
OLE and I scrambled to get out the door. To my surprise, Grace and my father didn’t come with us. “Call me when things get serious,” my dad said to me.
“She’s at the hospital now. Isn’t that serious enough?”

My dad smiled indulgently and patted me on the shoulder. “You’re in for a long night, son.”

 

He was right, as he so often was. I couldn’t even manage to be annoyed about it anymore.

When we arrived at the hospital, Taylor’s contractions were still about seven minutes apart. We sat in the waiting room for a while, asking the nurse for updates every time we saw her. Finally, she smiled at us with the same quiet amusement my father had shown. “Why don’t you go in and see her for yourself. She said to tell you it’s fine.”

“But she’s in labor!” I blurted out.
The nurse laughed. “It’s not like the movies.”

Sure enough, we found Taylor lying in bed watching TV between contractions. She was wearing a hospital gown, and the blankets covered all the necessary parts. She was hooked up to an array of monitors.

“How are you doing?” Cole asked her immediately. “Do you need anything?”

“Besides to get this show on the road?” She laughed. “No. But Larissa came straight from work, and she could use some dinner.” That explained why the young woman had a nametag pinned to her shirt and a red apron around her hips.

“I’ll get it right now,” Cole said to her. “Just tell me what you want. A sandwich? A hamburger? I can go down the street for sushi, if you want.”

Larissa glanced at Taylor as if to say,
you weren’t kidding about this guy
. What she actually said was, “If you can stay with her for a bit, I’ll run down to the cafeteria.”

“But won’t she need you?”

 

Taylor took Cole’s hand. “The doctors say it’ll be another couple of hours, at least.”

Another contraction hit as Larissa left the room, and we waited for it to pass. “They’re not too bad yet,” Taylor said when it was over, “but I’m beginning to think this natural labor thing isn’t for me. An epidural suddenly seems like the greatest thing ever invented.”

“Honey, you do what you need to do. I’d be screaming for drugs by now, I guarantee it.”
“Can you hand me the remote?”

“Of course, sweetie. What else do you need? They have ice chips, Lord knows why. I’ve never really understood what good they do. Maybe some Jell-O?”

“I’m fine. Really.”

Not like Cole would listen. He fussed over her for the next twenty minutes, until Larissa returned. I figured we’d leave then, but Taylor didn’t let go of Cole’s hand. “You may as well stay,” she said. “The nurses know this baby is yours, not mine. I’ve talked to them, and they know what to do.”

He smiled and squeezed her hand. “I appreciate that, but it doesn’t mean you want us here for….” He gestured toward the swell of her stomach, underneath the blankets.

Taylor laughed. “Any sense of modesty I ever had has long since disappeared.”
“All right, honey, but if you want us gone at any point, you say the word. You won’t hurt anybody’s feelings.”

We settled in, Cole and Larissa on opposite sides of the bed, me on the bench on the side of the room. Taylor was watching
Halloween
. I thought it was an odd choice for a delivery in February, but it was her party. I doubted she was seeing much of it anyway. It mostly seemed to be a way to distract her from her contractions. The doctor only appeared occasionally, and for a minute or two at a time, which infuriated Cole.

“Where does she think she’s going?” he asked, the third time it happened. “You should be her primary concern!”
“There are four other women in labor right now.”
“And you’re sharing one doctor? Oh honey, I wish I’d known!” He turned to me. “How much would it cost to have another doctor come in?”

“How would I know? Is that even allowed?”
“We’ll find out.”
Taylor reached out to grab his hand before he could leave the

room. “Please don’t! I’d be so embarrassed!”
“But Taylor—”

“It’s fine. The nurses know what they’re doing, and they’re taking good care of me.”
Cole wasn’t convinced, but he agreed to let her do things her way. For once, I agreed with Cole. I thought the doctor should pay more attention, but as I watched, I realized Taylor was right. The nurses were on top of it. They knew exactly what was going on.
For myself, I was surprised at how slowly things were progressing. There was no sense of alarm or urgency. Just Taylor, watching bad slasher horror as her contractions grew marginally more frequent and more painful. She became more agitated, and even I could see that the pains were becoming intense. The rest periods in between seemed to help her less and less. Two hours after our arrival, she was exhausted.

“How long does this usually take?” I asked one of the nurses when the opportunity arose. We were on the side of the room, out of the earshot of Taylor and Cole.

“For a first birth? There’s no telling. It could be hours.” “When should I call my dad?”
“When she starts to push.”
“When will that be?”
“When she’s fully dilated.”
“But—” I suddenly felt ridiculous. I was a grown man. How

could I know so little about something as common as childbirth? The nurse gave me that same smile—amused and indulgent. She patted my arm. “Don’t worry. Everything’s going to be just fine.” I sat back down and resigned myself to being ignorant.

It was a long night.
Halloween
ended, and some poorly made sequel began. Taylor’s contractions grew stronger and closer together. The nurses came in frequently to check her dilation.

“Well,” one of them finally said, around one in the morning, “you’re finally at ten! It’s about time, girl!”

Ten was apparently the magic number. The activity in the birthing room grew more animated. Not frantic, though. They’d done this too many times to be concerned. They dismantled the foot portion of Taylor’s bed and got her set up the way I’d expected her to be all along, with her legs in stirrups. I stayed off to the side, closer to her head than her elevated feet. I was anxious and extremely aware of her nudity and her vulnerability.

I was also doing my best to stay the hell out of the way. The doctor came in without ceremony. She perched on a stool between Taylor’s legs.

 

“Okay, Taylor. This is where the real work begins. Are you ready?”

In truth, Taylor looked like she was near tears. “No,” she whimpered.
The doctor smiled as if she’d heard her wrong. She patted her knee. “Good. Next contraction, I want you to bear down and push as hard as you can, just like you practiced in childbirth class.”

Oh shit!
This was what I’d been waiting for—the pushing. I fumbled for my phone, positive that I’d waited too long and my dad was going to miss it.

“Hello?” His voice was heavy and thick with sleep. I’d obviously woken him. Not surprising given the time.

“She’s pushing. I think it will be soon?”
“We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
I hung up the phone. Taylor had just finished her first push. No baby.

I sighed. I would have felt like an ass if I’d missed the birth because I was on the phone.

A minute later, she was pushing again. I waited, literally holding my breath while she strained to deliver the child.
No baby.

Okay,
I thought.
Everybody’s calm. Nobody seems to be panicking.
I kept my mouth shut and waited for the next contraction. Taylor pushed again. And then again. And then again.

Still, no baby.
I began to worry. In the movies, it generally only took three or four pushes, right? Something had to be wrong. Maybe the doctor was only playing it cool for Taylor’s sake.
More pushing. My anxiety at expecting the baby to appear any

moment began to be replaced by sympathy for Taylor. The reality of childbirth was far longer and far more exhausting than it appeared on TV. She was sweating, her normally neat hair damp and frizzy. Her lips were dry and bloodless, her eyes bloodshot. “I can’t,” she panted between contractions. “I can’t.”

The doctor and the nurses weren’t fazed by it one bit. They kept smiling and patting her hands and her knees. “You can. Not much longer now.”

Not much longer now.

They said that over and over again.
Not much longer now.
As the pushing went on and the minutes ticked by, I began to realize the words meant something different to them than they did to us. What they really meant was, “You’ve got a long way to go, but we don’t want to discourage you.”

A nurse informed me that my father had arrived, and I followed her into the hallway to see him. I hugged him hard, suddenly feeling like a kid. I’d never been so glad to see him in my life. I wished I had a way to borrow his strength. Grace stood a bit to the side, looking scared but hopeful.

“This has to be the longest night I’ve ever lived through,” I said to my dad, still holding him tight.

 

“It feels like an eternity right now, but it’ll be over before you know it.”

“I wish mom was here so I could tell her how sorry I am for putting her through this.”
He laughed. “You were worth it, son. And she will be too.”

The door behind me opened, and a nurse said, “Dad! You better get in here!”

 

It took me a second to realize she was talking to me.