For the Love of Suzanne (32 page)

“My baby needs to be born in a hospital,”
she said weakly.

“I’ll find one.”

“You don’t understand,” she said
shakily with a sniff.

“What’s there to understand?” he
asked her innocently, lying down again. “Women here give birth
all the time.”

“I know, but if something should go wrong,
the hospitals in my world can save my baby even if it isn’t
breathing.”

“I’m impressed,” he said
matter-of-factly. “Are you afraid I won’t be able to love
and care for your child?” he asked with suspicion.

“No but—“

“Stay,” he interrupted her quietly and
pulled her down for a kiss. “I’ll find a preacher and
we’ll get married and raise the child together,” he
murmured as their breaths mingled.

She closed her eyes in agony and sniffed softly.
“I love you, but I can’t stay here. I hate to sound like
a wimp, but it’s scary and so hard. I don’t know how much
more I can take.”

He hugged her tightly, understanding her desire
for an easier way. “Oh, Suzanne,” he sighed and kissed
her fragrant hair. “I don’t know what to do.”

She buried her face in his chest. “I don’t
know what I’m going to do without you,” she wept with
regret.

He cuddled her, stroking her bare back, unable to
answer because he’d been wondering how he was going to live
without her, too. The past months had been so hard at times, but just
being with her had made it bearable, even when she had been so sick.

She suddenly arched against him with a sharp gasp
and rolled away from him, clutching her belly. She threw her head
back, stifling a scream of pain.

He sat up in a panic. “Is it time?

“I don’t know,” she panted as
the pain eased. “I’ve lost track. I don’t know.”

He didn’t know what to do. He’d never
seen a baby born or been around a woman who was giving birth. “You
have to stop that baby from coming,” he said as he quickly got
dressed.

“Yeah, right,” she laughed. “He’s
coming whenever he wants whether we like it or not. Ah!” she
gasped with more pain then began to laugh again as it subsided. “It’s
impossible to stop this.”

He rose to his feet. “What do you want me to
do?” he asked anxiously.

“I don’t know,” she said as she
breathed raggedly. “I need to get back to my world. Now. ”

He understood. Their time for parting had come and
hadn’t waited until morning like they’d thought it would.
He retrieved her baggy cotton dress and helped her to sit up, wanting
her to retain her modesty if she made it back. He didn’t want
her to be found naked and be embarrassed.

He leaned her against a tree and began to saddle
Titan. “Please stop this now,” he begged God.

She watched him as her pain subsided. She didn’t
want to leave him. She didn’t want to stay. She wanted to laugh
at his panic, but the ultimate end was so close and she fought tears
instead.

He was quick with the horse, wanting to get her
back, swallowing his feelings and putting hers first. He went back to
her and knelt down. “Is it time?”

“I think so, but I don’t know what you
have to do.”

“We’re in a fix. I don’t know,
either,” he said as he anxiously combed his fingers through his
hair.

She could see the fear in his face and understood
it well. She was just as afraid if not more so. She took his hand.
“We aren’t going to make it back to the car,” she
said hoarsely.

He kissed her fingertips. “I know, honey,”
he said compassionately. “But we’re going to try.”

Another pain gripped her, making her gasp and grit
her teeth.

He was stunned. She’d been perfectly fine a
short while ago. Were babies this abrupt all the time? He was more
terrified than he’d ever been in his life. He knew there was
technique and order to giving birth, but he had no idea what they
were.

When he helped her up, she clutched her belly
again as a warm liquid drenched her legs. “Oh my God,”
she moaned, knowing this was time. Her water had broken.

He knew it was time, too and wished someone else
was here to do this. “I don’t know what to do,” he
panicked.

“Get a doctor. This is happening way too
fast,” she said in broken gasps.

“There isn’t a doctor for miles and
I’m not going to leave you here,” he exclaimed.

He laid her down again and watched her roll onto
her side and throw up. “Oh God,” he rasped, dropping
beside her and began to rub her back in a futile effort to make her a
little more comfortable then pulled her away and laid her on her
back. He could feel her sweating and hear her gasping for air and
dashed to the stream and took off his shirt and got it wet. He ran
back to her and began to gently wipe her face with the cool water.

She clutched his wrist as he gently brushed the
beads from her face and gazed into his fear-filled eyes. She smiled
lamely. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you afraid
until now.”

“This is a frightening thing, honey,”
he said softly and kissed her fingertips again. “I am
frightened.”

She squeezed his hand affectionately. “So am
I.”

“Are you better now?”

She was breathing much easier and the pain had
subsided, but the sickening wetness between her legs reminded her
that all was not well. “My water broke. The baby is coming and
he isn’t going to wait.”

“Water?” he echoed dumbly, but got no
answer because she was gripped with another painful spasm.

She didn’t yell or scream but clutched his
hand tightly. The pain was short-lived and she relaxed again, but
still breathed hard. “I’m going to name this baby after
you.”

“What if it’s a girl?”

“She’ll have a boy name—AH!”
she gasped as she squeezed his hand and arched her back in pain.

Under normal circumstances, he would have thought
her last comment to be amusing, but he was frantic by the coming of a
new life that he had no idea how to care for. “I wish the boy
would wait,” he murmured to himself, holding Suzanne around her
back for support.

She fell against him, panting hard. “I’m
such a wimp. I hate being in pain.”

He dabbed the sweat from her forehead. “I
know, sweetheart. Nobody likes it,” he said sympathetically and
kissed her on the cheek. “I wish I knew what to do.”

She chuckled without humor. “Me, too.”

He kissed her on the forehead, wishing she were in
her world. There would be people there who could help. She’d
said so.

“I love you, Cody,” she said
breathlessly.

“I love you, Suzanne,” he said with
near desperation.

She raised herself and kissed him on the lips. “I
would have married you.”

“I wanted you to,” he told her softly
and began to rub her belly as another contraction seized her.

“I-I know,” she panted and began to
look around in awe, feeling something change. The air had changed and
the stars were spinning. “Hold onto me, Cody,” she
begged, wondering what was going on. “Hold onto me,” she
nearly panicked as a big wind came up.

“I’ve got you, honey,” he said
as he watched the campfire go out and what felt like a storm coming
on. But he’d never seen anything like this. The sky was abysmal
and all light had disappeared; he felt like they were spinning.

“Hold onto me,” she pleaded loudly
above the roaring wind.

He pulled her to his chest and buried his face in
her neck and held her close as they were both lifted into a vortex
that seemed to go on forever.

“Suzanne, I’m worried about you,”
Jeannette Lightfield told her daughter as they sat together in
Suzanne’s living room, watching Suzanne’s son play with
his toy keys on his tummy.

She looked at her mother who seemed to have aged
while she’d been gone. Her blond hair was nearly white and
she’d cut it short. She had crow’s feet at her eyes and
deep lines around her mouth, neither of which she’d had before.
“Why?”

“You haven’t been the same since
little Cody was born…or should I say, since you got lost in
the desert?”

She shook her head sadly, thinking of the elder
Cody and grieved silently as she had for the last seven months. She
missed him so much. Not a day went by when she didn’t replay
their short time together in her head. She knew he’d been in
the vortex with her, but what had happened to him? Where had he gone?

“Did you meet somebody while you were out
there?”

She shook her head and bit her finger fretfully.

“You were gone for the duration of your
pregnancy, Suzy. Where were you?”

“I was lost, Mom,” she said shakily.
“It was a miracle I made it out alive.”

“I agree, but where were you? How did you
find your way back to the road after all that time? You were in labor
when they picked you up, you know. You were minutes from having that
little boy,” she pointed at the baby who was oblivious to his
grandmother’s hype about his safety. “If that sheriff’s
deputy hadn’t come along, you both might have died.”

She wanted so badly to ask if there had been a man
with her when she’d been found, but everybody was already
thinking she was crazy because of the red cotton dress she’d
been wearing that was obviously of another time. She’d been
questioned extensively by the authorities. Nobody had made mention of
a man.

She fingered Cody’s rosary that she still
wore around her neck, missing him badly. “Mom, please,”
she begged. “It’s been seven months and we’re both
okay. Can we just forget about it now? Please?”

“You’re hiding something,” she
said suspiciously. “You would think you would be happy to be
back with your family, but you’re so distant. What happened out
there?”

She began to roll a couple of the wooden beads
between her fingers as she fought her tears. She’d lost the
only man she’d ever loved, but something told her he was here.
If he had made it, he was probably very scared and had run. He could
easily live off the land. He’d done it all his life so that
part of his survival was nothing to worry about. It was the modern
stuff that would terrify him and keep him in the desert…if
he’d made it.

When she’d been found, she had been wearing
the dress that Marda had given her which had raised many eyebrows in
the small town where she lived. She didn’t even try to explain
and had taken it to the cleaners and then put it away. It was of
another time and another place. It was a memento of Cody.

Once at the hospital, the doctors and nurses had
delivered a healthy seven pound, three ounce baby boy whom she
promptly named Cody James. She had never known the elder Cody’s
middle name so had just used that one, thinking it was okay. She
didn’t feel at all guilty about not naming her son after Beau
who had never wanted the baby anyway. Cody had offered to love both
of them and to raise the child as his own. And after all he’d
done for her, it was the least she could do to honor and thank him.

While she’d been in the hospital, the doctor
had noticed a slight deformity in her arm after Cody had been born.
He’d ordered some X-rays and referred her to another doctor who
suggested she get it broken again and set correctly. It didn’t
cause her pain or inhibit her actions in any way so she hadn’t
given it much thought.

All she could think about was Cody. She was
thinking after all this time that maybe he hadn’t survived the
vortex. It didn’t stop her from checking out all the Native
American men who came into the diner where she’d gone back to
work six weeks after little Cody’s birth. Any man who had long
hair or the soft dark eyes or the hard features of the man who had
stolen her heart was always the one she checked out the closest. But
nothing ever panned out and she was resigned to the fact that he was
gone forever.

She spent every night alone and lonely for him.
Her son filled a massive void in her life, but she longed to share it
with the elder Cody, too. She often chastised herself for having
fantasies of him being with her in her humble trailer house, teaching
him to drive and how to work the shower, taking part in her baby’s
life and sharing a bed with him. She still wanted a life with him,
but she knew her prayers were an exercise in futility and her hopes
were fading.

She had been prodded by the media for interviews
on what had happened to her and where she had been, but after seven
months and her repeated denials, the requests had stopped, leaving
her to harbor her secret that she would take to her grave. The love
that she and Cody had shared was sacred. She didn’t see the
need to broadcast it for the skeptics of the world to criticize and
mock even if the financial incentives had been phenomenal. It had
been real and to say anything publicly would be to cheapen it and
dishonor him.

“I think you need to see a psychiatrist,”
Jeannette said matter-of-factly.

“No,” she sniffed, not even aware of
when the tears had started. “I just need more time.”

“Have you thought about moving back to New
York?”

She shook her head. “I don’t want to
raise Cody there, Mom,” she said quietly.

“Oh, honey, I can’t leave you out here
alone,” she said worriedly. “How are you going to take
care of Cody while you work?”

“I’ve been working for months now and
the daycare is working fine,” she said as she covered her
mother’s hand and gave her a reassuring smile. “We’re
going to be okay.”

Jeannette looked at her daughter with disbelief,
but knew she was a stubborn girl and there was no point in arguing.

Baby Cody slapped himself in the forehead with the
plastic keys and let out a short yelp, but then went back to playing.

“Beau would have loved that boy,”
Jeannette said thoughtfully as she gazed at the little dark-haired
pudgy boy.

“You’re wrong on that one, Mom,”
she said quietly.

She looked at her daughter who had gotten her hair
cut to her shoulders after she’d given birth to Cody. It looked
like it had been burned and when she asked her about it, she’d
told her she’d gotten too close to an open fire and let it
drop. “Beau wouldn’t like his only child?” she
asked in dismay.