Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [128]
“Horseshit,” he said. “You’ll go to a hospital.”
“But that’s so pasteurized. And anyway, it costs too much.”
But he was adamant. “Crap. That’s not your reasons. You want to have the experience. I’ve read some of that crap, too. You want to have the kid naturally, nature’s way, like a goddamn Indian squaw, so’s the kid will really be yours, so’s you’ll really understand the magical process of birth. Bullshit on that. Do you think that’s the only way to learn how to love the kid? Do you think it’ll be any more your kid if you go through agony for it? If you love it, you love it. That’s all. Don’t think of yourself and your experience, and how good it’ll be for you to feel it; think about the kid. He’s the one gettin born, not you. He’s the one the safety, the sterilization, and all that stuff’s for, not you. Well, it’s for you, too. Do you want to risk your life and his for the sake of a goddam experience?”
“You just don’t understand! It’s how a woman feels, if she’s a real woman!”
“Are you in doubt? If so, tough shit. My kid’s gonna be born in a hospital. Period.”
“You’re just frightened. You can’t face the responsibility. Maybe subconsciously, you can’t face the responsibility of having children at all. Maybe you’re not ready.”
“I’ll face anything I have to face; but I’m goddamned if I’ll go out looking for it. Shit, yes, I’m frightened. So what?”
“I’m the one that has to have the baby! I’ll have it where I please!”
And so she did. Nothing he said, from ridicule to outright rage, could change her mind, and at last he gave in, half-expecting her to get apprehensive and decide on the hospital after all. But she didn’t. She had the baby in their bed, attended by a doctor, a nurse, and Jack. The nurse made Jack leave the bedroom while she prepped Sally—which he couldn’t understand, since he was to be there for the “grand opening,” as Sally called it. The doctor arrived about an hour later, a small reflective man who did not seem to think that anything was out of the ordinary. During the waiting period he and Jack sat in the living room and drank coffee and talked about Russian literature. Jack had been reading the Russians, on Sally’s sly recommendation, and a few library volumes were scattered around the room. It turned out that the doctor liked Chekhov best, perhaps because he had been a doctor, and Jack preferred Dostoyevski, perhaps because he had done time. Jack and the doctor agreed that Russian literature was “full of life.”
The actual birth of the child was slow and easy, but very painful to Sally. Her face was pale and wrinkled with pain. Jack, standing there holding her hand, did not know what to do with his eyes. He did not want to watch the baby coming out, and yet he could not bear to look at her face. He compromised on the doctor’s face until the baby actually began to emerge, and then there was no question of looking away. Jack felt anguish, but he felt much more than that, as if the dream were over and life was suddenly real; an experience of such immensity that he could only stand transfixed and watch his child being shoved out into life. Sally did not cry after the child started coming; her only sounds were determined grunts; and when the baby was free and the mess started coming out, she gave a sigh, not of relief but of accomplishment, and Jack looked at her face. She looked sleepy. He heard the vigorous slap, and turned to see an unlovely mess, all balls and slime, hanging down from the doctor’s hand, and braying faintly with life. As Jack watched, a tiny stream of urine sprang from the child and wet the front of the doctor’s gown.
“He’s a beauty,” the doctor said. “The good ones always pee on me.