“Who is that?” Jenna asked.
I went to the door.
Josie made a face, Alex behind her, his tall body making her one big shadow.
She smushed her nose against the glass and shouted, “We just got here and I need to pee, Darla, so open the damn door!”
Chapter 14
Darla
Josie and Alex walked in, Josie making a beeline for the little bathroom to the left of the front door, Alex hugging me, then looking at all the crying women.
Trevor and Joe moved toward him like moths to a flame.
An OB-GYN, Alex was smart. He figured it all out fast.
“Post-partum hormones. Everything's making her cry, huh?”
“Jenna's got a six week old baby, too.”
He nodded. “Emotions are amplified.”
I wiped my eyes. “Then how do you explain me?”
“You're a compassionate human being capable of empathy.”
Joe made a noise of disagreement. I kicked his ankle. He yelped.
“What was that for?”
I stood on tiptoe to catch Alex's ear. “Josie going to be okay being around all these babies, what with all her miscarriages?”
His smile faltered. “I think so. But it won't be easy.”
I squeezed his arm. “I'm sorry. But I'm glad you're both here.”
“Wouldn't miss it for anything.”
“Is that Alex?” Mama called out. “We got a baby doctor in the family, so are house calls free?”
Alex walked into the room and bent over Mama, kissing her cheek gently. His eyes darted to the baby, where a happy, if wistful, expression flitted across his face. “I deliver them. I don't know what to do after that, Cathy.”
“Sit, sit. Josie's with you?”
“She's in the rest room, Mama.”
“Gotcha. You drive straight on through?”
He nodded. “Yes, ma'am.” He found a recliner to sit down, Joe and Trevor joining in, hovering on either side of him. I went to the kitchen and hauled two chairs out from the table. The guys all sat in a line, Joe and Trevor on kitchen chairs on either side of the recliner, like they were his royal guard.
“Wonderful. Alex, meet little Calvin Jr. You ever deliver a baby from a woman too stupid to know she was pregnant in the first place?”
“Cathy,” he said with compassion, “lots of women go through pregnancies without knowing it. You're not stupid.”
“Thank you for being polite. Your mama definitely raised you right. But I am an ignorant fool who thought baby kicks were gas and labor pains were an appendix attack.”
“What matters is that you're all healthy?” He asked it like a question, leaving room at the end for silence.
“Yes,” I said, rushing in. “Everyone is. Mama quit smoking a while ago, her diabetes is under control, and she'd even lost some weight before getting pregnant.”
“I wondered why I gained fifteen pound out of nowhere.” She pointed to the baby. “Meet 'nowhere.'”
Everyone laughed.
Unreality asserted itself in my mind, because Mama wasn't a ham. She didn't make jokes quite like this, lapping up attention from a small crowd. It wasn't her style, and never had been.
But here she was, doing it anyhow.
“You didn't answer my question, Alex. Ever deliver a surprise baby like this?”
He shook his head. “No. Not even when I work shifts at the ER.”
“Bet you see all kinds of crazy shit,” Jenna said, wrestling back the Munchos bag, though JJ didn't put up much of a fight. Jenna looked inside it and frowned, then shook it.
Nothing but crumbs.
That toddler ate fast.
“I do,” Alex agreed, giving me major side eye. “Mostly extractions.”
“Like teeth?” Jenna asked, confused.
“Um, more like foreign objects.”
“He means the stuff people put up their butts,” Mama explained evenly, her crying jag over.
Calvin walked in, wearing jeans and a slightly nicer t-shirt, and plunked down on the couch next to Mama, gently taking the baby for himself. Mama fixed her shirt, looked at the bag of potato chips in Jenna's hand, and I knew what she was thinking.
“Mama, I'll get everyone some snacks. We got some groceries at the WalMart,” I told her as I walked to the front door, a pile of grey plastic bags waiting for my attention.
She smiled.
Jenna perked up. “Any Munchos in there?”
I laughed. “Mama had them on the list, so...” I gestured to the bags, grabbing a few and going in the kitchen. Immediately, Joe was at my heels, bags in hand.
Helping.
“You're really being nice,” I whispered as we pulled groceries out.
“I have never in my life seen your mother cry like that.”
“Me neither, Joe. Me neither.”
“Is she okay?”
“It's post-baby hormones. Happens to every woman.”
“Like PMS?”
“Sorta.”
“Did I do something wrong?”
“Wrong? What? No! You were great.”
“I'm not used to seeing Cathy so... emotive.”
“Me neither.”
Concern made his brow drop. “Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Hey.” His arms came around me. I stood there like a wax statue, appreciating the affection but unable to receive it the way I normally would. After about ten seconds, he pulled back, eyes loving, hands on my shoulders.
“You can't, can you?” he asked.
“Can't what?”
“Feel your feelings right now. There are too many.”
“That sounds about right.”
“I want to be helpful.”
“You are. Don't take nothing I say or do as offensive. I'm just... this is a lot.”
“It is.”
The agreement mattered. Made me feel less crazy.
One quick hug, then he let me go, and we made quick work of unloading the groceries. At WalMart, I'd thought this might happen. Not just the family gathering suddenly, but that people might stop by. Peters was a tiny town, and everyone was casual. Nothing like in Boston, where you practically had to schedule taking out your garbage. While the band was more flexible, we all still texted each other before dropping in.
Here? People would just come on over.
I opened the fridge as Jenna walked in and said, “We already got a lot of food.” Casserole dishes were piled on top of each other neatly, with lots of Tupperware containers in there, too.
“People bringing meals?”
“Yup. Lots of it's good, but there's so much.” She plunked little JJ in a high chair and scattered some Cheerios on the tray for him, then grabbed one of the WalMart bags. “Thanks for doing this, though. We needed all this.”
“Mama texted some of it. I figured the rest was just what family does.”
She gave me a wan smile and got to work organizing and putting everything where it belonged. I took care of the obvious, like milk jugs, but she lived here. She knew where it should go.
Josie came into the kitchen and hugged me. “Congrats! One of us finally got a sibling.”