The two of them seemed to be everywhere at once, and when the next push finished bringing a squalling baby into the world, they had the right equipment to cut the cord, wrap the newborn in a clean blanket, and hand her to the mother. Just like that, it was over, and Addy felt cheated that she hadn’t got to finish the job.
“You the father?” One of them looked at Jesse.
“No, this man right here is.” Jesse patted Walter on the back. “Go on with her.”
“My car?” he moaned. “I’m so, so sorry for all this. A skunk ran across the road, and I swerved to miss it. I didn’t want Gloria to have to smell that all the way to the hospital.”
“I understand,” Jesse said. “Where do you live? I’ll call a wrecker and have them take it to your front yard.”
“Thanks, man. I live in Dodd City just a block off the highway. I own Walter’s Auto Shop. Just have them put it there, and send me the bill,” Walter said as he crawled into the ambulance.
“We’ll send another one for you folks,” the paramedic said.
“Don’t bother.” Addy waved him away. “We’re all fine.”
The ambulance sped away and Mia sat flat down on her butt. “Did that really happen or am I having a nightmare? I can’t ever do that, Mama. I just can’t.”
“You’ve pulled calves and helped alpacas and sheep. Birthing is birthing,” Addy told her.
“No way. You’ll have to adopt your grandbabies,” Mia told her.
“You’ll change your mind, and don’t you ever say that in front of Pearl and Sonny,” Addy said.
“Why?” Mia rubbed her shoulder.
“Think about it.” The adrenaline rush dissipated and left Addy feeling flat. She sat down on the side of the road and put her head between her knees.
“Oh! Because they adopted their three boys.” Mia dropped down beside her mother. “Are you all right, Mama? Did you bump your head? Jesse, call the hospital, and tell them to send that other ambulance.”
Jesse whipped around and dropped to his knees in front of Addy. He cupped her cheeks in his big hands and raised her head. “I don’t think you have a concussion, but it would be good to get all of us checked.” He started to get his phone out of his shirt pocket.
Addy reached up and touched his hand. “I’m fine. It was just the adrenaline leveling out. I’ve delivered babies, but never on the side of the road and without some decent supplies. I can’t tell you what all went through my mind.”
“But you were so calm,” Mia said.
“So were you and Jesse, but I could tell y’all were on edge,” Addy said. “I’m fine. Don’t call an ambulance. We’re probably all going to have seat belt bruises, but we don’t need to go to the hospital for that. They’ll heal in time.”
Mia rubbed her shoulder again and stared at the two vehicles. “What if we both hadn’t swerved? We could have had a head-on crash. Jesse, you were wonderful during all of it.”
“It was all instinct and training,” Jesse said.
At the thought of perhaps losing Mia and Jesse in a split second, Addy’s hands began to tremble, and tears dammed up behind her eyes. She refused to cry. Mia needed a strong mother at times like this. “Jesse, you better call that wrecker, and then call Henry,” she said. Planning always made her feel in control. “Start out by telling him that we’re all fine, but to let the folks know what’s happened. If they see a wrecker coming down the lane, Sonny’s liable to have a heart attack.”
“Good idea.” Jesse whipped out his phone and made the calls.
Mia draped an arm around her mother. “What if something like that would have happened when Ricky and I were going to Las Vegas? He drove so fast that it scared me sometimes, and he even played chicken a few times with folks on the road.”
Addy opened her mouth, but words wouldn’t come out past the tightness in her throat and in her chest. Finally, she managed to say, “Thank God, you came to your senses and came home.”
“But that’s just the thing, Mama. I didn’t come to my senses. I would still be with him if he hadn’t left me. He had that kind of power over me. He made me believe that it was my sole duty on earth to please him. How can a person do that to someone that they keep saying they love?” Mia asked.
Jesse finished making his calls and sat down on the other side of Mia. “I heard the last of what you said, honey. That’s not love. It’s manipulation and control. Ricky is a con man, and he’ll only get worse as he gets older.”
“Until today, if he’d called me and asked me to meet him somewhere, I would have gone,” Mia admitted.
“What changed your mind today?” Jesse asked.
Mia picked at the green grass around her and hesitated so long that Addy thought she was going to ignore the question. The only noise around them was a rangy old bull who had come up to the pasture fence on the other side of the ditch. Every few minutes he snorted loudly as if telling them to get away from his area.
“In that instant when I didn’t know if we were going to live, I realized that Ricky had carved away so much of who I am, that the wrong person was about to die,” Mia finally said. “Does that make sense?”
“More than you’ll ever know,” Jesse answered.
She swiped a tear away with the back of her hand. “I don’t want to be remembered as that girl he created, but as the girl who had a backbone and made her own decisions. I wish I’d never gotten this tattoo, but it will always remind me to never think that I have to…” She wiped another tear. “…to do anything a guy wants me to do to be his girlfriend. I’m just lucky he ran away with that other girl. I hated her at first for taking him from me. Now I feel sorry for her.”
Addy hugged her tightly. “I’d send her a thank-you card if I knew her name.”
“He’d better stay out of Honey Grove for a long time,” Jesse said through clenched teeth.
“I hear a truck coming around the curve.” Mia pointed. “That didn’t take long, and, Jesse, he’s not worth going to jail over. We need to forget him and move on.”
The sound of a big truck filled the air, and then the wrecker came around the slight curve and stopped. A bald man with a full gray beard opened the door and yelled, “Which one you want me to take care of first?”
“The truck, and if we could ride with you back to Honey Grove, that would be great,” Jesse told him.
“No problem. That’s why I’ve got a backseat in this thing,” he said. “By the way, I’m Tommy Forestall. Y’all crawl on up in there. I’ll get this thing hitched up and we’ll be on our way.” He hopped out of the vehicle. “After you get your wife and her sister up in the truck, you could put these up on either side of us to stop the traffic for a few minutes.” He handed Jesse a stack of orange cones. “Don’t want someone to come around that curve and make a mess of my new wrecker. Honey Grove, huh? Do you know Sonny Ryan?” the guy asked.
“That’s my dad,” Jesse answered.
“Good guy. I graduated from Honey Grove High School with him all them years ago. We had us some good times together. Maybe I’ll just run in and say hello to him when we get there,” Tommy said.