Taxi Delivery (6 page)

            Jed took his time leaving the hospital to get the car seat.  He didn’t want Sadie to wait on him, but he also needed a little time to sort things out.  When he offered to pick Sadie up, he thought that would be the end of it.  But now here he was, offering to buy her a car seat.  What was it about this woman that pulled at his heart strings?  It was true that Jed was the type of guy who went out of his way to help people, but it wasn’t every day that he went this far above and beyond the call of duty.

            The doctor had mistaken him for the father so it was evident that no one had been told who Ellison’s father actually was.  And since Sadie told him that she hadn’t had any other visitors, it was obvious that he hadn’t been there.  Jed started to wonder if he even knew about little Ellison.  Or at least that she had been born.

            Jed quickly bought a pink and brown car seat stroller combination.  Since he first ran across Sadie walking the city, he thought she might take the baby around in that fashion.  And since she didn’t even have a car seat yet, chances were that she didn’t have a stroller either.

            As Jed left the store, wheeling the empty stroller with the car seat attached and carrying the portion of the seat that straps into the car, he wondered what he was doing.  Why was he investing so much in a woman he hardly knew?  He hadn’t even known her name the day before and now he was buying her newborn essentials.  It didn’t make sense, even to him.  All he knew was that he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

           
Lord,
he prayed as he made his way back to the hospital parking lot to install the seat in the cab he had for the day,
I know you have put Sadie in my path for a reason.  Show me the reason and allow me to be a light in her life in whatever way you have in mind.

           
Jed shook his head as he tightened the base of the car seat in the back of the cab.  He wanted to be a light in Sadie’s life, but he had to wonder if she was going to light his in some way as well.  He remembered how it felt to hold Ellison for the first time.  She had been so vulnerable and so tiny.  He was the first person who had ever held her outside her mother’s womb.  And when he held her again in the small hospital room, he felt an overwhelming emotion to protect her from the world.  He only wished that was possible.

            Jed finished installing the car seat and placed the stroller in the trunk.  He wondered if he would take many fares today.  He was calling his detour to the hospital a break, but he wasn’t sure he would be able to leave Sadie and Ellison behind and go back to work.  The cab company might not be happy, but he would make it up another day if he had to.

            Once everything was in place, he pulled the cab around to the patient pick up area and told the front desk that he was there to pick up Sadie Walker and her daughter.  He didn’t want to leave the cab in the pick-up area to go back upstairs to retrieve them and he knew they would have to be brought down in a wheelchair by hospital personnel anyways.  Jed leaned against a pillar near the entrance to the hospital and waited.

            Each time the elevator doors opened, he pushed himself away from the pillar expectantly.  When the doors finally revealed Sadie and Ellison, he felt his whole body respond.  There was something about seeing the two of them together that nearly brought him to his knees.

            “All set?” he asked as they approached.

            Sadie nodded and Jed noticed that Ellison was wearing the little white onesie with the hospital name on the front.  He was surprised that Sadie didn’t have something cute and pink to put her in but then again, she had been caught a little off guard about the birth of her daughter.  Jed was sure her home would be stuffed with tiny little outfits.  Even if she didn’t have any family around to greet her new addition.

            Jed opened the back cab door and watched as Sadie gently placed Ellison into the car seat and strapped her in.  Once she was in, the hospital attendant nodded approval and took the wheelchair back inside.  “I think I’ll ride in back with her,” Sadie said.

            “Of course,” Jed replied as he jogged around to the other side of the cab to open the door for Sadie.  Once he climbed behind the wheel and looked at her in the rearview mirror, he had a sense of déjà vu.  Had it really only been two days ago that he had seen her in that mirror for the first time?  The look of terror she had on her face as she realized her baby was not going to wait for the hospital.  And then, the look of peace and surety she had as her body took over and let the birth run its course.  “Where to, miss?” Jed said with a smile on his face, pretending they had a simple driver-passenger relationship.

            Sadie smiled and caught his eye in the mirror, quickly rattling off her address.  Jed was familiar enough with the city to know exactly what building she meant and he was pretty sure it was filled with small, studio apartments.  She told him earlier that she hadn’t lived in the city very long so Jed hoped her living situation was temporary.  But even if she had a small place, at least it was in one of the safer areas of the city.  And she wouldn’t likely want the baby to be far from her reach as it was.

            Jed watched Sadie every chance he got as he drove.  He found himself driving more cautiously than normal.  Not just because he was carrying precious fare this time, but also because he wanted to prolong his time with the two of them.  Seeing Sadie with her hand stretched across the cab, holding on to Ellison’s tiny little fingers as they drove sent goose bumps up Jed’s arms.  There was definitely something special about the two of them.

            When they finally arrived near Sadie’s apartment building, Jed found a spot outside.  He figured he would get the two girls inside and settled and if he was invited to stay longer, he would come back out and move the cab to a parking garage nearby.  He almost laughed out loud at the thought of putting the cab in a parking garage.  He would probably be fired on the spot if his boss even heard that he was considering putting another cab anywhere near another parking garage.  The last time he had been in one, the backseat had been quite a mess and the cab had been towed away.

            Jed turned off the engine and quickly hopped out of the cab, opening the door for Sadie who then walked around the cab and gently lifted the car seat out of the base.  “I’ll detach it for you,” he said.  “Which apartment are you in?”

            “4F,” she said.

            “I’ll bring this right up,” he said.  “Say, what happened to all of the flowers?” he asked.  She appeared in the wheelchair at the hospital with only two small bouquets and the pink bear he bought for Ellison.

            “I asked the hospital staff to distribute them to other patients.  You know, people that didn’t have anything at all in their rooms.”

            “What a good idea,” Jed agreed.  “That was very sweet of you.”

            “It only made sense to spread the wealth.  I certainly didn’t have anywhere to put all of it.”

            Jed nodded.  “I’ll be up in a minute.”  He wanted to give her a head start so that she wouldn’t know right away that he had a stroller in the trunk of his car to go along with the car seat.

            Once he got into the apartment building, he checked the directory on the wall and took the elevator to the fourth floor.  4F was at the opposite end of the hall.  Jed knocked gently in case Ellison was still asleep.

            A woman answered the door.  “Yeah?” she said upon seeing Jed.

            “I’m sorry,” he said.  “I must have the wrong apartment.

            The woman snapped her gum loudly and then took inventory of Jed, the stroller, and the base of the car seat.

            “You here about the baby?” she asked.

            “Um, yeah, I guess so.”

            “So you’re the father,” she said, chewing loudly.  “It’s about time you showed up.”  The woman swung the door open wide and stepped to one side.

            This time, Jed didn’t bother correcting her.  It was obvious that Sadie hadn’t told anyone about the father of her baby and it wasn’t his business to get into it.  Denying the woman’s claim would only bring about questions that Sadie might not want to answer.  Jed had questions of his own.  One of which was, who was this woman?

            Sadie was in the corner of the room on a small single bed, gingerly taking Ellison out of the car seat.  She turned when she heard the woman talking to Jed.  As soon as she saw the stroller, she stopped what she was doing.

            “Jed, what have you done?” she asked as Jed noticed two other small single beds lining the other walls.

            “I just thought you could use a way to get around,” he said, wondering where he was going to put the large stroller in the small apartment.

            “I can’t pay you for that,” she said, a look of sadness on her face.  “I feel awful, Jed.  You’re going to have to take it back.  The car seat was already too much.”

            “Are you kidding me?  You gave me the experience of a lifetime.  How many cab drivers do you think can say helped with a birth?”

            “That was you?” the woman asked, incredulously.  The apartment was small enough that there certainly wasn’t any privacy.

            “I’m sorry, Jed, this is Lindsey.  Lindsey, Jed.”

            “Nice to meet you,” Jed said.

            “Lindsey is one of my roommates,” Sadie supplied.

            “One of your roommates?”

            “Alice is working the swing shift right now.  She’ll be back late tonight, Lindsey said as she flopped down on her bed across the small room.”

            Jed lowered his voice.  “Sadie, are you living here with two other women?”  He only hoped that Lindsey had tuned them out so she didn’t hear the surprise in his voice.

            Sadie nodded.  “It’s a temporary thing.  Until I can get settled in with Ellison and get back to work.”

            “Wait, you don’t even have a job?” he asked, wondering how she was going to afford rent at all, even with two roommates.

            “Not exactly,” she said.  “But I have a little money saved and if I’m careful, I’ll be okay for a few more months.”

            A few months?  That wasn’t a good sign with a new baby.  And what did these roommates think about adding a baby to the mix?

            “Listen,” Sadie said, anxiously glancing at Lindsey over Jed’s shoulder.  “I better get Ellison settled in.  She’s going to be hungry soon.  Thank you so much for everything you’ve done for us.  Really.  I’ll never forget it.”

            Jed felt as if he was being dismissed and he didn’t want his part in their lives to be over.  He wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to get his foot back in the door once it was closed and the idea that he would never see the face of that little baby again or look into the eyes of her mother again nearly broke his heart.

            “Sadie,” he said, getting her attention for a brief second as she took her eyes off her daughter to meet his, “I want you to call me if you need anything.  Anything at all.  I may not be able to help you, but you’ll never know unless you ask.”  Jed pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and grabbed a pen from the nearby kitchen counter.  He scrawled his name and phone number down and grabbed her hand, pressing the paper firmly into it.  “Do not hesitate to call me.  Anything at all,” he said again with force.  He wanted to make sure she understood that he was serious.  “And,” he added, “you’re keeping the stroller.  It folds up.  It’ll fit under your bed.”