Sister City

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

Mom went into labor in the early hours of the morning on the first day of March. Her eighth child, due in late February, had run late; unlike all her previous pregnancies. Charlie’s pregnancy had been the polar opposite of her other six, which had caused the doctors to worry. She had been put on bed rest the day after she was due, to prevent any complications until Charlie made his appearance. Mom was over forty and the doctors were concerned. I was almost twelve, which put me in seventh grade; old enough to walk to school by myself but too young to visit my mom in the hospital without a chaperone.

When Mom went into labor, we all had to be rushed out of bed and into the Durango. We couldn’t stay home by ourselves and there were too many of us to fit in the labor and delivery room. Dad had to call Mr. Stephenson on the way to Kaiser at three in the morning because the hospital wouldn’t allow us to be alone in the visitor’s family room.

Mr. Stephenson showed up, Marcus in tow, and shook Dad’s hand heartily. Dad thanked him profusely while backing out the door and waved goodbye to all of us before waving his ID card and disappearing through the automated doors.

All of us had been through this before when Alexander was born; everyone except Alexander, of course, so we settled in for the long haul. We took up every seat in the small room, which meant that the visitors of the other pregnant ladies were forced to stand in the hallway.

A few minutes after he left Dad dashed through the automated doors, poked his head in the room, and waved at all of us.

“Listen up. Mom’s in labor. Jack will be here shortly so Rick can go home and get some sleep. He’s going to take you down to get something to eat when the cafeteria opens.”

And, before anyone could ask questions, he was gone.

“Do you want to stay?” Mr. Stephenson asked Marcus.

“How much longer is it going to be?” Marcus asked Luka.

“No clue. It didn’t happen this fast last time,” Luka answered.

“I’ll stay,” Marcus said bravely.

“I’m just going to sit down until Jack gets here,” Mr. Stephenson announced and within seconds he was snoring softly.

As it happened, Jack showed up at the same time Dad walked back into the family room grinning like an idiot.

“Dad?” Jack asked, rubbing his eyes.

“Any news?” I asked, jumping out of my chair.

“Is it a boy?” Inara asked quietly.

“What color are the eyes?” James asked.

“One at a time,” Dad replied, holding out his hands to ward us off. “Hi, Jack. Thank you for coming. It went so fast, I barely had time to prepare before the midwife was telling me to catch the baby. Twenty-three minutes from pushing to baby. It’s a boy. His name is Charles. He’s seven pounds two ounces. Twenty-two inches long. He had an Apgar score of eight at first, but he jumped up to a ten at the five minute mark. His eyes are blue, but most eyes change color within the first three months. All of you had blue eyes when you were born. I have to go back, but I’ll come get you when Mom’s done feeding him and he’s cleaned up.”

Dad’s smile was so big I thought it would split his face in half. His speech was disjointed and his thoughts seemed distracted. You would have thought it was his first time, the way he was grinning. It was amazing that he still got that excited after having seven of us. You would think that once you’d seen a birth, the others would become routine, especially after something as exciting as twins.