Finding Casey: A Novel Page 16

  So many memories: Dan cutting firewood. Piper and Cricket nickering on cold days when she fixed them a hot bran mash they could apparently smell coming before she walked out back to the barn. She wished she could have brought the horses with her, but they were growing old and used to their life at Solomon’s Oak. Trailering across two states would have been rough on them, not to mention the altitude and climate change. She would have had to board them out, and that was no life for them at their age. Gary was good about e-mailing pictures every week. Soon after he took over Solomon’s Oak, he and Robynn had married, and she was pregnant with twins, due in spring. Glory thought of her dearest friends, Lorna and Juan, the way they decorated the Butterfly Creek General Store with lights at Christmas time, the big party they always threw, complete with a rocking band and more food than anyone could eat. She’d first danced with Joseph there, and felt the first stirrings of love in her broken heart. She and Lorna had shared countless heart-to-heart conversations alongside the riverbank. In Santa Fe Glory was friends with Rico’s widow, Fidela, and had a cup of tea every week with her neighbor, Margaret Yearwood, but it wasn’t the same as being home in a place she’d lived her whole life. Every Christmas she and Joseph sent Lorna and Juan a box filled with homemade jam, jars of green chile, lime pistachios, and sage bundles. As soon as it was safe to travel with the baby, Glory was going to visit with little Casey, or whatever her name turned out to be.

  She stopped to catch her breath, surprised how the slight incline of Canyon Road felt strenuous. It had to be lugging around the baby weight. And darn it, Glory felt a headache coming on. She wasn’t allowed to take her migraine medicine while she was pregnant. Not even a Tylenol. She had planned to walk longer, but felt so tired she made herself turn toward home. Then Dodge spied a child with a sled and barked, lunging forward to play, yanking the leash in her hand so hard that she stumbled in her unzipped boot. “Dodge!” she called out, but it was too late. He’d already pulled the leash in her hand, tipping her off balance, and she had turned her ankle. She took a breath, thankful she hadn’t fallen. The dog went wackadoo in the snow and considered every child playing outside an invitation for him to join in. When she hauled the leash back in, Caddy startled and tried to pull away, so the effort to contain both dogs required all her strength. Just as she cried out, “Enough!” she felt a twinge in her belly, like pulling a muscle. Dodge had forgotten all his manners, Caddy didn’t understand why he was being punished, and Eddie, meanwhile, trotted along like he was above it all, oblivious. She caught her breath, gathered the leashes, and although it made her arms ache, kept everyone on a short rein the rest of the way home.

  They crossed Acequia Madre and arrived back at the house a lot later than she’d thought. Her belly felt tender where she’d pulled that muscle. Her ankle ached a little, but not enough to warrant an X-ray. I won’t tell Joseph, she thought, as she unleashed the dogs and sat down hard on the couch, too tired to pull off her boots. She had to catch her breath again, something that had been bothering her of late, as the baby pressed against her diaphragm. When she felt a strange pull across her belly, she placed a hand there, trying to understand what it was. It didn’t feel like a kick. When it stopped, she managed to toe off her boots. She lay down against the throw pillows and dozed while the dogs stretched out in front of the fire. The next twinge woke her up. Surely it couldn’t be a contraction. She looked at her watch, marked the time, and when another one came fifteen minutes later, felt her heart fill up with dread. Seven months was too early to give birth safely. She picked up the phone and called Dr. Montano’s office. Surely the doctor would say it was nothing, Braxton Hicks, or some other pregnancy phenomenon explained in the books she’d been meaning to read. She told the receptionist what happened, and as expected, Dr. M was busy with a patient. “She’ll call you back,” the woman promised, and Glory hung up. Not even a minute passed before the phone rang.

  “Glory,” she said, “I hear you’re having some discomfort. Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “It’s probably nothing. I walked the dogs and I think I pulled a muscle in my belly.”

  “How much does the dog weigh?”

  “Sixty pounds or so. I had my collie on that side, too, but he only weighs forty pounds at the most. I didn’t fall or anything, but I did stumble, sprained my ankle a little, and there was a sensation, I don’t know. It just felt like a pull. I lay down right away. About a half hour later, I felt it again, just a twinge, then another one, fifteen minutes after that. Three times so far.”

  “Describe the pain.”

  “It isn’t pain, it’s more like pulling. Like someone is yanking me into a corset. I’m sorry to bother you when you’re busy with other patients, it’s just that I figured better safe than sorry.” She forced a laugh.

  “No, you did the right thing. Is Joseph home?”

  “Not yet. I expect him in a couple of hours.”

  “Call him.”

  “All right, but—”

  “Can you ask a neighbor to drive you to the ER?”

  Glory’s neighbor, Margaret Yearwood, had recently been diagnosed with MS and didn’t drive. The neighbors on the other side were snowbirds and had left for the winter. “Dr. M, I’m fine, I can drive myself to your office.”

  “I’d rather you not. I’m calling you a cab right now. I’ll meet you at St. Vincent’s in fifteen minutes.”

  “Do I really have to go to the hospital?”

  “If it turns out to be nothing, what’s the harm? But if it’s a problem, given your age, we need to be extra careful.”

  Here we go again, Glory thought. I’m old, my hair looks like Medusa’s, and any minute I’m going to break out in warts, but worst of all, I endangered my baby to walk dogs. “All right,” she said.

  “Call Joseph. Tell him to meet us there.”

  Glory tried Joseph’s cell phone, but it went straight to voicemail. Coverage in La Cieneguilla was spotty. She left a message, wrote him a note, and taped it to the microwave door, their official message center. She found her purse and a poncho that fit better than the coat, but when it came to putting her snow boots on again, she couldn’t muster the energy. She slid into a pair of slippers and waited by the door, watching for the cab from the window. Only when it arrived did she allow herself to feel frightened. The cab driver came to the door. He was a sweet old man, insisting on helping her into the cab and covering her with a blanket after he latched an extension on her seat belt. “Thank you,” she said. “I need to go to St. Vincent’s ER.”

  “Yes, I know.” He crossed himself and removed the rosary that was hanging on his rearview mirror and placed it in her hands. “We’ll pray to the Holy Mother together,” he said. “No one carries a prayer to the Lord better than Our Blessed Mother. Now try to relax, ma’am. I’m a very good driver and we’ll be at the hospital before you know it.”

  When the next pang came, she was trying not to cry, but the headache behind her eye was now so fierce that she thought one tear might split her head open. What a time for a migraine, she thought; I wonder how bad it will get. At the ER entrance someone was waiting with a wheelchair, silly when she could walk by herself, but she sat down, grateful for the ride. All she had to do was hand over her insurance card and ID. She was whisked into a room straightaway, and transferred to a gurney with the help of a burly male nurse. He took her blood pressure and gasped. “Whoa,” he said. “Doctor wants you to lie down on your left side.”

  “Can’t I lie on my right side instead? That’s the side I sleep on.”

  He looked at her as if assessing whether or not it was really necessary to explain, then launched into an explanation. “The human heart isn’t the best design. Your inferior vena cava is on the right side, which means if you lie down on that side, your heart is forced to pump harder. This automatically elevates your blood pressure.” He paused a moment, and then said, “Your blood pressure is already, shall we say, elevated?”

  “How elevated?”

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sp; “It’s better if we wait for your physician. Try to relax.”

  Why was this happening? Just because she was older? Dodge hadn’t pulled that hard. For the first time ever she wished Dolores would just pack up her crap and move on. This wouldn’t have happened if she’d been able to take her nap. And how ridiculous was it to lie here fuming at a so-called ghost? Not to mention her pounding head.

  Dr. Montano pulled the curtain aside and smiled. “Hey there, Glory.” The male nurse pointed to the BP monitor. “Holy Mother of God,” Dr. Montano said. “Get a monitor around her belly, raise her legs above her heart, and call CT.”

  The nurse nodded. “Her gums are tacky,” he said. “Dehydrated.”

  Not one word of that made sense to Glory. “Speaking of dehydrated, I’m really thirsty. Could I have a drink of water?”

  The male nurse and Dr. M. answered at the same time, an emphatic “No.”

  “Run her IV wide open,” the doctor said.

  “Will do,” the male nurse said.

  “The IV will get you hydrated soon enough, Glory. Later we can try some ice chips, but not right now.”

  “What about my headache?” Glory said. “Isn’t there something you can give me?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Dr. Montano listened to her heart and lungs.

  “Am I in labor?”

  Her doctor smiled while she moved the stethoscope onto her belly. “I don’t think so, but we’re going to watch you carefully.”

  “Then after the IV, I can go home?”

  “Not just yet. I’m going to give you some methyldopa to get your blood pressure down. I’ll need a urine sample to check for albumin.”

  “Egg white?”

  Her no-nonsense doctor exhaled. “Look, I’m not going to mince words. I’m concerned you’re heading into pre-eclampsia, and toxemia usually follows. That worries me much more than a few contractions. Try to relax.”

  Everyone kept saying that, as if she had the power to turn serenity on like a light switch. And those little pulling sensations—how could that be a contraction? “So the baby’s all right?”

  “I think so, but let’s see how the next couple of hours go.”

  “Can I at least sit up?”

  “Sorry, Glory, but I hope you’re comfortable in this position, because you’re going to be on bed rest for a while, maybe even the remainder of the pregnancy.”

  What? How could a couple of twinges deliver her to this state? “Do I have to use a bedpan for the urine sample?”

  Dr. Montano smiled and looked at the nurse. They both chuckled. “First thing every patient asks. No one ever died from using a bedpan. Juan here is going to help you do some relaxation exercises and deep breathing. Work with me, all right? Our goal is total relaxation.”

  “I’m trying,” Glory said, aching with tears she was determined not to shed.

  “Good. Breathe in.” She looked up at the monitors and the cuff around her arm inflated. “Breathe out. Where’s Joseph?”

  “I tried his phone but it went to voicemail. He’s over in La Cieneguilla, helping a friend of ours move. Cell coverage there isn’t great.”

  “Breathe. I seem to recall you saying he used to be a cop here in Santa Fe, is that right?”

  “No, it was Albuquerque. But that was a long time ago.”

  “That is not a deep breath. You can do better. All the way in. Fill up your lungs. Cops have this lifelong bond when it comes to helping each other out. Write down the address for me and we’ll get someone from the police force to drive out there and fetch him. Shut your eyes. Keep up the breathing. He’ll be here before you know it.”

  Dr. Montano left. The blood pressure cuff did its thing. Glory could hear another doctor talking in a low voice to the male nurse. The bedpan arrived via a female nurse, and thanks to all the liquid in the IV, peeing was not a problem, but it still was disgusting to have to perch there like some whale trying to fit into a sardine can. And she was still thirsty. An hour went by with the breathing. The twinges had stopped, but Glory was afraid if she moved they’d start again. When the male nurse came to give her the medicine, he said, “How’s the headache?”

  “Oh, you know. Horrible.”

  “You’re doing great on the breathing. I’ll be right back.” He returned with an iPod and headphones. “Listen to some quiet music, it’ll make you relax and help the time pass.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and as R. Carlos Nakai’s flute drifted into her ears, Glory thought, Juniper would totally make fun of this music. She was dreaming of California, the pull and sweep of the ocean waves, humpback whales blowing air as they surfaced before another deep dive, when Joseph showed up. He pulled a chair close to her gurney. “Shh,” he said when she tried to talk. He straightened her headphones, kissed her hand, and smiled at her like everything was all right. Anyone who’d been a cop for five minutes knew tricks to keep his face impassive, but the rattle of the rosary beads he carried in his pocket said otherwise. She tried to think of it as a kind of backbeat to the flute music, and not for the first time did she wish she could believe in God the way her mother did. When she tried, it was like sitting in the dark by herself, nothing there. She felt the baby turn inside her, but it wasn’t like the twinges, more like getting comfortable because probably she hated lying on her left side, too. The IV dripped into her arm, and her headache was a little bit better now that Joseph was here. I’m right where I’m supposed to be, she told herself, and tried to sleep.

  Chapter 12

  “You’ll be perfectly safe,” Mrs. Clemmons told me when she arrived with a bag of presents this morning, and a box of doughnuts. Ugh, dough, oh, ho, hug, hut. It couldn’t be my birthday from Before, not for this many days in a row. Inside the bag were clothes. New ones, store-bought: three pairs of Jockey underpants in plastic. Plastic was so bad for the environment but did the Outside World care? No. Socks on a plastic sock-sized coat hanger. Where would you hang it? In a dollhouse? Aspen and I built a doll log cabin once, using sticks we gathered and flour-and-paste glue. Seth got mad and threw it in the fire. He said, All that time you spent fooling around with that you should have been cleaning the kitchen. Clean, lean, lace, ace. The sticks caught fire quickly, and Aspen cried while they burned. I put my hand over her mouth and hugged her. We’ll make another one, I whispered that night while we tried to go to sleep. This time we’ll hide it and he won’t ever find it.

  In the bag was a shirt that buttoned instead of my turtleneck that covered my scar. The clothes had that new, bad smell of chemicals that Frances says are slowly killing the earth. There was a brown-and-orange box with shoes called Merrell Jungle Mocs. I don’t know why anyone would need shoes meant for the jungle if you didn’t live in a jungle. The only word I could find inside jungle was gun and I hated guns. It was a crazy lot of presents, but no one ever gives you something for nothing. I lifted out a packet of six pink razors. “Disposable,” the label read. Now there was a word: Pose, pods, seal, sable, plea. No one asked the earth if it minded plastic. Next a new blue hairbrush, with no other hair in it. A purple toothbrush in a wrapper like the razors. A box with toothpaste inside; we used baking soda at the Farm. Suave hair shampoo called Waterfall Mist. Waterfall sounded just like it was in real life, lovely, with a season in there, too, if you capitalized the F in fall. We used bar soap at the Farm. Suave conditioner also called Waterfall Mist. I didn’t remember what conditioner did. The label read, Bring out the natural beauty of your hair with the gentle cleansers and conditioners in the revitalizing scent of clean ocean air! Hypoallergenic. New formula has longer lasting fragrance. Compare to Bath and Body Works. I had never heard of them.

  Clean Ocean Air. Lean, cone, rail. Ace, cane, real. That made me remember the ocean. Blue water white foam brown sand seagulls. Where was the ocean? Can, no, on. Such a big blue roaring.

  Once that came into my mind, I couldn’t read the label anymore. For some reason, it seemed selfish to think of the ocean and have presents while Aspen had a machine bre
athing for her and needles poking her for blood tests and what did all this stuff cost? Nothing is ever free. Ever. People will screw you. It looked expensive. Inside the Jungle box were brown suede shoes. Suede, sued, used, dues. Suede was animal skin, which meant an animal died for it, which was wrong wrong wrong, but the shoes in my hand were the softest things I ever held besides Aspen when she was born, and they were size 7, my size. How did Mrs. Clemmons know? Could she read my mind like Seth could? Do the right thing, even if it’s the hardest thing. I held the bag out for Mrs. Clemmons in her black pants and white blouse and that same pearl necklace she wore every day so far. “I’m sorry but I can’t take these.”

  “Oh? Why is that?” she asked, her silver hair cut short like a man’s, not allowed at the Farm but in the Outside World women are vain, behave like men, don’t know their place, put on a skirt.

  “Because I don’t have any money to pay you back.”

  “I wasn’t expecting you to,” she said.

  When she didn’t take the bag I felt panic in my stomach. “Seth doesn’t allow it.”

  “I see,” Mrs. Clemmons said. “You don’t want to go against Seth. It sounds as if his opinion is very important to you.”

  “He’s the Elder. We love him. I love him.”

  She smiled like she understood. I wanted to say, How can you smile? Who is your leader? What consequences do you get when you don’t follow the rules? Do you get shut into a closet with no place to go to the bathroom? Do you have to fast for three days? Take a stupid sweat? The rocks come alive in there. They turn into people and they know all your sins. I was feeling mean because I was tired. Sleeping sitting up in a chair was hard and the constant beeping of machines made me want to scream sometimes.