Chapter 3

Matilda’s labor had only been seven hours. Betty didn’t know that yet. Matilda had promised to tell her sister all about it when she got home, but, obviously, there hadn’t been time. As Bobby helped Betty into the back seat of the car, he noticed that the fluid leaking past Betty’s shorts was red ... not clear. He put his hand under her leg to help her heave her bulk into the car and his hand came away red too.

He closed the door and looked over at Mirriam, who was searching in her purse for the keys.

“I’ll drive,” he said tersely. “You help her breathe.” He went around and, as he got closer, whispered. “She’s bleeding, Mamma. I’m going to drive fast, so buckle in.”

They got within two blocks of the hospital before Betty realized what was happening. Bobby fairly screeched to a stop by the Emergency Room doors and killed the engine before sprinting for the ER, while Mirriam tried to keep her daughter in the back seat until someone could come help. By the time Betty, who was freaking out, fought her way out of the back seat, two attendants and a nurse were there with a gurney.

They went straight through the waiting room, banging through two swinging double doors. Mirriam was allowed in. Bobby was not.

“We’ll take care of her,” said a burly female nurse, who Bobby would always swear had a thin black moustache on her upper lip. “You just sit down and relax. Your wife is in good hands.”

“She’s my sister,” said Bobby automatically.

“Oh,” said the nurse. “Well you probably know her well enough to help get the paperwork started then.”

She took him to an office, where he found out Mirriam had already filled out the paperwork, earlier. All he had to do was confirm which daughter they had just brought in.

He had only been away from his family members for fifteen minutes when he returned to where they had disappeared. He almost ran into his mother as she was escorted out of the double doors by another nurse, who was talking to her.

“Just go on up to the second floor,” said the nurse. “We’ll have her up there as soon as possible. Even if she needs a transfusion, they can handle that up there.”

“But where are they taking the baby?” asked a clearly half crazed Mirriam.

“Second floor!” barked the nurse. She turned around and hurried back through the double doors.

“Baby?” Bobby was confused.

Mirriam seemed to see him for the first time and fell against him, crying.

It turned out her tears were ones of relief, but it took three or four minutes for Bobby to calm her down enough to get the information out of her.

Betty had suffered what the doctor had said was a detached placenta, which was causing the bleeding. They’d examined her right on the gurney and the doctor had ordered them to take her straight to surgery for a Cesarean section. Mirriam had stood petrified, as Betty had screamed that she felt like pushing.

“The doctor was pulling the gurney toward the elevator doors,” gasped Mirriam. “Betty was screaming that she wanted to push and the doctor said it couldn’t hurt anything and told her to go ahead!”

Mirriam stopped and her eyes went out of focus.

“And then she had the baby!” Mirriam’s voice was hollow, still amazed by what she’d seen. “She pushed twice and had the baby right there in the hallway!”

“You’re kidding!” gasped Bobby.

A blood-curdling scream came clearly through the double doors. Both Mirriam and Bobby recognized it as Betty’s voice, and both of them started for the doors. The same burly nurse intercepted them as they pushed the doors open.

“She’s all right,” insisted the nurse, her voice urgent, but hushed. “When she had that baby, there hadn’t been an episiotomy, and she tore. She lost so much blood that they couldn’t wait. They’re sewing her up now. There just wasn’t time for anesthetic.”

Another agonized scream washed down the hall and Mirriam’s eyes overflowed with tears.

“Can’t you give me a mask or something?” she pleaded.

The nurse seemed to waver, and then looked at Bobby.

“All right, but only one of you! You go sit down,” she said, her eyes pinned on Bobby.

All in all, it only took an hour for things to calm down. Once the tearing had been taken care of, they gave Betty a sedative and she relaxed. She had suffered no permanent injury, only loss of blood, and they gave her a pint to offset that until her body could produce more. While that was going on, Bobby went up to the second floor.

It was by chance that he ran into a nurse who had been recently hired. When he asked to see the Dalton baby, she naturally thought he must be the father. She took him to the nursery, where a darling baby girl was wrapped up, none the worse for wear, despite her tumultuous entry into the world.

Bobby was the first to hold her, not counting the medical personnel.

It was Bobby, in fact, accompanied by a nervous nurse, who brought his newest daughter into Betty’s room, once she was settled in. She and Mirriam turned their eyes to the man holding the baby. The sedative notwithstanding, Betty burst into tears as her daughter was laid on her chest.

Ten minutes later, when a staff member entered the room to complete the required paperwork, Betty named her daughter Veronica. It was not one of the names she had mentioned before and Mirriam had to ask her about that.

“From the comic books,” she said, gazing adoringly at the little girl in her arms. “Betty’s best friend is Veronica.”

Once things settled down at home, Bobby took the chance to get away by taking Agatha Roberts to a museum in Wichita. They talked on the way and he took her to a burger joint. It had been literally years since Agatha’s mouth had been awash with the rich tastes of hamburger, fries and a strawberry shake. She felt positively decadent as her body reacted to the explosion of sensations in her mouth.

By the time he dropped her off at her house ... after dark so no one would be likely to see them together ... she was more confused than ever about Bobby Dalton. He was so nice! He was such fun to be with! He didn’t molest her or act sexually aggressive in any way!

Her world wasn’t making sense any more, at least insofar as this man was concerned. It made her wonder what other facets of her life might be based on shaky data.

On a Friday night, the twenty-sixth of August, Bobby was reading in bed when Betty’s urgent voice called him to the living room, where she had been watching TV. He got there to see Misty Compton on TV, leaving what was obviously a hospital, holding a bundle in her arms. Madge was there with her and looked distinctly uncomfortable in the background, as the camera centered on Misty. She was being peppered with questions about the baby in her arms and, in particular, who the father of that baby was. There was a man with her who Bobby recognized as her agent. He was trying to hold Misty’s elbow, but she kept pulling it away from him. Misty held up her hand as flashbulbs kept popping. There were obviously a lot of people there.

“I’d like to introduce Shawnee Compton to you,” she said, without preamble.

“Compton?” asked the interviewer. “Aren’t you going to name the baby after its father?”

Misty leaned toward the microphone and smiled.

“I met Shawnee’s father while I was on tour,” she said. “I bumped into him accidentally. Everybody has accidents,” she said.

“You mean everybody makes mistakes,” said the interviewer.

Misty kept smiling. “I meant what I said. Shawnee was an accident, but she’s certainly no mistake. I love my daughter. That it’s impossible for us to be with her father right now is regrettable, but don’t ever call her a mistake.”

“Who is Shawnee’s father?” insisted the interviewer.

“I don’t have any privacy,” said Misty, looking around at the crowd around her. “I can live with that. I love all of you for being so interested in me and my music. But her father deserves his privacy. You’ll just have to be satisfied with me for now.”

“Are you going to marry him?” yelled someone off camera and off mike.

Her smile never wavered. “He hasn’t asked me yet,” she said. “If he ever does, then I might have more to say on that subject.”

Bobby turned to find three women staring at him. Two of them held infants in their arms.

“You are so bad, Bobby!” sighed Betty.

“I can’t believe you didn’t offer to marry Misty Compton!” moaned Matilda.

Mirriam just rolled her eyes.

“We talked about it,” said Bobby. “She wouldn’t let me ask her. Her mamma was right there too!”

“You are so bad!” repeated Betty.

Lest the reader be tricked into thinking that the twins were disgusted with Bobby, let the record be set straight. They were not disgusted. Both girls had ample experience in dealing with babies, though admittedly not babies quite that young. Still, as they settled into the role of mothers, they were delighted. It was only natural, as they felt the upwelling of intense emotional attachment to their offspring, that they felt an intense emotional attachment to the father of those offspring, as well.

The girls had shared a room their entire lives. Having babies added to that mix was interesting. Even though the babies weren’t twins, they were treated as if they were. And, to some degree, they acted like twins. They slept together and tended to be hungry at the same time.

Still, it was a little crowded. There was some talk, in the beginning, about splitting into separate rooms, but no one was happy with that idea. The extra rooms were needed for the B&B operation, for one thing. And the twins couldn’t conceive of living apart.

It was while Bobby was in the barn, one day, that he got an idea. The barn, as a structure, was old, but solid. The roof was only three years old and the interior never got wet, even in the strongest storms. In the past, it had been used to store the equipment needed to farm the land, but since Mirriam rented the land out to other farmers these days, much of that equipment had been sold. Now the barn was mostly empty.

As Bobby looked around, it occurred to him that he could build a house, of sorts, inside the barn. One end of the lower section could be used for such a purpose, creating, in effect, four or five rooms. As he stood there, his feet on the dusty ground, he envisioned a common area, with living room, kitchen and laundry facilities, with two and possibly three rooms around it that could be used either as bedrooms for B&B customers or as rooms for the staff of the B&B to live in, freeing bedrooms in the house. From the inside of such an “apartment,” the only thing that would suggest they were inside a barn would be the lack of windows. And, since there would be two sides of the barn involved, even that obstacle could be overcome with the right planning.

He waited until he’d completed drawings of the idea to talk to his mother. Her reaction was both more ... and less than he’d expected.

“It’s an interesting idea,” she said. “We have plenty of time to think about it, though.”

Bobby got up and looked at the clock. It was two in the morning. The babies had been crying for half an hour. He went to the twins’ door and tapped on it before walking in.

Both babies were distressed. The girls had eaten a bowl of chili for supper, without thinking about the effect the beans would have on their breast milk. Both were pacing, trying to comfort babies who didn’t understand what the pain in their bellies meant. Both were tired. Caring for a baby at Renee’s was a part time job. This wasn’t.