Chin Up, Honey

John Cole grabbed her hands. “We’re not at the hospital!”

“I don’t care!” she cried. “And neither does this baby!”

John Cole moved to the far side of the seat, plastering himself against the door, while Emma removed her panties and tried to remember her Lamaze breathing.

Then her father-in-law called out, “Hold on, Emma, we’re here!” He hardly ever said anything, and his voice startled her. She was swung to the side as he turned into the emergency drive. Before the car had even stopped, Mother Berry was out and running inside. John Cole helped Emma work her way out of the backseat, leaving her panties stark white against the dark velour.

In front of them, the emergency room doors parted, and here came Mother Berry pushing a gurney, with a nurse and orderly following and trying to catch up. There ensued a great deal of fumbling and arguing in the effort to get Emma up on the gurney. This ended when she stalked off—as best as she could stalk while bending over in a contraction—leaving the others to follow her into the emergency room.

After all the rush, Emma was in labor for thirty-six hours, in which they told her that her contractions were just not strong enough, and she told them they weren’t the ones having them.

For most of those hours, John Cole stood by her bed, holding her hand. A point came when the doctor gave her something to make her drowsy so that she could rest. John Cole was led away to an adjacent room—to let him lie down. To this day, Emma was quite certain the reason for the delay was that the surgeon had not wanted to be disturbed on a weekend. He arrived on Monday morning.

John Cole was once again beside Emma, holding her hand. “You have to let go now,” the nurse said firmly, prying Emma’s grip loose. “He cannot go into surgery.”

“Blow, honey…blow….” John Cole called in a tired voice, as they rolled her away to surgery.

“Oh, God, my blow’s done gone. Would y’all just hurry the hell up and give me somethinnnn…”

The next thing she knew, someone was patting her cheek and calling her name. “Mrs. Berry…Mrs. Berry, can you hear me? Do you know what you had?”

She thought someone must be speaking to her mother-in-law, and she wished they would shut up.

A little while later, “Mrs. Berry…wake up. You had a baby boy.”

“I know,” she managed to get out.

“She’s awake…she knows she had a boy.”

Oh, you idiot, I knew all along I was going to have a boy, she thought, and went back to sleep again.

When she next came awake, she heard voices, someone telling John Cole to call her name. He said it softly, “Emma…Emma…”

She got her eyes open, and there was John Cole’s face, only inches away. He was smiling at her like he’d lost his mind. “We had a boy,” he said, and he kissed her gently and took her hand again.

“Oh, God, Emma, I was scared you were gonna die.”

The idea was a little shocking. She had not even thought of it, and she had not realized John Cole’s anguish.

Her heart flooding, she reached up and placed her palm to his warm cheek, saying, “Honey, it’s okay. I’m just fine…it’s okay.”

The next instant, her sweet baby was placed into her arms. She looked down at him and fell totally, indescribably in love in a way she had never before known.

5

Together Again

The next morning, when Emma peeked out into the hallway, the television was silent and John Cole was snoring softly.

She hurried into the bathroom, where she washed and moisturized her face, gazed at her image for a few seconds, then applied more moisturizer under her eyes and a bit of blush to her cheeks. She gave thanks to her mother and grandmother for high cheekbones and good skin.

In the kitchen, the coffeemaker with its timer set last night already held a full pot. Emma got her mug from the cabinet.

John Cole’s mug was there, pushed a little to the back. Pulling it out, she held it in both hands for several long seconds. Then she sat it next to the coffeepot.

Smiling and humming a bit, she took her coffee through the shadowy living room to her workroom at the far end of the house, where she rolled open the Florida windows to the sweet morning air and watched the sun come up at the end of the long driveway. As she gazed at the sight, her mind traveled back over the years.

“Oh, John Cole, I love it!” she had said of the house the first time they had driven up the drive.

“Don’t get carried away until we see the inside.”

She knew that so many times her high emotion had embarrassed him. She would try to hold herself down. She had not succeeded too well on that particular day, as she went from room to room. “Look at this…oh, look at this.” Poor John Cole had stood helplessly, knowing that he did not have a chance of saying no.

Turning from the bittersweet memory, she switched on the lamp over the worktable and sat on the tall swivel stool. Neatly arranged at the right were various calligraphy pens, pencils, color and glitter markers and glue, and stacks of papers in a myriad of hues and textures.

After several minutes of sipping coffee and thinking, she chose crisp, white card stock, on which she drew a racing-red sports car. She added two stick figures holding hands, round faces with smiles, sunny-brown hair for the boy and long dark hair for the girl. Inside the card, she wrote in a fine script: Congratulations, sweet heart. I’m so happy for you.–Mom, who loves you. She added a decorative flourish, her bit of trademark.

She carefully set the card aside to let the ink dry before inserting it into an envelope.

Next she chose ivory linen paper. Gracie’s card would need a touch of elegance. First sketching in pencil, then filling in with colored pen, she drew a door decorated with a plaque that said Welcome, Gracie. She added a tiny, shiny, red-checked ribbon from her box of trims. Inside the card, at the top, she drew another plaque that said The Berrys. After staring at it for a long minute, she quickly drew berries on the plaque. And then bigger berries beneath, turning them into people. She was a blueberry, John Cole a strawberry, clusters of cranberries behind them. Did cranberries grow in clusters? Her mother, who technically wasn’t a Berry, was off to the side—a raspberry with bright purple hair.

Possibly Gracie would find Emma’s cards a rather poor effort at art. Perhaps she was one who preferred something elegant and store-bought.

“Good mornin’.”

“Oh!” She jumped and almost f lung aside the pen. “I didn’t hear you.” She felt silly.

“I’m sorry. I tried not to scare you. I knocked.”

“Oh…I was…you know.”

She swallowed as she watched him come fully into the room, in careful steps, as if still trying to ease in. Golden sunlight streaming through the windows made patterns over his face and body, causing her to realize that she had been lost in her work for some time. Her heart tumbled over itself with gladness at seeing him in their home once again.

And then she thought that, still, he was handsome. His eyes in the warm morning light were very blue, which never ceased to affect her. He seemed happy to be home. She averted her eyes to the paper in front of her.

“I see you got a fancy new coffeemaker.”

“Yes. It was on a great sale.”

John Cole was scanning the stacks of cards along the edge of the table, flipping through them. “You’ve been busy,” he said.

“Yes.” There had been so much time when she couldn’t sleep.

Reading the inside of one, he chuckled and held it up in an appreciative manner.

It was a card with a drawing on the front of a frazzled woman and a quote that read: Thanks for loving me just as I am. Inside it read: It took a whole lot of time and difficulty to get this way.

“It’s one of the most popular ones,” she said, feeling foolishly pleased. “I also draw it with a man, or a boy or a girl. Belinda’s sold all that she had for the drugstore, and now she’s putting them into a gift shop that she owns with another woman.”