“Oh,” the nurse almost cried as Janet leaped off the bed and rushed across the room to me, leaping at the last second so I had to catch her in my arms. “I’m glad you’re taking her. She didn’t strike me like some of the other postpartum moms we got in here.”
While hugging Janet tight, I heard her start to cry, face resting against my shoulder, trembling hard, breathing rapidly. “If she seemed all right, why did you let her husband check her in?”
“Because he said she was a danger to herself and their baby, and we can do a seventy-two-hour hold without question if the husband signs off on it.”
“Which he did.”
“Yes,” the nurse answered, looking like she might cry as she watched Janet shuddering in my arms. “Poor dear.”
“Well, I appreciate your help, and—”
“I need to see my baby,” Janet whispered, lifting her head to look into my eyes. “Miro, where is he, do you know if he’s safe and—”
“He’s okay,” I promised, putting her on her feet, hands on her face, wiping away her tears. “Ian and Aruna are getting him, all right?”
She was having trouble talking and catching her breath. “Ian and Aruna?”
“Yes, honey, we’re all here.”
Leaning into me again, arms back around my neck, she clung as I rubbed circles on her back and told her that everything was going to be all right.
“I knew you’d get here, I knew you’d come,” she chanted. “I knew it, I knew it.”
“Min mobilized us.”
“I knew that too,” she said, her voice breaking as the tears started again.
“Come on, let’s get outta here.”
Once we were out in the hall, Janet clung to my arm with a death grip as we walked toward the front exit.
“It was so surreal.”
“Ned, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you think happened?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he got scared that his life was going to change—and it is, I mean, of course it is, because, you know, baby.”
“Sure.”
“I thought about it all last night, and the only thing I came up with is that he had an idea in his mind of how I was supposed to be, and what he thought and the reality didn’t mesh.”
She was so logical; of course she’d thought about it and come up with an explanation for his behavior. “And his mother didn’t help.”
“Oh hell no,” she said flatly, “and I tell you what, if I see her—oh,” her voice dropped suddenly as she saw Catherine. “I knew she’d be here too, just like you. All of you guys, my friends, I swear to God, you’re the blessing of my life.”
I patted her hand as we closed in on Catherine.
“When I lost my mother, she said, ‘Baby, you’re gonna be all right. You have the girls, your sisters, and you have Miro. All of them will stand in for me until I see you again.’”
“Don’t make me cry,” I grumbled. “I haven’t had enough coffee.”
When we reached Catherine, they enfolded each other, hugging so tight, neither of them breathing. After a moment Catherine let Janet go, and she returned to my side, plastered there as Catherine rounded on the doctor.
“Thank you for taking such good care of her,” she said graciously to Dr. Abbott, who nodded and smiled before shaking her hand.
And just like that, the three of us strolled outside and into the sun.
WE DROVE to Janet’s house in Georgetown, and as she showered and changed, Catherine found luggage and packed her up, and I packed for Cody.
Janet did not want to stay. The perfect crib, the perfect room she’d painted herself, all the details she lovingly put in place, she could barely stomach to look at. The bouncer, some kind of contraption that jiggled the baby, was necessary, as were a few other things that folded down easily as I packed them into more suitcases.
“Aruna has baby stuff at home,” I told her as she dried her hair.
“Yes,” she agreed, nodding, looking nervous.
I took her hands in mine. “This is Ian and Aruna, honey. Do you think they’re not coming back here without Cody?”
Tears filled her eyes, and I drew her in close and hugged her.
Catherine put Janet’s many, many face and eye and lip products into bags.
“Don’t ever tell me again that I have a lot of crap,” I warned, and for the first time since we sprang her, she smiled.
“Why did I think that Ned’s mother lived in Maryland?” Catherine asked after she pronounced the bathroom done.
“She did live there,” Janet explained as the three of us went downstairs, me toting the four massive suitcases stuffed to the gills. “But she moved to be close to us right after Cody was born, to help, she said.”
“Yeah, but doesn’t she have, like, a million grandchildren already?”
“But Ned’s her baby,” Janet sighed, looking wrung-out and…. “Ohmygod, this hurts so bad.”