The boys sat on a rock at the edge of the parking lot, their arms around their knees, wide-eyed and silent.
“I do know one thing. Everything is going to be okay, boys.” I tried to smile. I even gave them a stupid thumbs-up. “Mom is going to be fine. And so is the baby. I promise.” But even as I said it, I didn’t believe it.
“Ooooooooh,” Claire moaned through loose lips. “Oooooooooh.”
I draped her sarong across her back, trying to cover her, but she yanked it off.
“Breathe.” Because that’s what they always say, right? “Breathe, Claire.”
“The first-aid kit.”
Salix opened the red bag, and a little wooden gnome toppled out.
“King Percival!” Owen dashed over to scoop up the gnome.
“Birth kit,” Claire gasped.
Sure enough, there was a package labeled BABY. I unrolled it: gloves, scissors, a clamp for the cord, a little rubber bulb for suctioning, a couple of disposable pads, folded in fours. Salix shook one open and handed it to me.
“Thanks.” I glanced up.
“Are you okay?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t know if I was. Or if I wasn’t.
Catch the baby. Catch the baby. Just make sure that the baby doesn’t end up sliding past me and out of the van and onto the dirt, ripping away from Claire, and cracking its head open. No dead babies. No dead mothers. Easy does it.
“What can I do?”
“Keep an eye on the boys.”
Claire screamed. I could hear Salix tell someone passing by that it was all under control.
“No it’s not!” I hollered. “Where is the ambulance?”
Everything was out of control.
Claire squatted, her legs spread. Her thighs were wet with blood. I didn’t want to look any closer, but I had to. I had to catch the baby. No one else was going to help. There was only me.
“What can I do?” I said. “What do you need?”
“Head.” Claire reached between her legs. “The head is crowning.”
“Do you want to be on your back instead?”
“No!” Claire turned a bit so she could prop herself up on the backseat, facing the front. “Catch the baby, Maeve.”
She let loose one deep, long groan.
I forced myself to keep my eyes on the dark shape that was emerging through the blood and the ooze.
“Is it a boy or a girl?” Corbin shouted from the rock.
“Salix, hand me the gloves!”
Claire growled. She put her hand against the bulge and gave a long, controlled push. The baby’s head was out.
“Oh!” I dropped the gloves, stunned. And then I reached forward as she bore down again. One shoulder appeared, then the other, and then the baby’s whole body slid right into my hands. A brand new baby in my hands.
“Baby!” Claire rolled onto her back then and reached for the baby. “Hello, baby! Oh, hi there!” She let out a laugh. “A girl! A baby girl!”
“A girl,” I whispered. And then I laughed too. “A girl!”
“A girl!” The boys leapt off the rock and came running. “A girl! A girl! A girl!”
The baby made tiny fists and let out a little wail.
“Oh, give her to me!” Claire held her against her chest while I found another pair of gloves and wrestled the little plastic clamp onto the cord.
“I want to cut it!” Corbin yelled. We were out of gloves, so I took mine off carefully, and he wore them as he sawed at it with the scissors from the kit, the too-big glove fingers flopping back and forth. “That is so gross,” he said when the cord was severed.
I wrapped the baby in the cleanest towel, and then there were sirens. An ambulance and a fire truck careened into the parking lot, screeching to a stop beside us. Two paramedics and four firefighters grabbed oxygen tanks and jump kits and blankets and hurried to the van, where Claire had already put the baby to her breast.
“I’ll take one of those blankets, please.” Exhausted, Claire grinned weakly at the men. They all gawked at her, until one of the paramedics snapped to and tucked a blanket around her and the baby, then retrieved a tiny knit cap from the ambulance and snugged it on the baby’s head.
“Hello there,” he said to the baby. “You made a dramatic entrance, didn’t you?”
—
After we saw Claire and the baby off in the ambulance, we put everything back into the van and tossed the bloody towels into the garbage bins. Then we made our way to the hospital in Squamish. I couldn’t drive, so Salix did. I was too stunned. I was too elated. I was too exhausted. I was too shaky. The boys bounced in their seats, shouting at the top of their lungs, and I didn’t even mind.
“Baby! Baby! Baby!”
I stared at my shaking hands.
“That just happened.” Salix put her hand over mine. “It really did. You were amazing. You are amazing.”
“Everything is amazing,” I said under the chanting coming from the backseat. It didn’t matter if Salix heard or not. Either way, it was absolutely true.
By the time we got to the hospital, Claire had already called Dad.
“What did he say?”
“He kept shouting what I was saying to the guys on set. ‘In the parking lot! A girl! Stupid lifeguard! Maeve was brilliant! Everyone’s fine!’ And laughing and laughing. And then he was crying so hard that I told him he had to calm down before he drove up here.”
“Look at her.” I touched her soft, downy forehead. “You surprised me, little one.”
“Want to hold her while I have a shower?”
“Definitely.”
Claire placed the baby in my arms, and then she kissed me on the cheek. “Thank you.”
“You’re the one who had a baby.”
“You did so much. You helped so much. You were so strong. I knew that you had everything under control, and that made it so much easier to just let it happen. I’m so thankful. I love you, Maeve.”
“I love you too, Claire.”
The boys stood on either side of me as Claire walked gingerly toward the shower.
“Can I hold her?”
“No, me first!”
“Both of you will have to wait,” I murmured. “I’m not letting her go.” I could hardly hear the boys arguing as I gazed at the baby. “Look at you.” She was fast asleep, her little lips puckered and rosy. She was here and she was safe and the emergency was over. Perfect fingers. Perfect eyelashes. Pink cheeks. Tiny button nose. Claire’s chin.
Salix took a picture of me and the baby, and I sent it to Mr. Heidelman, and Ruthie, and Mom in Haiti.
Hello, baby!
There was too much to say, about the beach and the parking lot and the back of the van and the slippery new baby in my hands and the ambulance, but I just sent those two words. The rest could wait. For now I just wanted to hold my tiny new sister and marvel at how it had all turned out just fine.
—
When Claire got out of the shower, she went to sign the discharge papers, against the doctor’s orders. A minute later we heard Dad running down the hall.
“Claire? Where are you?”