Page 37 of Cascade

We folded 1,000 paper cranes (though Diana says they represent Abigail and Hunter’s chickens) for luck, for the wish of a speedy delivery. The birds hang in colorful strands from the ceiling and Abigail twirls among them, letting her fingertips brush against the bright paper. “I love it,” she breathes, clasping her hands together.

She pulls Diana into a tight hug, and reaches out for Indigo and Sara to join in. “Get over here,” Abigail yells, her voice muffled from the arms of her friends. “Opal, you were such a huge part of this.”

I feel the heat of embarrassment creep up my neck. And then I scold myself for feeling embarrassed, remind myself that I can enjoy these friends’ kindness. I’m still no good at accepting any kind of compliment, but I make my way into the circle of arms, clutching the paper where I wrote my most difficult blessing for a new mother to date.

The room grows noisy as guests trickle in, stomping snow from their boots and hanging up coats on a line Ivy hung between the poles she uses for strip aerobics. I keep a close watch on Abigail—something seems a bit off. Like she’s slightly out of breath in a way that nags at my inner worry wart.

Jessica comes in with the platters of baked treats from Insomnia, and everyone snacks, watches Abigail open her presents, applauds at the hand carved wooden high chair that Daniel Crawford made in his back yard wood shop.

When it comes time to share the blessings all the mothers have prepared for Abigail, I hover near the back of the room. Rose is the last to speak and once Diana finishes wiping away her tears, she moves to close the book. I take a deep breath and then speak up, “Actually,” I say. “I’ve got something to add. If that’s ok.”

“Oh my gosh, please! Yes.” Abigail dabs at her eyes. There’s not a dry eye in the room after everyone has heard woman after woman share her memories from birthing, the feelings they all had when they first held their babies.

I unfold the paper I’ve been clutching. “I don’t have any babies of my own, as you know,” I begin, my voice shaking a little bit. “But I’ve been so fortunate to be present when many of them came into the world. I’ve watched my patients transform into parents. Watched them surrender to this overwhelming force, held their hands as the tide ebbed and flowed until their babies emerged. Sometimes amidst a storm, but often peacefully.” I pause. Everyone is staring at me, waiting for me to continue.

I clear my throat and take a sip of tea. “I’ve never known my own birth story,” I say. “But lately, as I’ve been thinking about you, Abigail, about your pregnancy and what my growing friendship with you and your whole family, really, has meant…I got curious about my own origins.” With a shaking voice I tell the room how I answered the phone when my father called, and surprised us both by asking about my arrival.

For once, when I brought up my mother, he didn’t yell. He didn’t disappear into a bottle. We didn’t discuss his drunken tirades on my voicemail. I just skipped over all of it and asked him to tell me about my birth. He sighed. “It was so fast,” he said of my arrival. “I never saw anything like that before. We didn’t know what to expect.”

“That rang so true,” I say to Abigail, who smiles at me and rests her hands on her belly. I can see the movements of Baby Crawford’s limbs as he or she wriggles around in there. “We don’t ever know what to expect with a baby. I learned that my arrival was peaceful and calm. My parents were wide eyed, together in the room, just clutching one another as I seemingly emerged. Just like that.” I snap my fingers, as my father had done when we spoke. “My father remembers, if only briefly, my mother looking down at me in wonder.A new beginning, they’d said to one another. A chance to start again.” I set down the paper on the scrap book Diana has made for Abigail with everyone else’s words. “That’s my wish for you, and Hunter, and this baby,” I say. “A new beginning. Hope. A sense of wonder as you embark on this adventure together.”

As soon as I finish talking, the room erupts into sobs and hugs. Everyone is on their feet, petting my hair, pulling me in tight. People hug Abigail, and even Diana has tears streaking down her face. She and Indigo start passing around a flask to the non-pregnant guests and people start toasting to me and thanking me for my work.

By the time Diana and Rose usher the last guests out Ivy’s front door, I’m practically throbbing with emotion.

And so is Abigail. She still seems short of breath and I don’t like it.

“Can I talk to you, Abigail?” I pull her aside as Diana is packing up the spare party favors. Abigail decided to give everyone paper white bulbs. We plunked each of them in a tiny jar with some river rocks. By the time they bloom, Abigail and Hunter should be cradling their baby.

It’s such a nice gesture. I ask Abigail to sit and I pull out my blood pressure cuff. Just once more, to be sure. When she looks at me, I can tell that she knows what I’m going to say. The reading comes up high. Too high.

I take a deep breath. “It’s ok,” she says. “I know it’s going to be ok. Right?”

I squeeze her hand. “Let’s call up Hunter. We’re going to go to the hospital together. I’ll drive and we can pick him up at your house on our way. We can have your mother bring you some things later.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Opal

“THANK YOU FOR taking my call,” I whisper to Pam from the hallway upstairs in Archer’s house. “I wasn’t sure if you’d answer.” It’s six in the morning the day after Abigail’s shower, after I checked her into the hospital, and I can’t sleep.

I lay in bed beside Archer for awhile, trying to convince myself I was still off my circadian rhythm from the string of overnight shifts and then my big emotional powwow with him.

I tried everything I could think of to get to sleep, including waking Archer up for sex, but somehow he wasn’t in the mood while his brother and sister-in-law are in the hospital. I cried for awhile, and then decided to call Pam.

“I told you to call anytime, and I meant it,” Pam says. “What’s up?”

Where to start? I haven’t had a session since before Thanksgiving. I haven’t told her about how overwhelmed I feel by Archer’s constant patience, but how visible his desire is for me. By how hard he is working to get me to trust him.

But none of that drove me to call my therapist in the wee hours. “Abigail’s blood pressure is too high,” I tell her.

“Hmm,” she says. “Tell me more about that.”

“The past few visits I’ve had with her, it had been creeping up, and it’s not going down or being managed by the suggestions I’ve had for her at home. Yesterday, I drove her to the hospital.”

“It sounds like you made a difficult but important decision for her care. But I wasn’t clear in my question,” Pam interjects. “I meant to ask you to tell me why you think this might be troubling you so much.”

“Well, because I care about her,” I say. “She’s my boyfriend’s sister and this is a very serious thing.” I realize as I finish the sentence that I referred to Archer as my boyfriend and doing so brought on no sense of panic. All of my worried energy is reserved for Abigail. “It’s what killed my mother,” I blurt out, and then I feel the lump in my throat dislodge. I start weeping. “I’m scared for her.”

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