Four Seasons…January

Brian flew through the third red light as if it had point value, clearing the empty intersection somewhere between the speed limit and death on impact. “I’ve gotta stop doing that,” he thought, shaking his head. “There’s three of us now.” Brian was pressing his luck — something he did almost as often sleeping. Maya had been telling him that it was a shortcoming which needed an expiration date. It was some of her longest running advice, council which hadn’t wavered much since the first time she said it — over a basket of hot, greasy chips and fire-roasted salsa, slowly nibbled during their first date five years earlier. Brian hadn’t seen much reason to slow in the half decade since.

Now he did.

TWHOOSH — Brian sailed through red light number four, taking inventory of east and west only as afterthought. He was lucky that people were keeping their festivities indoors for the most part. Brian thought it was cold enough outside to maybe build an igloo, but the truth was that it was only LA cold, which meant conditions just cool enough to keep the majority indoors. Celebrations might have been loud behind the blurry silhouette of quickly passed glass, but there was no way of knowing for sure.

“BBBRRIP!”

With a million things swirling through the maelstrom of his mind, Brian might have missed the single bray form the police cruiser, but it was impossible to miss the red flashing lights reflecting off the earliest morning mist and twinkling decorations from celebrations now one week old. Brian flashed his blinker, slowed to a more reasonable speed, and pulled his nine day old minivan to the side of the road. “Not now, not now, not now,” repeated the pleading hiccup in his head.

“What…s….hap..pen….ing?” Maya’s labored voice drifted from the back seat, heavy from her carefully measured gasps for air.

“Nothing, baby.” Brian said, almost casually. “Just ran a red. But don’t worry, this’ll be quick. He’ll wanna see my license and registration, then we’ll be back on our way.”

Of course, Brian was only hoping. He had no license. The registration was taped to the inside window, as it had been when he drove off the Toyota lot two days before Christmas, but that wouldn’t show the officer his smiling face.

Brian was wearing his oldest pair of stained sweat pants — several years older than his relationship with Maya — the waist band barely meeting the bottom of a Beastie Boys tee-shirt that he should have stopped wearing in high school. The sweatpants were pocked with six or seven holes, but none were part of the original garment. Though he didn’t have a single pocket, Brian wouldn’t have remembered to fill them even if he had.

They had watched the ball drop in 36” of High Definition, then darkened the television ready to surrender another year, when Brian heard an ear splitting scream split the silence of their quiet holiday. He ran from the bathroom — toothbrush in mouth — and saw the pool of water puddled at the foot of the love seat. Brian was pulling Maya into the mini-van less than three minutes later, and was roaring down their quiet street a scant twenty seconds after that.

Michael Michelle wasn’t due for another couple of weeks — January 15th to be exact. The thought that the baby might arrive early, buzzed about Brian’s brain just enough to keep his hands free from champagne, though he probably wouldn’t have indulged anyway. He’d never been much of a single drinker, even if only for a single toast. They had met midnight with two flutes of sparkling cider. It was a single sip and a substitution neither one minded.

They had been to the hospital three times during the already too hectic final month of the year. Three false alarms, each one sending them from the maternity ward with nothing but disappointment and a few missing hours. “At least this is our first trip of the year,” Brian said with a verbal wink while stationing Maya into the front bench of the minivan, positioning pillows around her as though she were in a window display. “And we’re probably not going to leave empty handed this time.” He was relieved to see that his nervous little joke had prompted one of Maya’s nervous little smiles.

The officer approached the car, carrying the undisguised gait of a man looking forward to writing a ticket. “License and registration,” he commanded in a booming voice which invited no banter.

Brian lowered his window. The officer loomed over him, blocking the New Year outside. He looked tired, worn, and a little mean. His black uniform was not quite as black as the night, but it was close. His brow was beaded with sweat beneath his cap, like he had the heat in his cruiser cranked way past comfortable. The name on the patrolmen’s pin said, Lemmin. Brian swallowed, licked his lips and met the officer’s eyes.

“WAHA…VUAM….RAHAUR!” a few more of Maya’s labored wails escaped from the back seat.

“What have you got back there?” Officer Lemmin asked, his thumb instinctively unfastening the sidearm on his hip.

“It’s my wife,” Brian said calmly. “She’s about to have a baby.”

The officer peered into the depths of the minivan, narrowing his eyes at the darkness. “You want to turn on the light?”

Brian did as the officer said, flicking the switch on the steering wheel and bathing the cabin in a soft, artificial glow. The officer looked inside, dipping his nose through the window. Maya was splayed across the first row of seats, her face taut and damp. “You want to step out of the car, Sir?” Lemmin’s words formed a question, but his tone clearly cast them as an order.

Brian pulled the handbrake and stepped from the car with a limp, submissive posture; every muscle a suggestion of compliance, a silent chant singing, “I am not a threat.” He turned, facing the car, and placed his hands on top of the roof, just as he’d seen in a hundred different movies sharing a dozen different plots.

The officer nudged Brian’s ankles with the tips of his boots, making space between his feet. “You been drinking this evening?” Lemmin said, though Brian believed he’d already decided the answer.

“No, Officer, I haven’t.” Brian kept his calm, but anxiety and anger were rising with the bile from the depths of his hollow stomach.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?”

“Yes, Officer,” Brian said evenly, “because I ran a red light back there.”

“Ah,” Lemmin lit his face with a dark little smile, “so you noticed it was red?”

“Yes, I —”

“WAHHHA…UUUHHM…..HUUHAAMM…” The whimpers from the back seat left the car louder and closer together.

“I need to get my wife to a hospital,” Brian insisted. He kept his hands on the hood, craning his neck to make his argument. “In case you haven’t noticed, she’s in labor. If you’re going to write me a ticket, can you please just do it?”

“I’m going to need you to take a field test,” the officer said.

Unbelievable, Brian thought. What was next, the SAT?

“I’ll sing you Brass Monkey, backwards in Spanish if you just write me a ticket and let me get my wife to the hospital.” Brian was still calm, but only barely. His words hit the frosted air from behind a set of gritted, grinding teeth.

“I’m going to have to ask you to watch your tone.” Officer Lemmin said. He could have told Brian he was thinking of driving to their house and beating their six month old cocker spaniel once off duty; his response wouldn’t have pushed Brian any deeper into his pickling anger. He looked at Maya’s sad silhouette through the darkened window, noted the quietly savage smile tickling the edges of the officer’s mouth, and took a deep breath. “Sorry officer,” he said. “I’m just worried about my wife and was hoping you could help.”

“I could,” Lemmin elongated the word, “but I’ve gotta do my job first, and that includes making sure the streets are safe from drivers like you.”

“Check my record, I haven’t had a ticket since three weeks after turning sixteen, and was rear ended once at twenty. Other than that my history’s spotless, and all I’ve had tonight is apple cider. I was speeding because I need to get my wife to the hospital. Can you please help me?” Brian was speaking in barely a whisper, afraid that if he added volume, it would be instantly chased by unchecked rage.

“First things first,” Lemmin cleared his throat, then produced a pen from nowhere and held it about a foot from Brian’s face. “I need you to follow the pen with your eyes.” Maya continued to moan.

Brian placed his finger to his nose, then stood on one leg. Officer Lemmin then asked him to take nine heel-to-toe steps along a line, turn, and then take nine heel-to-toe steps back. Brian took one step forward and paused. His heart racing as though he’d been running laps, he spun around to face Lemmin, vaulting across the thin blue line which separates Officer from Civilian — a perimeter typically breached only by those looking for a night behind bars, or those indifferent to the possibility.

“When did you give up?” Brian shouted, tiny drops of his wrath flying into the officer’s face. Lemmin stared back, silent and unmoving.

“RRUUUMMAAA!” Maya’s cries now had a back beat as the driver’s seat was kicked hard with the steady beat of a pedal drum.

“When did To Protect and to Serve become To Assault and Harass?” Brian started to pace. “I need to get my wife to a hospital.” He stood toe to toe with Lemmin, his eyes narrowed, daring the officer to answer. Lemmin took a small, defeated step backward. The moment was his and Brian knew it. He could walk away, the sudden shame on the officer’s face was as easy to read as the badge on his chest. Brian could have gotten in his car without another word and driven Maya to the hospital.

The moment passed.

The broth of anger and frustration had reached a hostile, rolling boil. “Hey, Officer Friendly,” Brian shot, taking an aggressive step forward, ending close enough to Lemmin to smell the burnt coffee rising from the back of his throat. “You may have lived your life as an asshole a couple of hours ago, but it’s a whole new year. My baby’s about to be born into a world that can be pretty shitty. Right now is your chance to make that world just a little better.” Brian took another unbelievable small step forward. “You hold all the cards man, I’m just asking you to do what you probably would have done when you first took your oath, when your dreams were big and you were still a long way from hating every minute of the job.”

The long silence was stretched by the lit syncopation from the twinkling lights which braided the corner lamppost. Brian’s heartbeat hummed as a hundred horrible thoughts crashed around his head. He pictured his hands roughly pulled behind his back, silver bracelets flicked over each one; his head pushed down and shoved carelessly into the back seat of the patrol car. He pictured a New Year’s spent downtown, with no one to hold Maya’s hand as their first child made sounds that he wouldn’t be around to hear.

“Follow me,” Officer Lemmin finally said. He walked to his Crown Victoria and stepped inside without another word. The car’s siren trumpeted against the quiet night and Lemmin’s patrol car lurched in front of the mini-van, speeding toward the hospital.

Brian followed close. He was eleven years old dropping quarters into Out Run, flying through every red light — this time with permission. Six and a half minutes later his tires were staining pavement in front of the hospital. Brian barely had the minivan in park before Officer Lemmin was dashing through the glass doors, emerging a moment later, pushing an empty wheelchair.

Maya’s breath was now leaving her lungs in wheezing gasps that were twice as fast and half as short; her cries more labored and closer to frantic. Lemmin helped Brian pull her from the mini-van bench and situate her in the wheelchair seat, then followed Brian close behind as he wheeled her inside the hospital. Brian turned around and grabbed the officer’s eyes. “Thank you,” he said, “and happy New Year.”

The officer’s pupils warmed and his face softened. “No, thank you.” He nodded at Brian, then left the hospital, his eyes fixed to the linoleum during the entirety of his exit.

“AAAHHH,” Maya gave vent to the first sound which sounded not like a moan, but rather a high pitched screech; approaching the tone of an air raid, but with the rhythm of a smoke alarm. Brian kept pushing the wheelchair with one hand, while he began to rub the tangled knots from Maya’s shoulder with the other.

Maya was never the type to complain. Nine months of pregnancy had done nothing to change it, delivery wasn’t about to. All her stress seemed to have risen to a pear sized knot which sat like a tumor between her neck and shoulder blades. “We’re almost done, baby,” Brian soothed.

Maya looked up. Her big eyes clear and voice silent. “Thank you,” they whispered.

The nurse looked up from her desk, the same nurse who had been on duty during two of their three earlier false alarms, but there was no doubt etched in her face as she looked up from her paperwork and dropped her pen into a coffee mug harboring a dozen or so capless refugees. “Nice to see you again, Mrs. Newman.” Her smile was as warm as possible for one in the morning. “Looks like we’re not in dress rehearsal anymore.”

The nurse pressed a blinking red light on the panel in front of her, then turned to Brian. “Take that pretty young thing of yours down to room #8,” she said, pointing down the hallway. “And you’re in luck — looks like you’ll have the room all to yourselves.”

“Thank you,” Maya managed to breath while offering the nurse a wan smile. Brian gave his own thanks, then nervously started to wheel Maya down the hallway. They stopped in front of the blond nurse, wearing just enough make up to cover the graveyard shift on her face, who was waiting for the Newmans by the open door of their private room.

Wheelchair flushed baseboard and Brian helped the nurse pull Maya from the chair, and then into the rolling bed. The nurse started her ritual immediately, first checking Maya’s blood pressure before moving to her pulse.

The air in the room grew suddenly thick. A second RN was added, then a third. The blond nurse was moving her eyes across a clipboard, an unnerved expression creeping across her face; the newest had her fingers pressed hard against Maya’s belly. The final RN stood at the room’s threshold, half in and half out, yelling something which Brian could not understand, loudly and into the hallway.

A fourth nurse entered the room a second later, walked straight to Brian and handed him a neatly folded stack of green scrubs. “Put these on,” she ordered, then turned to Maya. “The baby’s breached,” she said kindly. “We’re going to have to do an emergency Cesarian.

Brian and Maya exchanged a glance, a blend of clear understanding and resigned defeat.

They’d spoken endlessly on the subject. Maya wanted a natural childbirth — no drugs and no surgery — but neither were willing to put mother or child at risk just to say they had done it. The choice was made for them, and as with many of the things they were yet to find in their brand new universe, they would have to find a comfortable nook in the wide chasm between what they expected and what they could expect to go wrong.

Brian pulled the bed back toward him as the nurses began to wheel it from the room. “I’ll be right there,” he promised, kissing Maya slightly too hard on the forehead.

“I know,” she breathed, “but don’t keep me waiting too long.”

Time fell form its normal rhythm and into a syrupy pool of swirling seconds. Brian pushed one leg through his pant bottoms, then the other. He pulled the top on over his head, mopping his forehead on the way down. He wondered about Michael Michelle — the baby’s name since about five minutes from when they first saw the pink positive slowly materialize inside the window of the white stick — Michael for a prince, Michelle for a princess.

Despite the modern ease of discovering the baby’s sex, all the friends and family demanding to know, and the doctors who looked sideways at their decision, Brian and Maya had wanted the surprise. But it was a difficult mystery to keep. Everyone thought the couple would be bringing home a Michelle rather than a Michael, with reasons ranging from, “Look at the way she holding it, it’s obviously a girl,” to the playful cry from Maya’s best friend Lisa that, “Maya always gets what she wants, of course it’s going to be a girl.”

It was widely assumed that Maya preferred a girl, but the truth was that neither she or Brian held any preference. A boy would teach Maya things that she could never know otherwise and, she was sure, bring her ever closer to Brian and maybe even her brother. A girl would send her back into her own childhood and help her to remember the constant wonder she felt moving through the world from tiny to all grown, and maybe help her to reconcile the disconnect she felt from her mother. Only Solomon, the old man who had lived across the street from Maya throughout the entirety of her childhood had broken rank, declaring the child a boy — a prophecy he maintained since the first second when he’d taken a single, passing glance at Maya’s barely swollen belly and announced, “Congratulations, you’re having a boy.”

Brian entered the room as directed. It was entirely quiet save for the clinking of metal and the strained rhythm of Maya’s breathing. He expected to find a wife in the midst of labor, with a small army of attendants attending. What he found instead was a room heavy with a sense of controlled anxiety. A partition was set at Maya’s middle, keeping her from being a witness to the bloodbath behind.

Brian checked the clock on the wall to steady his disbelief. He had lost only three minutes since the blond nurse had handed him the folded scrubs. In that time the doctors had sliced Maya wide open in an abyss of blood and gaping flesh. “Get ready, Papa,” a doctor said, rolling a chair across the floor.

“Thanks,” Brian said. He sat down and looked at Maya. Her eyes were closed and cheeks tensed in concentration. Though her breath seemed less labored, she was far away in a place he could not follow.  He kissed her on the forehead, much softer. “How we doing?” he smiled.

“I’m scared,” Maya admitted. He watched a quiet tear slide from the corner of each eye. He offered his hand, which she took and squeezed until it started to purple. There was no need for words — anything that needed to be said had already been spoken over countless dinners and long, restless, uncomfortable nights; well before the floor was wet from Michael Michelle’s first public address. Their anxieties certainly didn’t require repetition in a room full of important strangers.

“Would you like to have your picture taken?” asked one of the nurses who was sitting by herself beside a translucent wash tub.

“My camera’s in our bag next door,” Brian said, embarrassed. He was going to have to get used to the idea of taking a camera with him everywhere, like some sort of photojournalist for National Geographic.

“That’s why we keep this handy,” the nurse said with a smile, proudly displaying a Polaroid which looked like it had witnessed several thousand arrivals already. “Say cheese.”

The room saw a flash then heard a whir, as the picture slid forward from the camera’s mouth. The nurse shook the Polaroid a few times, then laid the picture on the table. “Everything will be ready in just a minute,” she said. “Enjoy your final few seconds of freedom.”

The couple held hands and smiled at the joke which must have been told at least once for every Polaroid. “Are you ready?” he whispered.

“I can’t feel a thing,” Maya said. She squeezed Brian’s hand even tighter.

The room was filled with a sudden blaring echo as the unique signature announcing the Earth is now holding one more bounced from tiled wall to tiled wall. “Wow!” the doctor exclaimed above their baby’s scream. “Sounds like you have yourself a little rock star!” The doctor pulled their newborn son from the warm comfort of the only home he’d ever known and into the bright light and booming voices of an unfamiliar world. He continued to scream as his world was forced to universe from membrane.

Brian was shocked by the strength of his son’s lungs as they caromed against the walls of the birthing room. He had naively imagined that babies were born with tiny lungs, which quickly grew to a size capable of keeping a young couple awake for a year’s worth of consecutive nights of broken sleep. Brian smiled. If he wasn’t ready now, another week wasn’t going to make much of a difference.

“Would you like to meet your son?” the blonde nurse asked from above the basin where she was rinsing afterbirth from the newborn.

The tentative father drew closer, the baby’s volume inexplicably increasing. Brian leaned on one knee and placed his hand on top of the little one’s tummy. “I’m your Daddy,” he said.

The tiny child, just four minutes old, reached up with both his miniature hands, wrapping them around their father’s comparatively gigantic pointer, as if to say, “I know.”

His crying ceased in an instant, leaving only the sounds of running water and the clinking implements of birth. Brian kissed his son, then rolled in his chair back over to Maya, kissing her again on the forehead.  “What does he look like?” she whispered.

“He’s just beautiful,” he said, the tears already running down his face. “He looks just like you.” Maya squeezed his hand softly. “He recognized me,” Brian crowed.

“Of course he did,” Maya said through a thin smile, thick from effort. Then, “You’re his Daddy.” It was the last thing she managed to say before losing consciousness.

_______

The Hospital was in the midst of a rare quiet. Footsteps sounded loud, echoing through the empty hallway as the daytime nurses went about routine. The door to Room #8 remained closed and even the random, stray noises were barred from its solitude. The lights inside their room were off. New parents lay silent, fingers hooked across a beaten floor of linoleum, their newborn son taking first communion from the cradle of his mother’s worn body. Their world was new, time no longer theirs alone.

They were the best of friends, now parents, and the new responsibilities of parenthood, they know, will bathe them like a baptism. They are different people with different minds, yet the thoughts swirling inside each of their heads are remarkably similar.

Will I be a better mother than mine was to me? Will he know that I’m his father? How could I possibly love something this much. Will I always feel so scared?

There are countless books and at least twice as many websites each advertising their own answers, but Brian and Maya both know that the only thing which will get them through the four seasons of the next eighteen years is living them.

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