Every bad one now flashed before her, stealing away her courage.
She’d been so sure about this. So sure. She hadn’t even regretted her decision when the local school board had tactfully “suggested” that she take an unpaid leave of absence until after her baby was born. Since she was a high-school English teacher, her condition in the somewhat conservative town was a source of discomfort and embarrassment to a number of the parents. But even then, she’d been sure about her choice to go this route alone.
Now she wasn’t sure about being alone or even the route itself. Now there was only a sense of panic tearing into her with steel claws.
Here she was, her house in flames, her life in shambles, giving birth to a fatherless baby on the front lawn with the only man she’d ever loved inexplicably standing over her.
She felt as if she’d lost her grasp on reality.
“Ricky…I’m…scared.”
“Yeah, me, too,” he admitted.
His words echoed back to him. Joanna had been the only one he’d ever let his guard down with, the only one he’d ever allowed to witness his more human, vulnerable side. To the rest of the world, even from a very young age, he’d always presented a strong, unflappable front. It was expected of him. He was a Masters. Only Joanna had seen him as Ricky, as the boy he’d been and the man he was struggling to be.
But all that was behind him. Years behind him.
Rick squared his shoulders. He had to set the tone. What was there to be afraid of, anyway? Taking her hand, he looked down at Joanna. “Babies get born every day, right?”
Yes, but this one was different. This one was coming out of her. Shredding everything in its path. “Not this one.”
He needed a blanket, a sheet, something. Feeling helpless, Rick looked around. There was nothing available except for the tablecloth he’d used to shield Joanna’s face. Taking it, he tucked the material under her as best he could.
“Not exactly sterile, but better than the grass,” he explained when she looked at him with huge, questioning eyes.
Oh lord, here came another one. Joanna wrapped her fingers around the long blades of grass, ripping more than a few out of the ground as she arched her back, vainly trying to scramble to a place where the pain couldn’t find her.
But there was nowhere to go. The pain found her no matter how she twisted and turned, found her and constructed a wall all around her, imprisoning her.
There was no escape.
Panting again, Joanna tried to recall what she’d learned in her Lamaze classes. Nothing came to her. All she could remember was that the four of them, she, Chris Jones, Sherry Campbell and the instructor, Lori O’Neill, referred to themselves as the Mom Squad, four single women who’d bonded because they were facing life’s most precious miracle alone.
None of that helped now.
She froze, hardly hearing what Rick was saying to her, her body enveloped in one huge contraction.
What was it that Lori’d told the class the last session? Relax, that was it. Relax.
Right, easy for Lori to say. Of the four of them, she was the one who had the longest to go. Lori didn’t know what it felt like to be a can of tuna with a jagged can opener circling her perimeter.
But she did.
Joanna let loose with a blood-curling scream as another contraction, the hardest one yet, ripped into her on the tail of the last one. There was no end in sight. She was going to keep on having these contractions until she died.
Rick jerked back, covering his ear. She had risen up and screamed right against it. He could still feel the sound reverberating in his head.
“Good thing I’ve got two ears. I’m not going to be using my left one for a while.”
He shouldn’t be the one here, helping her give birth to another man’s baby, he thought. This should have been their child fighting its way into the world.
A sadness gripped his heart. He looked at her. “This is all wrong.”
With what little strength she had, Joanna dragged her elbows into her sides and struggled to raise herself up again.
“What…? What’s…wrong? Something wrong…with…my baby?”
“No, no,” he assured her, pushing her gently back down. “Just that your husband should be here, not me.” Or at least the paramedics, he added silently.
“Don’t…have…one,” she gasped. She felt lightheaded and fought to keep focused and conscious. Here came another! “Now, Rick, now!”
Rick saw her face turn three shades redder as she screwed her eyes shut.
This was all happening too fast.
He didn’t have to tell her to push. He didn’t have to tell her anything at all. Suddenly, whether he was ready or not, it was happening. The baby was coming.
Rick barely had enough time to slip his hands into position. The baby’s head was emerging. He could feel the blood, feel the slide of flesh against flesh.
Wasn’t giving birth supposed to take longer than the amount of time it took to peel a banana skin back?
And why hadn’t the fire trucks arrived yet? Were they the last two people on the earth?
It felt that way. The very last two people on earth. Engaged in a life-affirming struggle.
“Pull…it…out!” Joanna screamed. The baby was one-third out, two-thirds in. Why had everything stopped?
She fell back, exhausted, unable to drag in enough air to sustain herself. Beams of light began dancing through her head, motioning her toward them.
Toward oblivion.
In mounting panic, Rick realized that she was going to pass out on him. One hand supporting the baby’s head, he leaned over and shook Joanna’s shoulder, trying to get her to focus.
“I can’t pull it out,” he shouted at her. “You can’t play tug of war with a head, Joanna. You have to push the baby out the rest of the way.”
“You…push it out…the…rest of…the way. It’s…your…turn.”
And then she felt it again. That horrible pain that she couldn’t escape. It bore down on her, tying her up in a knot even as it threatened to crack her apart. It didn’t matter that she had no strength, that she couldn’t draw a half-decent breath into her lungs. Her body had taken over where her mind had failed.
“Oh…God…it’s not…over.” How was she going to do this with no strength left? How was it possible?
Panting, gasping for air, she looked at Rick. He was right. This was wrong, all wrong. She should never have decided to have this baby, never agreed to leave Rick without explaining why.
Too late now for regrets.
The refrain echoed in her brain over and over again as heat surrounded her, searing a path clear for more pain.
The tablecloth below her was soaked with blood. “Push,” Rick ordered gruffly, hiding the mounting fear taking hold of him. What if something went wrong? Should there be this much blood? She couldn’t die on him, she couldn’t. “C’mon, Joanna, you can do this!”
No, she thought, she couldn’t.
But she had to try. She couldn’t just die like this. Her baby needed her.
From somewhere, a last ounce of strength materialized. She bore down as hard as she could, knowing that this was the last effort she was capable of making. If the baby wasn’t going to emerge now, they were just going to bury her this way.
Fragments of absurd thoughts kept dancing in