After calling Mari on her cell phone, it took another twenty minutes for Rose to get to where she had agreed to meet Mari and Lizzy, during which time she experienced two more contractions. The baby was coming quickly.
Lizzy ran to greet her, yelling in delight. Rose picked her up and held her for a moment, then set her down as another pain lanced through her midsection.
"You’re all wet," Lizzy informed her, touching her mother’s soaked maternity dress. "Did you have an accident?"
Rose laughed slightly. "No, Lizzy. I didn’t have an accident. I’m having the baby."
"You are?" Lizzy’s eyes grew wide. "Where is it?"
"He’s still inside me, sweetie. I have to go and get him born."
"Oh." Lizzy nodded, accepting this fact. Her parents had explained where babies came from to her several months earlier, though many of the details had gone over her head.
"I take it you need me to watch her?" Mari asked, taking Lizzy’s hand. "Or do you plan to have her there to see the birth?"
"No...I’d prefer that you watch her. I think she’s a little too young to see the inside of the delivery room, and I know that Jack wants to be with me for the birth. There isn’t much time, either—this one’s coming fast."
"I’ll watch her," Mari told her, sighing. "My students have a final lab today, but I’ll keep her in the other room from the test." She grinned. "I wouldn’t want her giving any answers away."
Throughout the past couple of years, Mari had taught Lizzy all about botany as she took her around while Jack and Rose were in class or at work. The child had learned quickly, and could outdo many beginning botany students as a result.
Rose laughed, marveling over the fact that her three-year-old daughter had knowledge that many college students struggled to learn. Lizzy could not yet read, except for the alphabet, or write at all, but she could identify dozens of native plants and point out the parts of a flower. Mari had also attempted to teach herbal medicine to the little girl until Rose had put her foot down, remembering Mari’s early experiments with herbs and not wanting her daughter to follow in her footsteps.
"Be good, Lizzy," she told her daughter, giving her a hug. "Don’t help anybody cheat."
"I won’t, Mommy." Lizzy looked at her seriously.
"Have fun with your Aunt Mari." Rose stood with difficulty. "Mari, have you seen Jack? He isn’t answering his phone."
"Last I saw, he was eating lunch at the outside tables. You might check there."
"Thanks." Rose turned and hurried away, giving Mari and Lizzy one last wave.
*****
"Jack! There you are!" Rose waddled up to him, one hand on her aching back. "I’ve been looking all over for you."
After she had failed to locate him at the outdoor tables, she had begun checking all of the places he was likely to be—the art gallery, the classroom where he would take his last final in a couple of hours—and had finally located him in the Science Library, where he was studying for his psychology final. It had taken her a good half hour to find him, during which time the pains had grown closer together, until they were only five minutes apart.
She had been growing worried—the birth was progressing much faster than she had expected—and she had been ready to abandon her search and try to drive herself to the hospital or go to the campus health clinic to see if someone there could help her. She had been relieved when she finally saw Jack sitting at a table studying.
"Have a seat," Jack invited her, pulling out a chair.
Rose started to sit, then changed her mind. She wasn’t sure if she could be able to get back up. Jack noticed her hesitation and frowned.
"What’s wrong?" he asked, pushing his notes away.
"I’m having the baby—now. He’s coming fast—I’ve only been in labor for about three hours."
"Are you sure it’s labor? You’ve had false labor pains before."
"I’m sure. My water broke on the floor of the lecture hall. The pains are about five minutes apart and getting closer together all the time."
Jack looked at the pile of notes in front of him, then stuffed them into his bag. The final was in two hours, but he would just have to hope that he could talk the professor into letting him take it late, or else pass without it. Otherwise, he would be re-taking the class during the summer while trying to work full-time before he began graduate school in the fall—not a prospect he relished.
But the baby’s birth was more important than the test. If he had to re-take the class, that was just the way it was. He had been there for Lizzy’s birth, and certainly wasn’t going to miss the birth of their second child.
Picking up his bag, he told Rose, "Why don’t you go wait at the curb? I’ll go get the car and pick you up."
Rose nodded. "Sure. I’ll be waiting. Hurry, Jack. I don’t know how much time we have."
*****
Rose was leaning against a light pole, holding her stomach as another contraction went through her, when Jack pulled up.
"Rose!" Jack strode up to her, leaving the passenger side door open. "Can you get to the car?"
Rose hesitated a moment, then straightened as the contraction eased. "I can make it."
She let Jack help her into the car, leaning tiredly against the back of the seat. "Took you long enough," she grumbled.
"It’s long walk home—how are you doing?"
"They’re about three minutes apart." Rose closed her eyes, gritting her teeth as another pain began.
"Jesus. This is happening fast."
Rose took a moment to answer. "I know. How long does it take to get off campus? At this rate, I’ll wind up having the baby at the campus health clinic."
"I’m going as fast as I can."
"I know." Rose touched his arm. "I don’t mean to be so pushy."
"It’s okay. You need to be pushy at a time like this."
Rose eyed him balefully, groaning at the pun. She closed her eyes again, laying her head against the back of the seat.
"It can’t be that bad," Jack told her, seeing her expression. "You’re having a baby. You should be happy."
Rose glared at him as they turned onto University Avenue and headed for the freeway. "Jack, when you’ve had a baby, you can tell me it isn’t that bad. Until then, shut up." She moaned, panting, waiting for the latest pain to end. "Jack, hurry. This is happening too fast."
"It’s not too far down the freeway—shit!" He put on the brakes, easing into the traffic jam. Far ahead, he could make out a stalled big rig blocking two lanes—the vehicle had stopped while the driver was trying to change lanes. "Just hold on, Rose. We’ll get off at the next exit and take the city streets from there."
They waited, but the traffic on the 60 Freeway, almost always gridlocked anyway, wasn’t moving. A few cars at a time moved through the open lane, but three crowded lanes of traffic trying to move into one didn’t go anywhere fast.
Rose stared through the windshield, looking for some way around the jam, but the freeway had been undergoing frequent construction over the past decade, and there were few places wide enough for the car to pass on the shoulder. They were in the far lane from the one that was open, and there was no way to push through and past the obstruction.
Jack looked over at Rose. She was breathing hard, her face shining with sweat, more from being in labor than from the heat. He looked at his watch. They had been on the road for a good hour, meaning that Rose had been in labor for about four and half hours. When Lizzy had been born, it had taken much longer, but this baby seemed as though it could make an appearance any minute.
Apparently, Rose agreed. "Jack, pull over," she ordered him. "There’s a space right there where you can move the car out of the way of traffic. I don’t think we’re going to make it to the hospital."
Jack saw where she was pointing and carefully eased the car into the gravelly construction area, ignoring the honking of horns. He looked around, hoping that it presented some way off the freeway, but there was no exit, except for back into traffic.
He turned to see that Rose had unbuckled her seat belt and tilted her seat back. She was rummaging through something behind the seat.
"Rose, what are you doing?"
"I’m having the baby. Now. You’re going to have to help me, Jack, because there’s no way we’re getting to the hospital in time. Take this blanket of Lizzy’s and put it over your window to give me some privacy. Turn the ignition so that just the air conditioning works—it’s too hot to be in a closed car without it. And let’s see—we’ll need something to cut the cord—that pocket knife you have should work. Use the cigarette lighter to sterilize the tip. I have a baby blanket in my bag—" She curled up in pain, clinging to the seat and panting. "Jack...help me..."
He took the sterilized knife and set it on the dashboard, hoping that the sunlight would further sterilize it. Turning his full attention to Rose, he helped her lean back against the tilted seat and hitch up her skirt.
"Jack...I don’t know what to do..." she panted. "Last time, the doctor took care of everything. You saw more of it than I did..."
They both knew that it was a potentially dangerous situation. The fast birth, combined with two inexperienced people to deliver the baby, made the age-old struggle of childbirth hazardous. Away from modern, sterile hospitals and well-trained doctors, childbirth was as dangerous as it had been centuries earlier.
"You—you’re doing fine," he told her, hoping that he was right. She didn’t appear to be hemorrhaging or in agonizing pain, just very uncomfortable and scared. One of her sandaled feet was pressed against the dashboard, while the other rested on the seat.
She was panting and straining, clinging to the door handle and to his hand. Jack pulled his hand away and pushed her leg aside, trying to see better. Rose yelped in pain, her fist clenched around a handful of her skirt.
"It hurts!" she cried, pressing her head back against the headrest and trying to breathe properly. "I think I’m tearing…"
She didn’t make nearly so much complaint when Lizzy was born, Jack thought, but then, she wasn’t in a situation like this, either. He knelt on his own seat, trying to help her.
"You’re right, Rose. He is coming fast. I can see the head."
"I can feel it." Rose arched her back, crying out in pain, as she bore down again. "Jack..."
"Just a little more, Rose. He’s almost out...here he is." He caught the baby as he slid from her body, turning him over carefully and cleansing his mouth and nostrils.
There was a moment of silence. Then, the baby, stimulated by the hands clearing his breathing passages, let out a low wail, which quickly grew until he was crying full volume.
"Rose, you did it! The baby’s alive and kicking...and it’s a boy! Just like the doctor said!"
Not sure how to tie off the umbilical cord, he tied it at two points with strings torn from the tattered blanket covering the window and cut between them, keeping both the baby and Rose from losing blood through the umbilical cord. Wrapping the newborn in the blanket Rose had brought, he laid the tiny boy in her arms.
Rose took her son eagerly, unable to believe that everything had gone well in spite of the situation they had found themselves in. Cradling him, she examined the infant, touching the little face and examining the tiny hands.
"Paul Michael Dawson," she whispered, stroking the baby’s head. He was a mess, but she didn’t care. He was her new baby, one that she had brought into the world under such precarious circumstances. "Remember, Jack? That was what we decided the name would be."
"Yeah." He touched the tiny face, then hurried to get the blanket from the window as Rose brought forth the afterbirth. Wrapping it in the blanket, he pulled Rose’s skirt back down over her legs and put the blanket at her feet, to be inspected by a doctor when they got to the hospital.
"He’ll have a career in cars. I just know it," Rose murmured, cradling the baby.
"How do you know?" Jack gave her a confused look.
"He loves cars. He was conceived in this car, born in this car..."
"If we keep this car, he’ll probably borrow it when he’s a teenager—if Lizzy doesn’t get it first," Jack told her, understanding what she was saying. "Though if we tell him that this was where he was conceived and born, he’ll probably want nothing to do with it. Too embarrassing."
"So you believe he was conceived that night in the car?"
"Well...maybe. It seems logical enough."
Rose laughed softly. "I love you, Jack."
"I love you, too, Rose." He looked out the window. The traffic was beginning to clear, but was still moving very slowly. "Are you going to be okay? It may take a while to get to the hospital."
"I think so." Rose looked at him tiredly. "For safety’s sake, let’s get there as soon as we can."
"I’ll try, but I don’t know how long—"
He was interrupted by a knock on the window. Looking up, they saw a police officer, his car parked behind them, gesturing for Jack to roll down the window.