When I left Emerson’s film set that day, I knew exactly how mad I was.
There were so many things fighting for position in the forefront of how illogically, inexplicably pissed off I was. I think that term is really vulgar, so when I say it, I’m serious. My sister. My own sister. My flesh and blood. Was playing, on TV, for the world to see, the woman my husband had left me for. It was vile. Despicable. And the media was going to have a heyday with it.
If I could have put myself in Emerson’s shoes, I couldn’t blame her, really. It was a good opportunity for her. It was a starring role in a film with an A-list director. Just because my dream had crapped out, that didn’t mean hers should, too. But I couldn’t put myself in her shoes.
She hadn’t even had the decency to talk to me about it. Emerson would have accepted this role long before she knew that James was cheating with Edie. But if she had sat me down and explained, I would have . . . Well, I would have been livid.
But she was my little sister. I usually cut her more slack than most people. Eventually.
I couldn’t wait to get home and give her a big, fat piece of my mind.
But before I could, I felt this sharp pain in my stomach, one that I recognized all too well. But I was thirty-seven weeks. I was sure it was Braxton-Hicks, my body preparing itself for the real thing.
The pain was getting sharper. And fast. I was going to call my mom, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to worry her yet—and I especially didn’t want to worry Vivi. So I did something I couldn’t have imagined: I called James. I wanted him to worry.
“Hello,” he answered breathlessly.
“I am not forgiving you, and I do not want to be with you, but I’m pretty sure I’m in labor.” I groaned. “And it feels really strange. Not like last time at all.”
We’ve established how I feel about hospitals, but like I said, once the grand event was actually taking place, I ran right in, because, you know, I didn’t want the baby to fall out on the floor. I was less acutely aware of the germs but more aware of the horrid fluorescent lights.
Before James even arrived, the doctor confirmed that the baby was breech and he was performing a C-section stat. This baby was coming, ready or not.
I was kind of whimpery, because my midwife, Hummus, who would be flying in next week to wait until the baby arrived, wasn’t there, and I wanted a normal birth, and it was three weeks early, and all of that. So I give James a tiny amount of credit for taking care of everything, for scrubbing in and wearing that ridiculous hat and mask.
He held my hand and looked down and brushed my hair off my sweaty forehead and said, “Car, I know you don’t want to hear it, but I love you so much. I’m so proud of you. I’m so grateful for all of this.”
He was right. I didn’t want to hear it. What I did want to hear was how my baby was. “Everything OK down there, Doc?” I asked.
Right about that time, I heard this unfathomably beautiful cry, and he didn’t even have to announce what the baby was, because before I saw baby, I saw some sort of yellowish liquid flying through the air. Yeah. So that pipe dream that maybe my kid wouldn’t pee on me like Sloane’s was not going to come true after all. One minute in the world, and he’d already started.
“Oh, my gosh! It’s a boy!” James said. “I was sure it was another girl.”
I tried not to feel resentful that James got to hold my son first. He didn’t deserve it. But I was tired and happy and relieved, so I let it go. James held the baby up to my face, and I kissed him. “Hi, Preston. Welcome to the world.”
“Is he OK?” I asked the doctor.
“He’s absolutely perfect,” the nurse said. “He’s all yours, Mom.”
By the time the nurses were wheeling the bed holding Preston and me—he was now cuddled up to my chest where he belonged—my very surprised family was in the waiting room. When they saw me coming down the hall, I heard Vivi first. “The baby is already born?” she asked.
“Sure is, kiddo,” James said. “You have a baby brother!”
“Can I hold him, Mom?” Vivi asked.
My mom walked over and took Vivi’s arm. “Sweets, let’s let Mom get settled in her room, OK?” Then I heard her say, “James, you make sure that vile curtain is gone. Sprint!”
I couldn’t help but remember when Vivi was born, what a perfect day that had been. James and I had been so happy, so in love, and I had been certain that we were going to have the best life together. Nothing could come between us, nothing could hurt us. But something had. Irreparably, I was afraid. And so, while I was ecstatically in love with my new son, I was also worried about what his life was going to look like. I could already say that no matter what some judge said, James was not getting my baby every other weekend. That was not happening. Not a chance.
I didn’t know that tears were running down my cheeks.
“Are you in pain?” James asked.
“I most certainly am,” I said. “I want you out.”
“But Caroline—”
“Out, James. I mean it.”
“He’s my baby, too.”
“You should have thought about that,” I said coldly.
He made a face like I had crushed his hopes and dreams. Please. Shoulders slumped, James left, and I smelled the sweet top of my son’s head. I knew my whole family was going to come into the room in a minute. But for now, he was all mine. No one else’s. And no matter what happened with James and me, no matter what sacrifice I’d had to make to get Preston here, it had all been worth it for this one, perfect moment.
NINETEEN
plain and simple
ansley
Carter and I found out he couldn’t have children during a visit to Peachtree. I remember standing in my grandmother’s kitchen, dialing the doctor’s office on her rotary phone—it was 1982, after all—my heart beating louder with every click-click-click the dial made as it returned to zero. Devastated doesn’t begin to describe how we felt, but we held it together pretty well. I gained so much respect for Carter, because he didn’t let it wound his pride. He didn’t act diffident or moody or let it make him feel like less of a man. He simply suggested that we go back to the drawing board. We agreed pretty much immediately that we’d use a sperm donor.
I expected to have a hospital stay after my IUI—a term I much preferred to “artificial insemination.” But I expected it to come about nine months later, not in two days. When I started feeling pain in my uterus, I was thrilled. I knew something was happening. I thought that something was a baby, not a massive infection that would soon cause my low-grade fever to spike to almost 104 and make me spend more than a week in the hospital, much of which I don’t remember.
Carter never left my side. And he never said anything about the baby.