Winter Journeys

Blessed Event

Grace got in the passenger seat of the ambulance, twisting around to see what was going on. The paramedics were busy working on Bonnie in back. Either their aid, or the warmth of the vehicle, seemed to revive her.

"Stop! Stop! Whoa, horsie! Stop!"

"It's all right, Bonnie. You're safe now," reassured Grace, though "safety" was relative. "What happened?"

"Ummmm -- car zoomed by, spooked horse. Started racing. Decided to jump."

Grace winced. "Didn't you realize that you could hurt the baby?"

"Danger anyway. Tried sticking arms out."

"That matches the evidence," said one of the paramedics. "One of her arms is badly broken, the other sprained, but that's the worst of the damage. The arms broke the fall, protecting her belly."

"And she rolled to a stop, using up momentum gradually. I figured out that part," said Grace. Whatever flaws Bonnie might have, she did have an instinct for self-preservation. "Can you check on the baby?"

"Too much action in that region," answered the other paramedic. "I think the shock has triggered labor."

"Oh, God," moaned Grace, sinking back in her seat in despair. The exclamation was reflexive at first, but it triggered other thoughts, as Grace remembered that she was in a nearly unique position.

She knew that God did not protect his favorites from tragedy. He had let Joan lose Judith, and made no miracles to help Kevin, all on the ground that they had "made their choices". But maybe Joan had not fought hard enough. She was not a born rebel like Grace.

I know You can hear me thinking, God, so Now Hear This. If Bonnie dies or loses the baby, we're through. I'm not going to make war like Ryan Hunter, but I'm not going to play Errand Girl either. Yeah, I know Bonnie made her choices, and stupid ones, but I don't care. I'm exerting my free will, and You have my conditions. Now it's Your choice.

Amen.

--------------

At the hospital the staff took over and wheeled Bonnie into the emergency room. They asked Grace to stay behind in the waiting room and fill out forms. Ordinarily red tape drove Grace up the wall, but at the moment it exerted a calming effect on her, enabling her to focus on something besides a crisis in which she could do little.

NAME: Bonnie McLean

ADDRESS: That was complicated. Grace settled for putting in the Cavalos' address, 7733 Ross Highway.

PARTY RESPONSIBLE FOR PAYMENT: That was even more complicated. The jerk whot had knocked Bonnie up had been shamed into providing enough money to cover her expenses for nine months, but nobody had anticipated the current emergency. Grace grimly wrote in the name of Bonnie's mother, who had kicked her out. It would serve the bitch right if she got soaked with her daughter's medical bill.

The Cavalo couple showed up in the waiting room. They had left Brian to run the farm: no matter what the nature of the emergency, somebody had to keep the farm animals fed. They told Grace that they had found the runaway horse with its wagonon the road, where it had finally run out of energy. They had tethered it to a tree, and Brian would retrieve them later. Her own horse had also been found, though Grace would be reluctant to get on it soon, after that slap on the rump. So everything was accounted for and all right, except for Bonnie.

At one point a nurse stuck her head out to give them an update. Bonnie's arm injuries had been treated, and the focus was now on her womb. The paramedics were right, and Bonnie was in labor. Thedoctors thought it unwise to try to stop it, and so Bonnie was going to have her baby, two months early.

"Have!" repeated Jean Cavalo after the nurse went back to the operating room. "Such a weird verb for the process. It was the most painful, exhilarating experience of my life when I gave birth to Brian, and they call it "having a baby". Like having a cup of coffee. In older times they used to call it "bearing a child". At least that gave you an idea of the work involved."

"Patriarchy," explained Grace. "When all a man had to do was enjoy himself for a night, and pace for a few hours nine months later, it was easy for men to talk about having."

"I didn't pace," said Jonathan. "I was with Jean all the way through."

They were all talking as if this was a normal birth. Not the culmination of a wild seven months.

Eventually the nurse came out again. "It's over! We had to rush the child to the incubator, but that's normal for a two-month premature infant. It's a boy. And the mother is doing well, under the circumstances."

The Cavalos made sighs of relief. Grace had a more profound reaction.

Did God hear me and fix the situation? Or was it pre-ordained to come out right, starting with Bonnie's lucky fall? I'll probably never know. But I got what I asked for, and I'm back to playing Errand Girl.

---------------------

A few hours later, late in the evening, Grace and the Cavalos visited Bonnie. The girl was pale and her arms were both in a complicated sling, but she had come through. For the first time, Grace looked upon the little pest with awe. She had survived months of misfortune and ended accomplishing something Grace had never done: bringing new life into the world.

"Hello?" said a voice from the hallway. "Is this Bonnie Mclean's room? I'm Cecilia Doone, from Ace Adoptions. I visited the address--"

Grace practically pushed the woman back into the corridor. "You can't come in! Bonnie has just had -- borne -- a baby and she's exhausted. Come back later."

"But that's just the point. The longer we wait, the harder it is for the mother to part with the child. At this stage, she may not have bonded with it yet."

Grace frowned, realizing that it sounded logical. She let the woman in. The Cavalos looked shocked, but seemed to acknowledge, like Grace, that this was something that needed thrashing out now.

"I'm not giving it up," said Bonnie. "It's my baby. I saved its life today, before it was even born."

Grace walked up to her, reluctantly taking the side of cold logic. "That's your hormones talking, Bonnie. Just a few days ago you told me you were willing to give up the child."

"That was then. This is now. I've seen what a real mother is like, now, in HER," Bonnie said, nodding toward Mrs. Cavalo.

"But then made more sense. You're just 17, Bonnie, not a farmer's wife. You need to plan for your future. You need to finish high school at the least. That jerk's money is going to run out soon; what will you do after that? I know that your mother is a bitch, but at least she'll probably take you back once the baby isn't a problem. And you can trust the adoption agency to find a good home for the baby." Was this her real role in this mess? Talking Bonnie out of making a mistake? "Let it go."

"I can't! I can't turn him over and know I'll never see him again! If you let me visit once a while--"

"I'm sorry, the rules forbid contact between the families," said Doone. Grace was about to slug her, for being so hard-assed and trapping Bonnie in an unpalatable choice, when--

"We'll raise the child," blurted out Jean Cavalo.

Everybody stared at her for a few moments. Jonathan recovered first, and nodded slowly. "We always wanted another child after Brian, but Fate, or God, or whatever, had other ideas."

"It looks like He changed his mind," observed Grace. And only she knew that it might be literally true, or that He had a plan for the Cavalos all along.

Jean walked up to Bonnie. "You'll be able to visit your child whenever you like, Bonnie, but Grace is right. You need to be free to get your own life in order first."

Bonnie pondered it for a nearly minute, while Grace held her breath. Finally-

"OK. I'll let the Cavalos adopt my baby."

"This isn't the sort of adoption my agency handles, as I said," replied Doone, "but I can put you in touch with the right people. By the way, does the child have a name yet?"

"That's up to Bonnie," said Jean Cavalo.

"Adam," said Bonnie.

"Adam?" repeated Jean in puzzlement. "But he wasn't the baby's father."

"No. And neither of them really loved me. But Adam was the one who cared."

TBC