The Summer of '98 Read online

  I was in labor for three hours. I couldn’t move from the bed. The contractions became worse and worse, longer and far more painful, before I was eventually instructed to push. The nurses stood at the foot of the bed, where the doctor was seated and waiting. He peered up at me, but I couldn’t see straight. I was exhausted. “Push Ellie,” he shouted with encouragement. “Push for me.”

  Leroy leaned down and ran his fingers through my damp hair as he murmured with a loving tone. “You can do this, Els. I’m here. I’m right here. You can do this.”

  I gripped his hand and sat up, putting as much as I could behind a push. I took a deep breath and started again, repeating the action until the doctor told me to stop. “We have a head! Just hang on while I check for a cord, okay? Don’t push again until I give the go.”

  It was almost impossible, but I resisted the urge to push for a few moments before he shouted for me to go again. So, I did, pushing with all that I had until I felt the pressure relieve and the most precious noise filled the entire room. The piercing cries of our baby.

  “Come and cut the cord, Leroy,” the doctor said. “We have a little man here.”

  I felt tears falling down my cheeks as I listened to the sweet cries of our little Drayton. Leroy rushed over and cut the cord before the nurse carried him over to the little station in the corner of the room to do their checkups. I wasn’t offered a lot of downtime before the doctor told me that the next one was on her way out. The entire process began all over again and when she came out, piercing screams and all, I was a mess. I couldn’t stop crying with the most overwhelming sense of joy and exhaustion that I had ever felt.

  “Mark down 9:33 p.m. and 9:47 p.m. on the twelfth of January,” the doctor called out, “nineteen ninety-nine.”

  Plump pink lips, skin softer than silk, innocence exuding from their small bodies. After their arrival, the doctors needed to put the twins on a machine to ensure that their lungs were working. They both needed a little bit of help as they weren’t fully developed yet. And we would be here for a while before we could go home. But we were allowed to cuddle, so we were making the most of it.

  Leroy sat beside me on the edge of the bed and held Abigail in his arms, her five-pound frame wrapped in pink swaddle while I held Drayton, the little blue bundle of perfection. I couldn’t get over how beautiful they both were. How something so delicate and fragile could hold so much power. I’d never felt this sort of sense of protection or determination before.

  Leroy never stopped watching Abigail. He talked to her, his hushed voice telling her what a sweet little angel she was.

  Their lips moved, their little tongues peeping out as they yawned and squeaked. I giggled at the way Drayton opened his eyes, slowly blinking and staring up at me. My heart had never been so full.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Leroy said, watching me with a sincere gaze. “You did an outstanding job and I will never be able to express with words how proud and how in love with you I am.”

  My lip quivered as he leaned across and kissed me, stealing the air in my lungs and giving me life, all at the same time.

  Childbirth is exhausting. You hear about it, the toll that it takes on your body and the fatigue that lingers afterward. Still, I wasn’t prepared for how hard it would be to wake up again once I fell asleep. Leroy was a huge help overnight. The nurses were so impressed with how attentive he was. He jumped as soon as the twins cried; he helped me latch them onto the breast since I could barely open my eyes. He changed their diapers. He cuddled them back to sleep. Apparently, they didn’t do much of anything anyway, just eating and sleeping. The nurses liked to remind us that regardless of what people said about newborns, this was the easiest part.

  Eleanor and Jacob arrived sometime after lunch the next day, I was in the middle of pulling my hair into a new bun. It didn’t seem to matter how many times I redid it, my hair felt all wrong. I needed a shower more than anything and I’d been hoping to have had one before they arrived. All my worry disappeared when I saw Eleanor with an armful of extravagant gifts with big bows and satin wrapping. Of course she would go right overboard.

  “Oh sweetheart,” she stopped at the foot of the bed, Jacob close behind her, beaming. “You look beautiful. Glowing.”

  That had to be a lie, but I appreciated it nonetheless.

  “Leroy,” she demanded her son’s attention, looking at the side-by-side bassinets where Drayton and Abigail were sleeping. “Come and take these gifts so I can get those beautiful babies in my arms.”

  He grabbed them from her and set them on my lap as Jacob and Eleanor went for the babies. Leroy sat on the bed beside me and we made quick work of tearing wrapping paper open.

  “Ooh,” Jacob chuckled as he scooped Drayton up. The five-pound bundle looked microscopic in his hold. “Look at that. Most newborns look like wrinkled toes. These ones are beautiful.”

  Leroy laughed. “Wrinkled toes?”

  “This is lovely,” I held a box, the picture on the front was of a mobile, one with baby animals on it, glowing animals with dozens of different tune options. “Thank you.”

  “How is the feeding going?” Eleanor asked, rocking from side to side, her enthralled stare on Abigail. “They latching okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s going great, actually. Leroy was amazing last night. He helped get them on and he got them back to sleep and I think he’s had less sleep than I have.”

  Her expression was one of absolute pride when she looked at Leroy. It was a look that I’d become familiar with. In fact, that smile might have been my favorite of hers because it mirrored how I felt about him and how I felt about the sort of man and father he was shaping up to be.

  “Oh,” she gasped. “What are their names? I can’t believe we haven’t asked that.”

  Leroy and I shared a look of excitement because we’d been waiting for them to ask. “That’s Drayton Jacob Lahey,” he said, and we watched his father’s lips press together, emotion evident, “and that’s Abigail Eleanor Lahey.”

  The room fell quiet; both Eleanor and Jacob seemed overwhelmed. “Well, that is . . . that’s a big honor.” Eleanor sucked in a sharp breath and smiled, teeth baring and all. “Beautiful names. Drayton and Abigail. Just beautiful.”

  Leroy draped his arm across the pillow behind me. “Where’s Noah?”

  “He’s at school, honey. He wanted to come but he had an important exam that he couldn’t miss. He did want us to pass on some good news, though.”

  “He got accepted to Baylor?” Leroy guessed and Jacob lit up, nodding with excitement. “Good for him. That’s . . . good. He must be pleased.”

  “He is,” Eleanor was oblivious to the strain in Leroy’s tone. Leroy didn’t want to come across as though he didn’t want Noah near him, but the space had definitely helped their relationship. There were more phone calls, and when we did see Noah, the get-togethers were generally pleasant. Leroy was nervous that being together again would push them back into old habits, but it wasn’t as if they were going to be under the same roof. I wasn’t as worried as he was.

  “What about Cass?” I asked. “Has she heard back?”

  Eleanor’s smile slipped. “She wasn’t accepted. Quite an unfortunate thing, but I’ve tried to tell them that it might not be so bad. There are other colleges, and besides, I don’t think them being apart would be so terrible. I think they’ve both got a lot of growing to do, and it might be best done alone.”

  “You didn’t actually say that to them?” Leroy said, bewildered. “It’s not as if they would listen.”

  “No, I didn’t say that part out loud,” she said and ran her finger down Abigail’s soft cheek. “I was just thinking it. I love them both, but I don’t know that I love them together. Still, it’s their relationship. I won’t be the one telling Noah how to navigate it.”

  “He’ll get there,” Jacob murmured. I could hear the smile i
n his voice as he kept his stare directed on Drayton. “He’ll no doubt get to college, get focused, and realize that there are some priorities to get in order. He’s a smart kid. He’ll be fine.”

  “Speaking of priorities,” Eleanor cooed as Abigail began to get restless in her hold, “I think we should consider moving back to Waco so that we can see these little darlings every day.”

  Jacob chuckled. “Leroy and Ellie don’t want us in their faces every day. We’ll come and visit every other weekend.”

  “Every other weekend?” Leroy said, but there was no chance that I would turn that sort of offer down right now. Having helping hands around the house while the twins were brand new would be incredible. Not to mention, I loved his parents as if they were my own. I could never tire of their company and I know Leroy couldn’t either, which is why he smiled and said, “That sounds perfect.”

  Ellie

  Fitting a single stroller through the aisles in Target would be a challenge—even shopping cart jams happened from time to time—so when I tried to move the double stroller through the baby clothes aisle and bumped the wheel into a stand of pacifiers, causing them to spill all over the floor, I wasn’t surprised. Embarrassed, but not surprised.

  “Sorry,” I said to a store assistant who came jogging over to help me clean up.

  “Don’t be,” she said. Her name tag read Yuke. “These aisles are not practical for strollers at all. Which is ridiculous considering this is the baby department.”

  We made quick work of picking up the pacifiers and Yuke told me that she would organize them properly herself. “Twins,” she whispered with awe, peeping into the stroller at my two swaddled bundles, a beanie on each head. “How old are they?”

  “Three weeks,” I pulled the awning back to make sure they were still sleeping. Yep, snoozing, oblivious to the rest of the world. It made shopping a lot easier when they were out to it.

  Yuke stood up straight, lips parted. “So young. You should be at home, sleeping when they do.”

  Unsolicited advice was a given at this point. This was the third time I had left the house with them since they’d been born but I’d been told what I should be doing as a parent far more than three times.

  “I had to get some thermals,” I said. “It’s hard to find preemie-size clothing, though. They’re too small for most of the outfits that I bought before they were born.”

  “Oh,” Yuke gestured for me to follow her. “We have a small range, you’re right, it’s hard to find little clothes. How big are they?”

  “Just over six pounds.”

  She looked at me over her shoulder as I tried to keep up with her, being careful not to crash the stroller again. “So little!”

  “They were five weeks early.”

  She stopped beside a rack of clothes that were hidden in the back corner of the Newborn section. She wasn’t kidding when she said the selection was small—there wasn’t much to it at all—but I did manage to get them a button-up thermal each and some microsized socks. The weather was cold outside, so I threw the rain cover over the stroller and walked back to the car as quickly as I could. Leroy was at classes this morning, I’d dropped him off so that I could use the car and he’d get a ride home with a friend later. Loading the twins into the car was a marathon of its own. Untangling them from their swaddles, strapping them into the rear-facing seats, tucking the blankets over them, collapsing the stroller and hoisting it into the trunk. I was exhausted when I finally dropped into the driver’s seat.

  When we got home, the process began all over again, in reverse. The parking lot was behind the apartment building, so I couldn’t take them in one at a time. I had to put them in the stroller, blankets, rain cover, inside, unload.

  “Momma is so tired,” I huffed, setting them down on the living-room floor at a safe distance from the heater. Drayton was waking up, gurgling, kicking his strong little legs. It would be time for a feed any minute, but I quickly raced over to the stereo and switched on the CD player so that there was some background noise.

  Before I could grab the tri pillow that I used to rest them on during feeding, there was a solid knock on the door, which was strange because the only people who visited were back in Colorado until next weekend. I wasn’t sure who to expect but it certainly wasn’t the woman standing on the other side of the door when I opened it.

  “Mom?”

  “Hi,” she said, clutching her purse tightly against her side.

  Shock rendered me frozen. I stared at her, noticing how different she looked. Her hair was short now, chopped into a pixie cut. She was thinner and overall looked more vibrant. Younger. Which shouldn’t have disappointed me, but whenever I thought about Momma without me, after all that had happened, I imagined her miserable, drowning in guilt for how things had been left between us.

  “What are you doing here?”

  She seemed nervous, pointing over her shoulder. “I saw you at Target and I . . . well . . . I was hoping that we could talk?”

  “Did you follow me here?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. I wanted to approach you in the store but I was—well, I was nervous. I can go if this isn’t a good time.”

  The twins started fussing from the living room, little cries and gurgles, and Mom’s curious stare went over my shoulder. As stubborn as I wanted to be about the situation, as much as I wanted to stand my ground and let her know that I was still upset, the need to hear what she had to say outweighed all else. The truth was, I’d missed her and I hoped that she was here with something positive to say.

  “Come in,” I stood aside. “I have to feed the twins before I can offer you a coffee. Go straight through to the living room.”

  All of her movements were slow and cautious. She looked around, head twisting and turning as she moved into the living room, and then her focus fell to the twins on the floor and she wore an expression that I’d never seen before. Awe, admiration, regret. It was hard to tell which one she was feeling the most.

  “Take a seat if you want,” I said, gesturing at the sofa.

  She was still clutching her purse as she lowered herself into the sofa, watching as I tucked the tri pillow around my waist. One at a time, I picked the twins up off the floor, put them on the sofa a few feet apart and then I sat down between them. Drayton went on first, his torso and legs tucked around my waist—he was the most impatient and made a lot of noise if he didn’t get fed as quickly as possible. Abby went on next, in the same position on the other side. They latched on and I listened to their guzzling and quick breathing through their noses.

  “You’re doing well,” Mom said after a few minutes of deafening silence. She watched the twins, their tiny fists balled up on my chest. “It’s just you here?”

  I wasn’t sure if she was questioning my relationship status but I felt defensive nonetheless. “Leroy is in class right now. He has—”

  As if he’d been summoned, the front door swung open. “Els? I’m home. Have the twins been fed yet? Sorry, I tried to get back on time to help but our professor had some riddle that he wanted us to think about overnight. You might be able to—”

  His sentence dropped off as he walked into the living room, his gaze moving between Mom and me.

  “Hey,” I smiled, the awkward tension in the room was magnified. “This is my mom, Sandra. Mom, this is my fiancé, Leroy.”

  “Fiancé?” Mom quietly said to herself while Leroy stared at me as if to say, what the hell? I shrugged, equally as confused. “It’s nice to meet you, Leroy.”

  “You too,” he rested his hands on his hips. “Have they had enough to eat?”

  The twins had fallen into a milk coma, their lips detached from the nipple while little drizzles of white ran down their cheeks. “Yeah. They need to be changed, though.”

  “I’ve got it,” he said and darted forward so that I could put a twin on either of his big strong forearms.
He could carry them both at the same time with no issue at all. After he gave me a quick kiss, he disappeared to our bedroom and shut the door.

  Silence ensued again and it was making me somewhat restless. Every time I opened my mouth to initiate conversation, the words got caught in my throat, or a blank wave washed over my mind and thinking of any words at all seemed impossible. Surely, she hadn’t shown up here just to sit there and say nothing at all.

  “He seems like a very young nice man,” Mom said so suddenly that it startled me. “Very involved.”

  “He is,” I said, playing with the frill on the edge of the tri pillow. “He’s at college but he’s still really hands-on around here. He comes home during his breaks and he helps at night.”

  “And you’re engaged.”

  “He proposed last summer. He’s pretty eager to get married but we’re waiting for the right time.”

  Her stare drifted, it became distant and sad.

  “Mom, what are you doing here?”

  “Your father came into the store a couple of weeks ago,” she said and the ground fell out from beneath me. “He was asking after you.”

  “What? My . . . father. He was asking after me?”

  She inhaled a deep breath and nodded. “He claimed it had taken him far too long but it was about time he had some involvement. He wanted to know where you were and how he could contact you.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I told him that you were out of town and I’d talk to you,” she dropped her gaze and her voice took on a slight tremor. “I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t know where my daughter was or how to contact her.”

  She sniffled and swiped at her cheek, leaving me with this sinking feeling in my stomach. Seeing Momma cry was something I hadn’t witnessed a lot in my lifetime, but it was hard no matter the occasion.

  “Seeing him,” she said. “Reminded me of a decision that I’d made a long time ago. The decision to raise my daughter the best I could, despite being left in the lurch by that man. He walked away, he chose not to love you, and I knew it was up to me to do better.”