From His Perspective

Chapter 6

Linda’s labor started around one o’clock in the morning. Apparently, she had kept the contractions to herself for nearly three hours. Around four, she woke her husband. A gentle nudge as she whispered, “Honey? I think it is time.”

James grunted. Part of him wanted to pull the covers up and over his head and twist away from the distraction.

“Jimmy?”

He opened his eyes. “It’s time?”

Linda grinned and nodded. She held her cell phone in one hand, the other rested on her belly. Her quick breathing kept her from answering right away. Between breaths she managed, “Yes. It’s time.”

James threw back the blankets. The hospital bug-out bag had been packed for weeks. The items inside checked and double-checked numerous times. Regardless, doubt set in. They were forgetting something! He jumped out of bed, maneuvered around Linda, hoisted the bag up and then plopped it down on the bed. In one fluid motion, he unzippered the suitcase.

“What are you doing?”

“Do we have everything?”

She placed a hand on his arm. “We have everything.”

“Your focal point?” he said. It was a framed picture of them, one from when they had been dating, before they were married.

“It’s in there.”

“Nightgown for you?”

“In there.”

“An outfit for our son to come home in?”

“It’s packed. It’s in there.” She closed the suitcase. He zipped it back up. “We just have to go to the hospital.”

“Your doctor!”

“I already called her. She is going to meet us there.”

“So, I have to drive now,” James said.

“Unless you want me too?”

* * *

The overwhelming odor of worms assaulted James’ nostrils. He saw them squirm and slowly slither across the wet pavement. The heavy rains evicted the earthworms from muddy homes. The gunmetal gray sky showed no sign of clearing. No sun would shine today.

James saw the empty car seat on the side of the road. It sat there as if it belonged. The severed seatbelt straps told the story. He could not take his eyes off the juice and food stains like patches in the car seat fabric.

A paramedic had him by the arm just below the elbow and led him away from the curb toward the black coroner"s van. Inside the back of the van on a full-sized stretcher lay a small figure wrapped in a black bag.

“No.” James stopped. His legs refused to carry him any closer.

“We can do this later,” said the paramedic at his side.

“He’s all alone in there.” James’ legs wobbled. His knee gave out. His body buckled.

“He’s going down!”

* * *

“Breathe, Linda! Breathe.”

His wife was on the hospital bed. In a soft blue gown, she sat with her knees up, and her hands wrapped around her own ankles. Her red-faced expression was framed by sweaty hair stuck all around exposed skin.

“Who-who-hee,” he said, encouragingly. “Who-who-hee!”

“I wanna push,” Linda exclaimed.

Sitting between her parted legs was Dr. Krantz. She arrived at the hospital about forty minutes after them. While they knew she did this thing all of the time, the lackadaisical mannerism set their anxiety at High.

“She wants to push, doc,” James repeated. He had just set the framed photograph up at on a dresser in the corner of the room. It wasn’t the best place for a focal point. It would require to turn her head to one side if she wanted to concentrate on the image during contractions. When he tried pushing the dresser, the legs scraped on the floor. Linda had yelled at him to leave it be!

leave it be!“Not yet. Your cervix is not fully dilated. We’re almost at seven centimeters.”

“Really?” Linda gasped, “because I feel like the head is busting out of my v****a right now!”

James slid a chair up close to the side of the bed. “Let’s breathe. Who-who-hee.”

She released an ankle and latched onto his forearm in a vise-like grip. Through clenched teeth, she grunted. “I don’t want to breathe. I want to push!”

pushWincing as fingernails dug into his flesh, James said, “Doc, she doesn’t want to breathe. She wants to push.”

* * *

James sat on the side of the road. The coroner"s van was parked on his right. The paramedic who caught him had kept him from collapsing onto the road, squatted down in front of him. The man held a small penlight in his right hand. He waved the beam of light past James’ eyes.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Cantrell?”

He saw the second stretcher just outside the rear of the van. The black bag contained his wife. She was buckled in place with orange security straps. His stomach moved in waves. With minimal warning, James leaned to the left and vomited. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“That’s okay, sir.” He placed a hand on James’ back. “Breathe nice and easy.”

James grabbed onto the paramedic and hoisted himself up onto his feet.

“We can do this later, sir.”

Off-balance, James staggered forward. “I need to see my son,” he said.

The paramedic nodded and helped James past the stretcher his wife was on, and into the back of the coroner"s van.

James tried swallowing. The humidity inside the van was thick. He ran a forearm across his brow wiping away the beads of sweat and rain from above his eyebrows.

Two orange straps secured Matthew to the stretcher. His tiny body took up a quarter of the stretcher.

The paramedic unzipped the black bag.

* * *

Dr. Krantz reminded James of a major league baseball catcher. She positioned herself between Linda’s parted thighs. With both hands just below the thin sheet partly covering Linda’s lower half, she said, “With the next contraction, Linda, I want you to push. Okay? Push with all you’ve got.”

Linda held James’ hands. She looked over at him, eyes wide. A sheen of sweat covered her face. Her hair was matted against red flushed skin. He saw the silent pleading in her expression. “I can’t do anymore. I’m too tired.”

He wanted to tell her it was okay, and she could stop and rest. They had been at it for hours. Once Linda’s cervix had fully dilated the pushing part of her labor began. The baby relented and resisted eviction from the warm, silent and dark that was his home for the last nine months. “You can do this. We’re almost there. You’re almost done.”

Her grip tightened. His three center fingers were mashed together. It was another contraction. James almost yanked his hand free, might have if he had been strong enough to do so. He didn’t think his fingers would escape her grasp before bone broke.

“This is it!” Dr. Krantz repositioned herself, ready to guide the baby out. “Push now. Push.”

Linda took in a deep breath. She strained. She shook her head, as if in defiance, and then gave one long hard push.

James couldn’t help standing up a little taller, looking past the thin sheet and staring as his son spilled out of his wife. His child looked like a rubber doll. Red and purple and pasty-white.

“And just like we thought, it’s a boy!” Dr. Krantz worked fast. She suctioned fluids out from the baby’s nostrils and mouth. She shifted the infant in her hands and tapped his bottom. The baby began crying. After affixing a clamp onto the umbilical cord she smiled warmly at James. “Would you like to cut the cord, Daddy?”

Linda was crying, too.

James let go of his wife’s hand. His vision was blurred. “I don’t know what to do,” he said.

Dr. Krantz handed him surgical scissors. “Just cut here,” she said.

“It won’t hurt either of them?”

“They won’t feel a thing.”

After James cut the cord, Dr. Krantz tied knots. She brought the baby over to Linda, and laid him down on her chest. Skin on skin, and the baby settled down.

“What have we decided to name him?” Dr. Krantz asked.

Linda looked at her husband. They smiled at one another. They had talked about this. James’ father died of a heart attack when James was fifteen years old. She said, “We did this. We have our Matthew.”