Chapter 34
Deja kept playing with her new ring. She turned it towards the light to see how glinted in the sun, she practiced greeting people with her left hand and she polished it at least three times a day. She couldn't have been happier to be engaged. She wished she could've had the wedding before the babies were born, but there was no way she was going to waddle down the aisle. She'd give herself enough time to lose her baby weight and then she'd find the perfect dress.
She had called her mother about two days prior and told her of the great news. Janice suggested if they couldn't find anywhere they liked in Florida to be married, that they were more than welcome to fly down to Jamaica and have the wedding there. It would also afford her the opportunity to see her grandchildren for the first time.
Deja was leaning against the window sill, looking outside when Mort came up from behind and embraced her. A smile instantly appeared on her face and she leaned her head back against his shoulder. He kissed her gently in the crook of her neck.
"I wasn't interrupting anything was I?"
Turning to face him, she said, "No, I was just lost in thought."
"About what?"
"I'm gonna really miss this cabin when we move. I was looking at the trees and how bare they are. Within a couple more months they're gonna start to bloom again. Our kids are never going to see this," she said sadly.
"That's not true. I have no intention of selling this place and I want nothing more than our kids to see this place in the winter, spring, summer and fall. We'll be back here more than you'd like I'm sure," he said, lightening the mood. "So what are you in the mood to eat?"
"Anything spicy. I've had a craving for it all day."
"There's this great little Indian restaurant in New London. I could go pick us up something if you want?"
"Oh, that would be perfect," she said excitedly as she handed him his coat.
Within an hour Mort had returned with the food. Deja lay on the couch fast asleep. He placed the food on the kitchen table and went into the living room to wake her. "Wake up sleepy head," he whispered into her ear.
"Back already?" she yawned.
"Yeah, and the food's getting cold." He figured that would do it. She jumped up as best as she could and made a mad dash for the kitchen.
Deja had had cravings before, but this one was intense. She couldn't wait to fix her plate and begin eating. Mort barely had time to start preparing his own plate, before she began to dig in. "Slowly," Mort advised, "we don't want to choke now do we?"
"Sorry, got a little ahead of myself," she answered. She waited for Mort to sit down with his plate, and she began eating, this time a little slower. "This is really good. Don't think I've ever had Indian before."
"Well, when you said spicy, it was the first thing to pop into my head," Mort answered, putting a big fork full of food in his mouth.
"Well, I'm glad you knew what to get. This is absolutely delicious."
"Glad you like it."
After cleaning their plates, they both cleaned up the kitchen and headed for the living room. "So what's the plan for this evening Mrs. Soon-To-Be Rainey?"
Smiling, she said, "I'd love to watch a movie. Something funny perhaps?"
"Let's see what we've got," he said as he walked to their DVD collection. "How about...'Monty Python's The Holy Grail'?"
"Watched that last week."
"...'Something About Mary'?"
"Not in the mood for that tonight."
"Well, we just watched 'Space Balls' last night," he murmured, "How about...'O Brother, Where Art Thou?'"
"Perfect! It's been forever since I've seen that."
"Good," he muttered to himself, rolling his eyes. He was tired of calling out movies to Deja, who had become pickier about everything, except food, lately.
Mort popped the movie into the DVD player and got comfortable. Deja leaned against his chest and just enjoyed the closeness of him.
Halfway through the movie she got up and went to the restroom. Deja hadn't been gone two minutes or so, before Mort heard her scream from the bathroom. He ran and opened the door to see if she was okay.
"Oh my God Mort! My water just broke!"
"Your what!" A look of horror came over him. "It's not time yet!"
"You try telling the babies that then!" Deja yelled back.
"Oh my God, what are we gonna do?"
"Mort, snap out of it. We have to remain calm right now," she advised.
She grabbed his hand and he followed her back into the living room. "Okay," she sighed, "I want you to go upstairs to the bedroom. Under the bed is a small black suitcase. It has all my stuff inside it. I'm gonna grab your coat and keys. Just run up and get the bag and we can be on our way."
Mort was totally frazzled. He couldn't believe Deja was being so calm about all of this. He found her suitcase and slipped on a pair of his sneakers. He ran back down and saw her waiting by the door for him. She handed him his coat and the keys and they rushed out to the car.
Opening her door first, she slipped in. He threw the suitcase in the backseat and got in himself. He thought he'd never make it in time, but Deja knew they had a while before the babies would come. She was timing her contractions and they were far apart.
They checked into the hospital and Deja was given a prep room. It wasn't as cozy as the regular rooms, but it was just for her to have the baby in. Mort paced back and forth across the room. "Can you please stop?" Deja asked. "You're making me nervous."
"Sorry," he said, sitting in the small chair next to her bed.
A nurse, around the age of 30, walked in with an uneasy look about her. She came in to check on Deja and record her progress, but her eyes shifted to Mort every ten seconds. Mort didn't want to be a distraction so he excused himself and headed to the gift shop.
"So when will Dr. Phillips get here?" Deja asked the nurse, whose name tag read Jennifer.
"He was just paged and should be here within the next hour or so. You're nowhere near delivering so he'll be here in time," she reassured Deja.
"How long do you think it'll be before I do deliver?"
"It's hard to tell just by going by the contractions. The doctor will see how far you're dilated and then we can make a better assessment. I'm going to let you rest for a little while, if you need me or any of the other nurses just push this button. It'll alert someone at the front desk, okay?"
"Thanks," Deja said.
Mort passed the nurse in the hallway and he knew it was safe to come back in. He held a small, beautiful bouquet of flowers in his hand. Entering Deja's room he placed the flowers on a small table next to the chair he was seated in.
"Those are beautiful," Deja said. "Thank you."
"No problem." He had a seat in the chair again.
"So, why did you sneak off?"
"I don't think your nurse liked me very much," Mort answered, in a childlike voice.
"Awww, poor baby," she said, poking out her bottom lip. This provoked a smile from him. She was glad to make him smile. He was in a such an uptight mood since they'd left the house, it was nice to see him feeling better.
"So what did the nurse say?" he asked.
"Just that the doctor was on his way, and we'd have to wait this one out. I don't think it'll be happening anytime soon," she rolled her eyes.
"What do we do in the mean time?"
"Well, I can tell you what I won't be doing. I won't be lying in this bed the whole time. I'm gonna give it another hour or so and then you and I are gonna start exploring this hospital."
"Sounds like fun," Mort said sarcastically.
"You have a better idea?"
"No."
"Okay then. Open up my suitcase and reach into the side pocket for my cards," she instructed.
Mort did as he was told and pulled out her Uno cards. He couldn't remember the last time he'd played Uno, but he knew it was a good way to pass time.
They'd played about six games of Uno by the time the doctor had come to see them. "Sorry I'm late," he apologized, "the weather outside is terrible and the traffic didn't help. I was coming back from the city."
"Yeah, we just missed the rain," Deja said.
"So, how are you feeling?" Dr. Phillips asked.
"Fine actually. I'm just ready to get this over with."
"Well, if you don't mind lying back down and we'll see how far along you are."
Dr. Phillips slipped on his gloves, got Deja and himself into position and began checking her. Mort had no clue as to what was taking so long or what Dr. Phillips was examining, but he figured he knew what he was doing, so it was best to let him do it.
"Well," Dr. Phillips said, removing his gloves and disassembling the stirrups Deja had her feet in. "You're nowhere near fully dilated. I think it could be about 11 hours or so before you're ready."
"Eleven hours!" Deja and Mort said in unison.
"I know, I know. That seems like a long time, but I've experienced much worse. Walking around the hospital for a while may induce the labor. You may want to try that. Other than that, it's just a waiting game. I have a couple of other patients I need to check on. I'll be back in an hour or so, okay?"
"Thank you doctor," Mort said, shaking his hand. After the doctor left, Mort turned to Deja and said, "So, you want go take a walk?"
"May as well."
He helped her out of the bed and they began to walk around their floor. They stopped when they reached a large window. It was the room where all the newborn babies were kept. They must've stood at that window for the next 45 minutes just oogling at the babies.
Deja was overcome by the thought of having her own children. Her mind was just now beginning to grasp the fact that she was about to be a mother. "You okay?" Mort asked, concern in his voice.
"I'm okay, just a little overwhelmed."
"Do you want to go back to the room?"
She wiped away the tears that were forming in her eyes and nodded her head. Mort escorted her to the room and helped her get into the bed.
Over the next few hours they watched all kinds of television shows. Deja had even managed to fall asleep for a little while, but one of her pain-wrenching contractions soon awoke her.
Suddenly, her contractions were coming closer and closer. Dr. Phillips had stopped by once since their initial meeting. He told her he'd be back again, but hadn't arrived yet. Mort paged the nurse's desk to let them know about Deja's contractions.
Jennifer, the nurse from earlier, rushed into the room and timed her contractions. They were only a minute apart. "Let me page Dr. Phillips," she said, running out of the room.
"Mort...this isn't...supposed to be happening for another...six hours!" she managed to say.
"Sshhhh, calm down," he brushed the hair out of her face. "The doctor is on his way and we're gonna have these kids."
Another contraction hit. Grabbing his shirt by the color, she pulled Mort close to her. "Get Dr. Phillips in here now!" she snarled at him. He had never seen this side of her before. She looked like she could bite his head off.
Dr. Phillips, along with Jennifer, ran into the room and began to set up the necessary materials. Dr. Phillips injected the epidural and had Deja lie flat on her back. Within seconds another contraction hit. He waited until they were only seconds apart for Deja to begin pushing.
Mort was being the supportive soon-to-be father and stood by Deja's side, holding her hand. She had nearly crushed his hand a few times, but Mort knew it would all be over soon. Deja had begun pushing and Mort caught a glimpse of the first baby's head. All of the blood that surrounded the baby was too much for Mort. He was beginning to get weak and feel squeamish. He stumbled backward and had a seat in the chair.
The nurse checked on him to make sure he was okay. Deja hadn't even noticed he wasn't holding her hand anymore. She was in too much pain to pay Mort much attention.
By the time Mort had come completely to, Deja was no longer in labor. Jennifer and another nurse were cleaning the babies and had apparently already cut the umbilical cords. After doing the necessary cleanup, they wrapped the babies in blankets and put one child in each arm of Deja.
She was beaming. Mort finally had all of his strength back and made his way to Deja's side. "How long was I out for?" he asked.
"No more than five minutes, I'd say," she whispered.
"Can I hold one?"
"Not gonna pass out again are you?" she laughed.
"Ha Ha. No, I'm fine now," he said. He picked up the child closest to him and began baby talking.
"Is this the boy or girl," Mort asked Deja.
She began laughing. "To be honest, I don't know. I just checked to make sure they had ten fingers and ten toes each."
"And what verdict did you come up with?"
"They're perfect. There's 20 perfect toes and fingers. They're the most beautiful babies I've ever seen." She began to tear up again.
"All right, all right. Enough with the waterworks. We have work to do."
"Work? What kind of work?" she asked, curious of what Mort meant.
"Names. We have yet to decide on names for these two. Of course we could always go with Number One and Number Two."
"Not likely Mr. Rainey. Won't be naming my kids after bowel movements."
"Well, I know we narrowed it down to a few names and you know which ones I'm partial too."
"How about this. You name our little boy and I'll name our girl?"
"Yeah...I guess that will work..."
Deja let out a sigh. She checked under the blanket to see which child she had. "Okay, I've got the girl," she laughed. She looked at the little girl, with a head full of dark hair on her head, and said, "Alexis. She looks like an Alexis to me. Alexis Chloe Rainey."
"That seemed easy enough." Holding up the child in his arms, Mort said, "Anthony Michael Rainey. That seems like good, strong name. Huh, mom?"
"It's perfect. Anthony and Alexis."
