Going Down South by Bonnie Glover

Author:Bonnie Glover
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345507389
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-07-28T16:00:00+00:00

Then came the Friday night when her pains started. She knew the tightening in her back was a labor pain. She got up from the chair and got her purse and walked down the stairs slowly. Mr. Willie Boyd and Mr. Jerry Boyd sat on the stoop, and both hurried to rise and nod at her as she passed.

“Is everything all right, Mrs. Stone?” She could not tell which one asked the question.

“I think the baby is on the way.”

Then things became a blur. One took her hand. The other said he would stay to tell Turk, and somehow she was whisked to the hospital. She sat in a wheelchair, and a cheerful nurse took her to a room. The woman smiled and asked her what she was going to name the baby. Daisy shrugged. She had a stabbing pain, worse than the ones before. The doctor came and examined her. She didn’t know what to say to anyone. All she kept thinking was that she was only fifteen and where was Turk?

She took a deep breath. The pain came in waves but it was bearable. For the first time in months she began to think with some clarity, the way Birdie had taught her to think. And she found the secret to Turk and love as she lay panting in the bed, sweaty and alone. Sometimes it didn’t matter if a person loved another with all their being, like she loved Turk. Love wasn’t enough. She had another contraction. It might be that nothing would ever be enough for Turk. But she vowed that she would keep on trying, keep loving him the best way she knew how, and maybe one day she would be able to forgive him and herself for all the history and bad things that had happened.

Someone wiped her brow. They raised her from the bed and opened her legs. The smiling nurse, Olivia, was holding her hand, encouraging her to breathe harder, to push. Daisy felt strong now, now that she knew what she had to do with Turk. She pushed.

Then there was the awful tearing, and her own self making pitiful noises, grunting. They laid the baby in her arms and she looked and could have screamed. Such a shriveled little package. Such a raisin thing. She held the fingers, touched the little toes, kissed her. Something twisted inside her breast. The nurse was smiling at her. That was when she decided.

Turk came much later. He paced around the bed, a big man holding himself in. When they brought the baby to her again and she held her out to him, he shook his head.

“I already done seen her.” He paused as if searching for something else to say.

“She don’t look like you. The doctor say she healthy, was screaming up a storm when he hit her bottom.” He came to stand by the foot of the bed. “Next time we gonna have us a boy, okay?”

Daisy stared at Turk for half a second and hugged her baby closer.

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