North of Nowhere, South of Loss (17 page)

“I'm her father,” Jonathan says.

The receptionist's mouth opens and her eyes widen. She blinks rapidly, staring at him. “But …” she says. Jonathan focuses on the O of her lips and waits. “Oh,” she says, recovering well. “In that case. It's third door down, on the right. Delivery 3. I, uh, I apologise.”

“That's okay.”

“Her mother's in there with her.”

Jonathan leans on the counter. It hits an air pocket and drops several feet. He breathes slowly. “I'll be fine,” he says to the receptionist. “Third door down, on the right. Right?”

She stares at him. “Right.”

Delivery 3 is in twilight. The shades are drawn, the light dimmed. At first he sees only the tilted bed, the trolleys, the drips, the equipment, the stirrups, his daughter's face, coffee-pale, and the corona of her hair, black and damp, against the pillow.

He kisses her forehead, pushing aside a mass of curls.

“Dad?” She half opens heavy lids but they fall again.

“Stace,” he says.

She makes another effort to open her eyes. A smile flickers and stays. “We've been waiting for you,” she says, slurring her words like a drunk. She gropes for his hand.

We.

He peers through the murk of the room and sees an armchair, shadowy against the closed drapes. He sees the form of a woman. His hand jumps like a fish in Stacey's, and Stacey gives a little cry of fright. “Me and the baby,” she says, each startled word distinct. “I told the baby not to come till you were here.”

The woman in the armchair is not Cathy. He can see more clearly now. He can feel his pupils dilating, pushing against the edges of his eyes. He blinks several times, but the sensation of painful bulging does not go away. Owl-like, he and the woman study each other.

“Hi,” she says quietly. “I'm QP's mom.” She comes forward and extends her hand. She is a handsome woman, fifty perhaps. Fifty-five? Her face is worn, her hand feels like fine-tooled leather. He notes a wrist band with woven initials: WWJD “I guess you're Stacey's dad,” she says.

“Jonathan Wilson. Pleased to meet you.”

“Callisto Wade. Your wife's gone to buy Stace a few things. I've been keeping watch.”

“Kind of you.”

“I'll let you two be. I feel like I know you already, Stacey's talked about you so much.”

He is startled. And now, he sees, he cannot ask: Who is QP? Nor can he ask: And what does she say about me? What does she say about her mother, about
us
? He works at words, dragging them up a levee in his mind, but he cannot get a firm purchase.

“No problem at all,” Callisto says, and he understands that some verbal scree, a few pebbles, inane, must have ricocheted up. “I could do with some sleep,” she says, “but I'd appreciate a call when things start moving. They gave her something to induce, because of the pre-eclampsia”

“I don't know what that means.”

“Means they got to get the baby out pretty quick. Means the hard part should begin in three, maybe four hours. I'll be back for that. This'll be my twenty-third grandchild, God willing, and I get just as excited every time.”

“Twenty-third,” he murmurs, stunned.

“QPs my baby” she says. “My tenth and last.” She sighs. “Though he is like to bring down my grey hairs with sorrow to the grave.”

She catches his look.

“The Bible,” she says. “Book of Genesis”

“Yes. I thought so.”

This interests her. “Whitefolks don't usually know their Bibles as well as us.”

“Is it Abraham?”

“Close. OldJacob, when he thinks he's lostJoseph and Benjamin, both. It's the youngest ones break our hearts.”

“Yes.” He has not thought of it as a general rule.

She puts a hand on his arm. “They go astray, but they come back.” She studies him, considering what to tell. “I'm going to stop by at my church on the way home. Church of the Lord Victorious. I'm going to stop by to pray.”

“It's dangerous, this pre-eclampsia thing?”

“You a believer, Mr Wilson?”

“Well,” he says.

“All things are possible to them that believe. You see these hands?”

She offers her palms.

“Touch them,” she says.

Jonathan glances uneasily at Stacey whose eyes remain closed.

“They don't look much, do they?” Callisto says, turning her hands over and back. “They do hair, is what they do weekdays. Straightening, lightening, braiding, beading, cornrows, dreadlocks, you name it. That's what they do weekdays. But on Sundays, they come to glory. On Sundays, in the Church of the Lord Victorious, they handle snakes.”

She waits to gauge the effect of her words.

“Poisonous snakes,” she says.

When he says nothing, she lays her cool snake-handling fingers on his wrist.

“All things are possible,” she says, “to them that believe.”

A nurse comes in and takes Stacey's blood pressure.

Stacey says: “Has something gone wrong? Why have my contractions stopped?”

“They take their own sweet time,” the nurse says. “Especially for first births. Not to worry. Dr Steiner's keeping a close eye on you. We have to let him know every little blip and change in your readings. He'll be by again in half an hour.” She leaves.

“Dad?” Stacey says.

He gets up from the armchair and comes to her side. This time he manages to say it. “It's so good to see you again, Stace.” He kisses her forehead. “It's just so good to see you.”

She reaches for his hand. The way she holds it reminds him of a day on the beach north of Boston. She would have been five or six and they were walking on great ribs of rock, the frenetic surf between. “Do you remember the beach near the lighthouse?” he asks.

“That time I fell into the ocean?”

“You were five, I think.”

“There was blood all over.”

“The rocks
grated
us,” he says.

“I had nightmares for ages. I was so scared.”

“So was I,” he says.

Her eyes close, but she does not let go of his hand. Minutes pass. He thinks she is asleep and then realises she is watching him.

“Hey,” he smiles.

“I've fucked up again, as usual, Dad.”

“Don't think about it. It doesn't matter.”

“It does,” she says. “But I'm too tired to care.”

“We were afraid we'd lost you, Stace. It's been so long.”

“Yeah. Two years.”

“More than two years. We've been worried sick. We didn't even know if you were … you know … ”

“Alive or dead,” she says.

“Why didn't you call? Why didn't you at least –”

“I don't know. Too much I didn't want to talk about, I guess.”

“At least a postcard.”

“Just too much I didn't want you to know.”

“Oh Stace.”

“Don't go weepy on me, Dad.”

“I'm not,” he says, embarrassed. “It's the air-conditioning.”

“You seen Mom yet?”

“No,” he says. “She called me. We talked.”

Stacey's eyelids fall shut again. “I'm so tired,” she says. “I didn't know it would be such hard work.”

Someone pushes at the door and the garish neon of the corridor blares in. Jonathan flinches. A hand and a head appear, not Cathy's. The hand and the head are black. “Oh, sorry,” a male voice says. “Wrong room.”

Stacey stirs. “Stag?” she asks sleepily. “Is that you?”

Stag's eyes widen. “Stace?” He comes into the room, startled. “How you doin', girl? Thought I got the wrong room.”

“You got the right room,” Stacey says, turning lively. She sits up. “That is, if it's me you're looking for.”

“And who else would I be looking for, girl? How many women you think I know about to pop a baby in Northside Hospital?”

Stacey laughs. “Is that a question we really want to know the answer to, Stag?”

“You watch your mouth, girl. Man,” he says admiringly, patting her stomach. “You as blown-up as a whale on steroids. What you cookin' in there?”

“Get lost,” she laughs. “Dad, this loser is QP's best friend.”

“From when we were this high,” Stag says, touching the floor. He locks the index finger of his right hand around the middle finger. “Like this,” he says. “Me and QP. Blood brothers. That's what I had to tell the chick outside, by the way. Only relatives, she says. I'm family, I tell her. Blood brother. Had to throw in a little sweet talk as well” He pauses, frowning. He contemplates Jonathan with the air of someone replaying a track in his head. “Stace? –?”

“This's my dad, Stag.”

“Your
dad?”

“You got a problem with that?” Stacey asks, belligerent.

Stag raises both hands, a surrender. “No, ma'am”. He falls into a violent mock trembling. “No, ma'am. I ain't got no problem with that.”

“Get lost,” Stacey says. “You idiot.”

“Your dad. Well, how 'bout that?” Stag's smile is full of wonder and white teeth. “Pleased to meet you, suh. Stace never let on her folks was whitefolks.”

“Pleased to meet you, Stag. Jonathan Wilson”

“Virgil Haynes, suh. But everyone call me Stag.”

“
Virgil?
Your name is Virgil?”

“Yessuh.”

Stacey groans. “Don't get him started, Stag. He's about to spout Latin.”

Stag is studying her, seeing her differently. “QP know about this?”

“QP know about what?”

“That your folks is whitefolks?”

“Naturally he knows,” Stacey says, indignant. “What do you think I am?”

“He never let on. He never give me one little clue. I don't get it, Stace.”

“Place your bets, Stag. Genetic miracle or adoption?”

“No, I mean, I don't get it with QP.”

“Maybe he's not crazy about it,” Stacey says tartly.

Jonathan says, “Would you object to my calling you Virgil?”

“Object?” Stag scratches his head. “No suh, I guess I got no objection, 'cept only time anyone ever call me Virgil is my momma when she is mad at me.”

Stacey says, embarrassed, “He gets a big kick out of the name, Stag.”

“That so?” Stag asks. “It was my daddy's name, and my grand-daddy's name, and his daddy's before that.”

“Drop it,” Stacey says. “So what's happening, anyway? Rap with me, man. It's awful boring in here.”

“I'll tell you what's happening,” Stag sighs. “I just gone and done the most dumb-ass thing of my whole life.”

Stacey laughs. “I meant, what
new
stuff is happening?”

“No, I got to tell you this, girl. I got to tell you this. I got to get me some sympathy, because something is pressing heavy on my mind. Man, I got myself lost, big time, coming all the way up here from Decatur.”

“Oh, right,” Stacey says. “Major voyage.”

“Girl, this far north off of 285, you not in Atlanta anymore, you not even in Georgia, you into foreign territory. I miss my exit and next thing I am all the way into Buckhead and I am going around in circles cursing you, girl.”

Stacey laughs. “You were driving that souped-up scrap heap around Buckhead? You're lucky you weren't arrested, Stag.”

“Well, ended up I had me a good time, not getting myself found by the cops. I saw some mighty pretty houses in Buckhead while I was lost.”

“Whitney Houston's got a house in Buckhead,” Stacey says.

“Maybe I see it,” Stag says. “I don't know. All I know is, I saw me some mighty pretty houses, and I said to myself, Man, I would surely like to get me a house like that. I would surely like to give my woman a house like that for Christmas.”

“Which woman would that be, Stag?”

“The love of my life at this present time,” Stag says with dignity. “And here's the thing, Stace, that is pressing so heavy on my mind. I could've got me a house like that, this very day, if it wasn't for what I went and didn't do last week.”

“What you didn't do last week.”

“Don't mock me, girl. You listen to this, and you'll know not to mock the small inner voice when it speaks, like Callisto says. That snake-handler, she is one powerful woman. And Callisto always tell me: Boy, any time you ignore that small inner voice, you will regret it.” He closes his left fist around a bunch of keys. The keys hang on a flat woven ribbon around his neck and he runs the key ring up and down the cord. “Callisto give me this to remind me,” he says. “And I am here to tell you that Callisto is right, because last month I got me the idea to play my street number and my apartment number, end to end, in the lottery, and what do you know?”

“What do I know?” Stacey asks.

“I am just two digits off the winning number, I swear to God. So I say to myself: Stag, there is a message here. The inner voice is talking to you, boy. And the inner voice tell me, you're on to something here, Stag. And then it comes to me like Moses striking the rock.
Next time,
it says to me,
you got to play your mobile number”

“Let me guess,” Stacey says. “And now you are just
one
digit away from a million.”

“Girl,” Stag says. “You do not even begin to understand the scope of this tragedy. I did not play the lottery this month because I was too damn busy with this and that, and because I am dumb-ass stupid, and rejecting of the spiritual life. ”

“I can't wait for the moral,” Stacey says.

“The moral is this. What do you think is the winning one-million-dollar lottery number this week?”

“Who do I think is the biggest bullshitter south of the Mason-Dixon line?”

“I swear to God, Stace, it is my mobile number. And that is what happen when you do not listen to the inner voice. If I had listen, I could be moving in next door to Whitney Houston.” He turns to Jonathan. “Is that a tragedy, suh? Is that a tragedy?”