Lucifer's Tears

46

I drive home as fast as road conditions will allow, pull up in front of our door, call Kate and tell her I’m here. She says I don’t need to come upstairs and get her. John and Mary will bring her down. For once, I’m glad for their presence. Kate didn’t have to be alone while she waited for me.

They pile into the Saab, and we set out for the hospital together. Kate is calm and smiling. I’m a nervous wreck. The car skitters and shimmies. I picture having an accident, and Kate giving birth in a freezing car by the side of the road.

But we arrive at Katiloopisto hospital without incident. I help Kate inside. We get her checked in. John carries Kate’s hospital travel bag. Kate packed it weeks ago, just in case. It has everything she thought she might possibly need to make herself comfortable. Massage aids: tennis balls, a rolling pin, frozen juice cans. Comfort aids: a heat pillow, aromatherapy, socks for cold feet. Clothes and toiletries for after the baby is born. She brought extra, in case there are complications because of her preeclampsia and her stay is longer than the normal two days.

We opted to not bring a camera. Kate said our memories would suffice. She would prefer to maintain a bit of decorum and not have her sweating and grunting recorded for all time to come. I offered to attend childbirth classes with her and be her coach, but she declined. She said she couldn’t picture me huffing and puffing along with her, and holding her hand would be enough.

An orderly and I situate her in a bed in a private room in the maternity ward. John and Mary don’t try to intrude, and they go to the waiting room, for which I’m grateful. I sit in a chair beside Kate’s bed and try to maintain an air of composure I don’t feel. Over the next few hours, Kate’s contractions come harder and faster. At first, they had come about once every fifteen or twenty minutes and lasted for about thirty seconds, and they’ve gradually accelerated to every three or four minutes and last sixty seconds. Kate doesn’t complain, seems to take it in stride, says she doesn’t even need the comfort aids she brought with her. I ask her occasionally if the pain is bearable, and she answers that it isn’t that bad at all.

To take her mind off her contractions, I do something uncharacteristic and tell her stories. I begin with the cases I’ve been working and tell her in exquisite detail about the Filippov affair and how it ended with Arvid shooting Filippov to death in a restaurant she manages. I pause the tale when the midwife comes in to check on her, then tell Kate about how Arvid helped Ritva die, and then he managed to save me and himself, and punish the guilty. Strange childbirth talk, but the tale is so morbid and bizarre that it holds her rapt attention. I leave out the possibility of heading up a black-ops unit for the moment.

A day ago, Kate wanted to hear stories about my childhood, so I tell her some, but pleasant ones. About how, when I was a kid, Dad and his friends would get together, drink and sing waltz and tango songs accompanied by an accordion. I tell her about how we went to a dog show once. My brother Timo looked around and said, “It’s been raining cats and dogs,” even though the ground was bone-dry. “Look,” Timo said, “there are poodles everywhere.” Kate hee-haws despite a tough contraction.

The doctor comes in to check on Kate occasionally, and finally says it’s time to get down to business. The baby’s head is crowning. He tells Kate to start pushing. She says she wants this over soon and pushes like hell. It works. After only about an hour, our child, a girl, is out and into this world. The doctor gives her a slap. She sucks air and squeals, and he cuts the umbilical cord. Kate flops back against her pillows, exhausted. From her first contraction at home until now, her labor lasted sixteen hours.

A nurse takes our baby, who resembles a bullet-headed frog covered in blood and viscous ooze, wipes some of the mess away, wraps her in a blanket and hands her to me. I’m nervous at first, afraid I’ll make a mistake, hold her too tight, drop her. Irrational fears. But they fade within seconds, and I realize that I love this little bullet-headed frog as much as anything in the world.

The doctor tells me that Kate’s delivery was one of the easiest he’s ever seen. No complications, no vaginal tearing, no nothing. Kate didn’t even require an episiotomy. Kate begins contractions again, and within a few minutes expels the placenta and the umbilical cord. And it’s over. All my fears came to nothing.

I hand the baby to Kate, and she asks me to get John and Mary. I bring them into the room. We exchange hugs and share joy. For the first time since they arrived, I feel that they truly are part of my family, and it gratifies me.

John and Mary go back to the waiting room to give Kate, me and our bullet-headed-frog privacy. Kate and I sit in the silence for a while, bask in our moment. After about half an hour, Kate tells me she’s tired and wants to sleep. She wants me to sleep, too. I don’t want to leave, but know it’s for the best.

I talk to John and Mary. John wants to come home with me. Mary says she’s slept while waiting, and she’ll stay in case Kate needs something. Mary tells me not to worry, if anything happens, she’ll call me straightaway. For a woman who doesn’t like me, she’s working hard to be my friend.