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SIX HOURS LATERnurses swarmed into the room to break down the bed, and Dr. Clyde told Darcy to push. She thought it would be over then. Who knew it took so long to have a baby? After another forty-five minutes, she bore down one more time and the baby made its way into the world.
Dr. Clyde looked up, her eyes crinkling behind her glasses and mask. “Congratulations, Darcy. You have a beautiful baby girl.”
Rosetta and Marilyn smiled and laughed and wiped away tears as they oohed and ahhed over the squirming bundle in the doctor’s hands. Darcy watched them all, unable to believe the baby was finally here and feeling out of sorts and dizzy now that it was over.
“Would you want one of these ladies to cut the cord?”
The question stumped her. She glanced up at Rosetta. “If Nana was here, she’d be the one I’d ask, but—Would you want to? You don’t have to. I understand if—”
“I would love to, Darcy.”
The nurse draped a blanket over Darcy’s knees to give her some modesty and then the older woman moved into position.
Marilyn dabbed at her eyes and alternately patted Darcy or else gushed over the baby still in the doctor’s care. Her daughter continued to cry as she was briskly wiped of fluid and wrapped in warmed blankets, then Dr. Clyde gave Darcy her daughter. “Support her head, yes, like that.”
She was so light. So tiny. Her baby girl had blond hair like hers, long enough to curl at the ends, and her eyes were a dark, dark blue.
Tears trickled down Darcy’s cheeks, but she smiled and laughed all the same. Ten tiny fingers and a button nose. Rosebud mouth. Definitely worth the pain.
Marilyn pulled her camera from her purse and snapped a shot of them gazing into each other’s eyes. Another of Rosetta sitting beside her on the bed. One of each of them holding the baby, lots of her and her daughter together.
One of the nurses took the baby for its bath at the far end of the room, and Rosetta and Marilyn followed to watch, camera in hand, while Darcy stayed in the bed and tried to recover her composure while the linens were changed. She was a mom.
Dr. Clyde entered the room looking frazzled. “Darcy, Mr. Tulane is outside and quite insistent. He’d like to come in.”
Ignoring the questioning, concerned stares of the women across the room, she shook her head firmly back and forth. Sad and tired and happy all at once. “Would you tell him we’re fine and that—Tell him Spike is a girl.”
“Darcy, are you sure?” Rosetta asked. “He’s been out there for hours, dear. Waiting to talk to you.”
Darcy shook her head, not about to be dissuaded. Her daughter’s birth was a new start. A new life.I won’t be her.“I’m sure.”
DARCY FROWNED at Rosetta. Using winter colds and the baby’s near-term birth and risk of respiratory problems as an excuse, Darcy had managed to avoid visitors after being released from the hospital. Most especially Garret, much to his grandmother’s upset. “I don’t want to see him.”
“He’s been by every day since you came home.”
Yes, he had. With gifts, no less. A pumpkin seat to put the baby in, a car-seat-stroller combo, a bassinet. Then there was the gigantic pink giraffe, enough baby toys for four families, including a rocking horse with a curly mane. There were gifts for her, too. A set of silk pajamas in brown—to match her eyes, the note read. A new CD she’d mentioned in passing. Flowers, lots of flowers. Sunflowers and daisies—inMarch.And the last and boldest gift of all—business cards with her name on them, listing Nick’s gym as her place of employment.
Once upon a time her entire life had fit in the storage compartments of her VW Beetle, allowing her to pick up and leave when and how she needed. Did stuff equal roots? “I haven’t changed my mind.”
The older woman frowned and went back to what she was doing, piling a third box full of donations from the residents of The Village.
“Rosetta, can’t you understand why I find Garret’s sudden turnaround questionable?”
“Of course I do. But you haven’t seen him, Darcy. You don’t know how haggard he looks. He’s not sleeping, not eating much if at all. A man doesn’t behave that way over a woman hedoesn’tlove. He and Joss are no longer together.”
“That has nothing to do with me.”
“Oh, Darcy. How long are you going to punish him for being a caring man?”
She snuggled the baby closer, unable to respond.
“Garret loved Jocelyn in his own way, but I knew they weren’t right together. They were too comfortable, like friends, which is what they’ve turned out to be. When you came along and I saw the way he looked at you, I knew. The way he loves you—”
“He doesn’t love me.”
“No? I disagree. How many men would’ve given up on you already? Do you know how many people go through their lives searching for that kind of love and never find it?” She left the toy-filled boxes and garbage bags by the door and moved to sit on the couch beside her. “Think of your mother. She’s searching for it man by man and here you are throwing the real thing away. I think you’re afraid to love him.”
“Rosetta, please.”
