Talking About My Baby. Margot Early

hospital politics.

      Francesca appreciated the risks. For years, she’d kept all homebirths within five minutes of the hospital, attending women at the Victorian if they lived too far from town. The more she saw, the less sorry she was to work in the hospital.

      Until she actually worked in the hospital.

      I am so tired of all this. Maybe it was time to quit, or take up nursing full-time.

      “Did they leave?” Tara asked, knowing the answer.

      “He’s ordered the epidural and monitor. I’m going back to see how she’s doing.”

      “We’ll come with you.” She and Laura.

      “Tara, it won’t help. Please go home and sleep. You need it. And Laura needs you.”

      “If Millie doesn’t mind, I’d like to stay. I’ll wait till the boys have done their thing and left, so we won’t crowd the room.”

      Tara’s dark eyes were eager, yet failed to hide her fatigue. Francesca knew this aspect of her daughter too well. Tara relied on births for some kind of spiritual recharge. But now she needed physical recharge.

      “Tara, you’re trying to produce milk, and you need rest for that.”

      Her mother was right. But Tara longed to see Millie’s labor through to its magical conclusion. There was nothing more intense, more complete, than birth. It fulfilled something in her that nothing else ever would. Except, perhaps, Laura.

      “I’m really wide-awake, Mom.”

      Francesca knew that was untrue. But Tara was an adult. “Millie asked where you went.” She sighed. “Let’s go see how she’s doing.”

      

      THE BABY’S HEAD crowned four hours later. Francesca caught the head when it emerged, and Tara guided Millie’s hands toward her child. She remembered Laura’s birth, Julia’s apathetic eyes. But there was nothing like this joy. The experience of meeting a person never met before.

      No cord. More pushing.

      “Ahhh... ahhh... ”

      “Hey, you handsome guy.” Admiring the newborn—and double-checking Francesca’s quick suctioning—Dan smiled at Millie and her husband. “This one’s going to play for the Broncos.”

      “My baby! Oh, sweet baby!”

      In the bliss of seeing mother and child, Tara could even feel warmth for the obstetrician, could even appreciate that he was smiling over the newborn. She settled in a chair at the edge of the room and savored the experience of the birth.

      But her eyes dropped shut.

      Snow...

      Walking with Isaac. He asked her why she’d become a midwife.

      It’s what I am. It’s all I am.

      There are other parts of you.

      They’d stopped, and he touched her.

      “Tara.”

      Her eyes opened. It was her mother. Laura slept in the car seat at Tara’s feet, while Millie Rand dozed on the bed, her newborn in a bassinet beside her.

      No Isaac.

      Just herself, aroused by a dream of him.

      Francesca spoke softly. “Time to go home.”

      Silently, Tara gathered her things. As she lifted the car seat, Laura’s eyes opened. Don’t cry. Carrying the baby and her diaper bag, Tara slipped through the door with her mother. Outside the suite, in the bright lights of the hall, Francesca said, “I didn’t want to waken you.”

      While Tara paused to transfer Laura to the sling, Francesca collected the car seat.

      The clock at the nurses’ station read five-thirty, and Pilar was talking to the nurse on the next shift. Moving on, Francesca and Tara waved, and she waved back.

      “Thank you for the sleep, Mom.” Tara covered her yawn with her hand.

      Francesca caught her peering up and down the halls. “What are you looking for?”

      Tara hid any reaction in drowsiness. “The way out.”

      

      BY THE FOLLOWING afternoon, her plan was set in stone.

      She wanted to adopt Laura legally, and she knew the other midwives at the birth center in Sagrado would help her. But in her case, the authorities would insist on a prerequisite. A husband.

      Tara didn’t have time to “fall in love,” as her mother had suggested the other night. It would take a century. But a “suitable” man to marry lived two miles away, and she had the tool to bribe him. Herself. She could care for his children, and she could clean that chalet. Isaac wouldn’t be likely to toss his new mother-in-law out in the street, either.

      Are you crazy, Tara? What made her think he’d marry her because he needed childcare—or a housekeeper? As far as she knew, he didn’t even like her. His brother was a better choice.

      No.

      It had to be Isaac. He’d said they could talk again....

      And, in some way she couldn’t define, he seemed safe.

      Stretching out with Laura on the downstairs couch, preparing for a half-hour nursing session, she said, “Yes, kiddo, I’ve got it figured out.”

      Francesca, who’d been working on an article for a midwifery journal at her computer, asked, “What have you figured out?”

      “How to adopt Laura.”

      When Francesca turned her chair and waited, Tara realized her mother expected the whole story. “I’ll explain after I know it’s going to work.”

      “Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

      “Because you’re a pessimist. Millie Rand’s baby could have been born at home, and we both know it.”

      “That was a smooth change of subject, Tara. How are you planning to adopt Laura?”

      “You’ll feel better about it once it’s accomplished. Hey, do you care if I carve those pumpkins on the counter?”

      Francesca hid her alarm. “More pie?”

      “Pumpkin bread.”

      “Not for Isaac?”

      “The way to a man’s heart.”

      Francesca was aghast. When she’d imagined Tara finding a husband, it was something that would happen slowly. Friendship blossoming to love. But not with—

      This was a disaster. She didn’t know why, but it was. That reserve of Isaac’s was strong, as strong as Tara’s outgoing passion. He had lived in Rwanda, and his wife had somehow died in Rwanda—and Tara was so...heedless. She and Isaac McCrea were loaded freight trains that ought to pass on separate tracks. Instead, they were going to collide.

      When she abruptly remembered Tara and Isaac sitting together in the waiting room at the hospital, Francesca realized something had already begun.

      And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

      

      “ISAAC, ARE YOU really all right?” Dan asked for the second time since Isaac had called, after his return from Silverton.

      “Sure. Mom’s giving me a breather this weekend. I’m stronger than I look.”

      “Yeah, right. What stunted my growth anyway?” Dan was six-one.

      “I’ll die sooner.”

      “I think Tara prefers you.”

      Well, he hadn’t had to say her name first.

      “You