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  He turned to Emerald as if she could immediately impart information to him. He opened his arms wide in a helpless gesture. “Em, I’ve never seen a child being born before. What’ll I do?”

  “Me, neither, Ace. Just do what they tell you, and keep your cool.”

  “Girl,” he pleaded, “wish me well. Don’t want to mess up.”

  “You’ll do fine. Remember, you’re doing it for her.” And for myself, too, Ace thought as he followed the nurse through the swinging doors. She’s the woman I love, and I must help her. Any way I can.

  Chapter 24

  Standing at the scrub sink, Lisa Hamlin tried to give Ace a crash course in what would be expected of him as a birthing coach.

  “Remember, this is a natural event,” she said. “Happens all the time, all over the world. Your job is to encourage the mother to work in the most efficient way possible. That is, she should follow our instructions, breathe properly to insure that her baby gets oxygen. Help her to count down and to bear down hard when we tell her to. Try to reassure her that she’s doing a super job and that everything is going well. Dr. Kellogg has briefed us all on her history and we want it to be an awesome experience for her. She deserves it.”

  “I agree with that,” Ace said. He dried his hands on a sterile towel that the young nurse had handed him and put on the sterile paper gown and cap.

  “We back into the room. Be careful not to touch anything,” she instructed as she showed him how.

  “Can I touch Elyse?” Ace wanted to know.

  “By all means, hold her hands, wipe her brow. She’s laboring, you know, to do the best job she can.”

  When he walked into the brightly lit room he was almost immobilized by his overwhelming anxiety. He was truly ambivalent about what he was about to do. He des perately wanted to be at Elyse’s side, to show her how much he loved and cared for her. But on the other hand he was scared to death, not only of what he might see, but of how he might react. God help me, he prayed silently.

  It was cool in the room. Steel cabinets lined the walls and steel tables held shiny, lethal-looking instruments lined up with rigid precision. There was the overpowering smell of an antiseptic and a huge lamp above the O.R. table spread a blazing bright light over everything and everyone.

  His eyes went to Elyse lying on the delivery table. He willed himself to focus on her, although he was so frightened he wanted to flee from the scene.

  She turned her head, saw him come close to her, reached out her hand. Her face was wet with perspiration. She was pale and appeared worn and weary.

  “Ace.” Her voice was raspy and harsh. “Ace, help me, please. I can’t do this, I can’t!”

  He bent over to kiss her forehead.

  “Oh, yes you can! We’re going to help you. Believe me, you can do this. I’m sure of it. We’re all here to help, no turning back now.”

  He acknowledged Dr. Kellogg, who was standing at the foot of the table.

  “She’s a trouper. She’s doing well, and I expect some real action within the next few minutes,” the doctor told him.

  Suddenly, as he watched, Elyse’s face took on a strange look. Ace saw her begin to strain and groan. With her left hand she grabbed Ace’s hand as she struggled to bear down and push her baby into the world. The nurse, Lisa, had begun to count, and as she reached “ten,” told Elyse to take a deep breath and prepare for the next contraction. Then the nurse spoke.

  “You’re doing very well, Elyse. Would you like a sip of water?” She pointed to the table beside Ace. Immediately he picked up the paper cup of water, adjusted the straw so that Elyse could take a sip through her parched lips.

  She did so, then dropped her head back on the pillow with a deep sigh. No sooner had she done that than a fresh contraction assailed her body, and again she strained mightily.

  Dr. Kellogg spoke quietly to his patient.

  “You are doing very well, my dear. The head is coming down nicely, and when I tell you to ‘go for it,’ just give us all you’ve got. Okay?”

  Elyse nodded weakly, whimpered a weak “Okay.”

  “Ace, please help me, help me-e-e!” she almost shouted as the pain attacked her.

  “Push! Elyse, push!” Ace said to her, trying to will her to persevere. Sweat was forming on his forehead and his green eyes widened in awe as he saw the baby’s head, covered with dark hair, emerge from Elyse’s body.

  He saw the head rotate. The doctor pulled down and one shoulder emerged. He pulled up and the lower shoulder showed, followed a second later by the baby’s body.

  The doctor made the announcement, “It’s a girl!” and quickly suctioned out the baby’s nose and mouth. When the child’s cry pierced the room, Ace could not help himself. Tears streaming down his face, he bent over and kissed Elyse’s forehead. “You did it! You did it! Elyse, you did it!”

  Lisa brought the wrapped baby to Ace, who placed her in Elyse’s arms. To the tearful, weary mother, he whispered, “Meet your daughter.”

  Ace had never before witnessed or been part of such an emotional event. He felt drained, weak at the knees, but he knew he would have done anything for Elyse.

  With tears in her eyes, she looked at him, cradling her newborn in her arms.

  “Thank you, Ace. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  * * *

  Shaken, disbelieving, awestruck by what he just witnessed, Ace stumbled from the delivery room. Both mother and baby were fine, but Ace was emotionally and physically drained. He gave Emerald the good news.

  “It’s a beautiful baby girl, Em!” His green eyes filled with tears as they hugged each other. “Six pounds, four ounces, with a full head of black hair. She’s a beauty and, Em, her eyes were wide open when she looked at me! Can you believe it?”

  “Oh, Ace, that’s wonderful!” Her eyes filled with tears, she asked, “Elyse okay?”

  “Oh God, yes! Right as rain . . . and happy! She has every right to be, and I’m so proud of her! Em, it took my breath away. It was awesome, no other word for it. What a privilege for me to see a brand new life come into the world. It was like a hidden jewel emerging into the light! I can’t tell you how. How can I explain it? Made me feel like it was a spiritual event. I’ve never had such a moment in my life before.”

  “I envy you, Ace. I really wanted to be there. I feel cheated that I couldn’t be.”

  Ace helped Emerald to stand up with her crutches and they took the elevator to the second floor to Elyse’s room, where they found a beaming new mother. Her baby lay in a bassinet beside her bed.

  Emerald hugged Elyse. “Congrats, girl, I knew you could do it!”

  Then she peered over the bassinet at the baby.

  “Her name is Margaret Joyce,” Elyse told them. “My grandmother’s name. My gram was one strong woman, you know, and I wouldn’t be half of who I am without her. And, of course, Joyce is my maiden name and I want her to have that.”

  “Have you called your folks, honey?” Emerald asked. “They’re due back Saturday. Em, would you call and leave a message?”

  “Sure thing, kid. Anything else?”

  “Yes, there is something else I’d like you to do for me.”

  “Yes?’ Emerald’s eyebrows went up in question marks. “Please find a gold medal to pin on my friend Ace here, who went way beyond the call of duty.”

  Ace lowered his head, smiled and shook his head in a modest gesture. “Aw, ma’am, t’weren’t nuthin’.”

  “Yeah, right,” Elyse mocked with an impish grin. Suddenly, without warning, tears filled her eyes. “What’s wrong?” Ace asked.

  Elyse reached for his hand. Her voice shook; she was overcome by the life-changing experience she had just gone through. She tried to explain.

  “Ace, I, I, well, I will never forget what you did for me. You, you . . .” here her voice broke but she flung away the tears, shaking her head as if she couldn’t get her words out of her mouth.

  “I’ll never forget how you supported me all through th
is. I don’t know how I would have made it, especially right there . . . at the end.”

  Ace bent over, kissed her forehead.

  “Elyse, I wouldn’t have had it any other way, believe me.”

  Chapter 25

  Ace dropped Emerald off at Elyse’s condo. She had come to the hospital by taxi.

  “You know, Ace, Elyse will be coming home tomorrow. You’ll pick her up, won’t you?”

  “By all means.”

  “You have to come to the condo to get the car seat for the baby first.”

  Everything was in order and all went well when Ace took mother and daughter home.

  After leaving the new mother and her baby in Emerald’s care, Ace returned to his own apartment. Sebastian seemed happy to see him, and Ace told him all about the great event.

  “You’re going to love her, old man,” he said to the cat, who purred loudly, seemingly in agreement.

  After he fed the cat and filled his water bowl, he made a chicken sandwich for himself and took a bottle of beer from the fridge. Suddenly he felt weary, bone tired, and it seemed to him that he had been holding his breath for hours. The accumulated tension of the event had drained him. He exhaled slowly and bit into his sandwich. What was going to be his role, if indeed there was to be one, in this new baby’s life?

  He was an only child and both of his parents were dead. His mother, from a heart attack when he was in college, and his dad a few years later from a cerebral hemorrhage. He was just a few years out of grad school, trying to find his place in the world, when that happened. That was when he joined the Peace Corps. Ace always felt that experience saved his life. The new country, new culture, made him feel more able to deal with life’s twists and turns. The people he’d met in Cameroon had shown him how to accept life as it presented itself and still display a willingness to seek new, wider, more fulfilling experiences. He hoped he’d become a better man, better able to deal with the challenges that he faced. Today he wondered as he chewed his food, would this baby become an impediment in his relationship with her mother?

  He took a deep swallow of his beer and he wondered how to win the woman he loved.

  * * *

  Emerald was sitting in Elyse’s bedroom, watching her feed the baby, when the doorbell rang. When she answered the door, a young man said, “For Mrs. Marshall.”

  “Special delivery for Mrs. Elyse Marshall,” Emerald announced.

  She placed the box of flowers beside Elyse and moved the sleeping baby to her bassinet.

  “Here’s the card that came with them.”

  “To the most beautiful new mother in the world,” Elyse read aloud. “It’s from Ace. He’s signed it, ‘With my love and admiration.’ ”

  “Well, open it.”

  “A dozen roses! How thoughtful of Ace.”

  “That’s Ace, all right, one thoughtful young man, ” Emerald said.

  “He wanted me to feel special . . .” Elyse hesitated. “He knew there was no one else to do this for me. Something Barry . . .” Her eyes were moist, shiny with unshed tears.

  Emerald spoke up quickly, as if anxious to deter any negative thoughts Elyse might have.

  “He didn’t do this because Barry might have done it. He did it because he cares about you! Leese, you’ve got to stop thinking about Barry. You’ve accomplished what he wanted. You have given birth to his child, which means that part of him lives on, but now you must think about her and your future. You do have a future, you know. Now, put Barry to rest, you hear me?”

  Elyse blinked away the tears, nodded, “Yes, Em, I hear.”

  * * *

  Elyse’s parents were delighted on their return from their vacation to learn that they had become grandparents for the first time.

  Elyse’s mother insisted that they provide a “live-in” nanny for the baby. Elyse insisted back that a nanny was not needed, but her mother told her, “Girl, you do need help, at least until the baby sleeps all night. And besides,” she said, looking at Emerald, “I know Emerald will be glad to get off that sofa bed.”

  Emerald responded with a brisk high five in Mrs. Joyce’s direction.

  Elyse realized that Emerald had made sacrifices for her and that it was very selfish of her to impose upon her friend longer than necessary, so she relented.

  “Until the baby sleeps through the night, then, Mother. Thanks.”

  * * *

  “Margaret Joyce is surely Barry’s daughter,” Emerald observed, watching Elyse bathe the baby. “There’s no doubt in my mind. It’s like she was cloned. She’s got his smooth chocolate brown skin and that same broad forehead, curly black hair and deep, dark brown eyes. Don’t know where you come in, kiddo, but you’ve got to be somewhere.”

  “Oh, Miss Margaret Joyce has got my family’s stamp on her. Just look at those long fingers and toes, then look at mine!”

  She shucked off her slipper and waggled her toes at Emerald.

  “But you know, Em, I’m delighted that Margaret Joyce Marshall looks so much like her dad. It validates all I went through to get her here.”

  As soon as the baby was bathed, clothed and fed, she was placed in her bassinet and went right to sleep.

  “She’s a good baby. Leese, you’re very lucky.”

  “Em, don’t I know it.”

  “When do you plan on coming back to the store? Not that we’re not doing okay.”

  They were having a mid-morning coffee break. Elyse broke off a piece of her favorite pistachio muffin before she answered.

  “Soon, I believe, Em. The nanny is working out well, thanks to my folks. I’ve got to set up some kind of routine with her, but right now things are good. I’m to see Dr. Kellogg in a few weeks and then I’ll have an idea of when I can come back. I miss the place.”

  “I know. Well, take your time, don’t rush. We can hold the fort a while longer.”

  * * *

  On a bright spring day in May, Branch drove to Suffolk General Hospital to pick up Holly, who had completed her medical-surgical rotation. It was an unexpectedly warm day and Branch opened the sun roof. He relished the benevolent rays of sunshine that soothed him. He noticed the welcome yellow of forsythia bushes that flourished along the green lawns of the hillside area where one of the oldest charity hospitals in the country had been established. Suffolk General, or SGM as it was generally called, was still in operation after more than a hundred years. Started as a hospital ship in Boston Harbor for the patients with infectious diseases, now years later, it took care of some of the city’s most ill, most needy citizens. Medical students from three of Boston’s most prominent medical schools received much of their medical and surgical experiences there.

  Holly had told Branch more than once how privileged she felt to be able to enhance her experiences there. She said, “What you don’t see at SGH is not worth talking about.”

  His response was, “Honest?”

  “No, I’m not kidding,” she said to him. “Boston is a seaport town with seamen and people coming here from all over the world. I understand sometime back a sailor with a case of leprosy came in.”

  “Oh, my God! No!”

  “Yep. But they shipped him right off to the leprosarium in Louisiana.”

  “What’s next?” Branch wanted to know.

  “Well, I’m due back at Prime Care for my work semester. You know, Branch, I’m lucky that Summit University offered a work study cooperative plan. It helps me out a lot, both educationally and financially. I consider myself very fortunate that Ms. Dagleish agreed to let me do it.”

  “Well, I think she’s made an investment in you and your abilities.”

  “Think so?”

  “Like me, she thinks you’re special,” he teased. “What’s your next rotation? You know what it will be?”

  “I will be going to a psych facility at a hospital in a place out on Route 2, about twenty-five miles from Boston.”

  “I’ll be sure to visit you out there. That’s not a problem.” He smiled at her, patted h
er hand. “You’re not getting away from me, kid.”

  Holly grinned back at him. She realized that Branch Adkins was becoming an important person in her life. In fact, she could not imagine her life without Branch being a part of it. How much a part, for the moment, she was not certain. Perhaps, she thought, I should play it cool until after I finish school.

  Today he did look particularly handsome in his camel hair sport jacket, gray flannel trousers and a blazingly white shirt open at the neck. He was wearing black tasseled loafers. She caught the scent of his aftershave cologne, a clean, citrus-like odor that made her think of summer, white sand beaches and pounding, roaring waves of a Caribbean island. She noted his hands on the steering wheel were strong and well cared for. She understood how important his hands were in the operating room. She felt a sudden quiver in her stomach as she fantasized about those warm brown hands on her body.

  And despite the warning of her friend Leola that she’d better latch onto Branch before “some conniving hussy” nabbed him, Holly truly believed that if Branch was to be important in her life, he would be. She was happy with the warm relationship they already shared, and if that was to become something more, then it would. Her grandmother would have said, “What’s to be will be.” Holly believed that.

  Branch took her bag and quickly had her settled in his car. He was glad her next assignment was her work detail at Prime Care. She would be much closer to him there.

  “Thanks for picking me up, Branch.”

  “No problem, m’dear. Glad to be of service.”

  “And I do appreciate it, really I do.”

  She said nothing more, watched as Branch put the car in gear and headed toward Holly’s loft apartment.

  Branch noted how quiet and introspective Holly was, not her usual talkative self. But he knew he’d be wise not to probe. He had the feeling that the news of her father, his marriage to Elyse and the impending birth of their child was on her mind. And he was right.

  Staring out of the car window as Branch drove carefully through the crowded streets, she wondered what part she would have in the child’s life, or whether Elyse Marshall would allow any relationship to take place.