Anne Tyler - Breathing Lessons

But Fiona wasn't feeling well; no wonder she was snappish. That early-pregnancy sleepiness never left her, even in her seventh and eighth months, when most women were bundles of energy. Jesse would say, "Put on your clothes! We're booked at the Granite Tavern tonight and they're paying us real money," and she would say, "Oh, I don't know; maybe I'll let you go on without me."

"Without you?" he would ask. "You mean alone?" And his face would get all hurt and surprised. But he would go. Once, he didn't even eat supper-just left the minute she told him she wasn't coming with him, although it was barely p.m. Then Fiona didn't eat, either, but sat there at the table playing with her food, a tear slipping down her cheek from time to time, and afterward she put on the hooded windbreaker that didn't button over her stomach anymore and she went for a long, long walk. Or she might have gone to visit her sister; Maggie had no idea. At eight or so Jesse phoned and Maggie had to tell him she was out someplace. "What do you mean, out?" he asked.

"Just out, Jesse-. I'm sure she'll be coming back soon."

"She said she was too tired to go out. She couldn't come to the Granite Tavern because she was too tired."

"Oh, maybe she-"

But he had already hung up, a metallic clunk in her ear.

Well, these things happened. (Didn't Maggie know they happened?) And the next morning Jesse and Fiona were fine-had reconciled at some point and acted more loving than ever. Maggie had been anxious for no reason, it turned out.

The baby was due in early March, but on February first Fiona woke up with a backache. Maggie was excited the instant she heard. "This is it, I bet," she told Fiona.

"It can't be!" Fiona said. "I'm not ready."

"Of course you're ready. You've got your layette; your suitcase is packed-"

"But Jesse hasn't built the cradle yet."

It was true. Whatever other equipment he'd laid in, that cradle had not materialized. Maggie-said, "Never mind; he can do it while you're in the hospital."

"This is a plain old backache anyhow," Fiona said. "I've had this feeling often, before I was pregnant, even."

At noon, though, when Maggie phoned from work, Fiona sounded less certain. "I'm getting these cramps, like, in my stomach," she said. "Can you please come home early?"

"I'll be there," Maggie told her. "Have you called Jesse yet?"

"Jesse? No."

"Why don't you call him."

"Okay, but promise you'll come home? Start right now."

"I'm on my way."

She arrived to find Jesse timing Fiona's contractions, using an official-looking stopwatch he'd bought especially for this occasion. He was jubilant. "We're moving right along!" he told Maggie.

Fiona looked scared. She kept giving little moans, not during the contractions but between them. "Hon, I don't think you're breathing right," Jesse told her.

Fiona said, "Lay off about my breathing! I'll breathe any way I choose."

"Well, I just want you to be comfortable. Are you comfortable? Is the baby moving?"

"I don't know."

' 'Is he moving or isn't he? Fiona? You must have some idea."

"I don't know, I tell you. No. He's not."

"The baby isn't moving," Jesse told Maggie.

"Don't worry. He's just getting ready," Maggie said.

"Something must be wrong."

"Nothing's wrong, Jesse. Believe me."

But he didn't believe her, which is why they ended up leaving for the hospital far too early. Maggie drove. Jesse said he might crash the car if he drove, but then he spent the whole trip protesting every move Maggie made. "What possessed you to get behind a bus? Switch lanes. Not now, for God's sake! Check your rearview mirror. Oh, God, we'll all be killed and they'll have to cut the baby out of her stomach in the middle of Franklin Street."

Fiona shrieked at this, which so unnerved Maggie that she slammed on the brakes and threw all three of them against the windshield. Jesse said, "Let us out! Better we go by foot! Let her give birth on the sidewalk!''

"Fine," Maggie said. "Get out of the car."

Fiona said, "What?"

"Now, Ma, just cool it," Jesse said. "No need to get hysterical. Depend on Ma to fall apart in any little emergency," he told Fiona.

They rode the rest of the way in silence, and Maggie left them at the hospital entrance and went off to park.

When she located them in Admissions, Fiona was just settling into a wheelchair. "I want my mother-in-law to come with me," she told the nurse.

"Only Daddy can come with you," the nurse said. "Grandma has to stay in the waiting room."

Grandma?

"I don't want Daddy, I want Grandma!" Fiona cried, sounding about six years old.

"Here we go now," the nurse said. She wheeled her away. Jesse followed, wearing that hurt, undefended expression Maggie had seen so often lately.

Maggie went to the waiting room, which was the size of a football field.

A vast expanse of beige carpeting was broken up by clustered arrangements of beige vinyl couches and chairs. She settled on an empty couch and chose a ruffle-edged magazine from the beige wooden end table. "How to Keep the Zing! in Your Marriage," the first article was called. It instructed her to be unpredictable; greet her husband after work wearing nothing but a black lace apron. Ira would think she had lost her mind.

Not to mention Jesse and Fiona and the five enchanted little girls. She wished she had thought to bring her knitting. She wasn't that much of a knitter-her stitches had a way of galloping along for a few inches and then squinching up in tight little puckers, reminding her of a car that bucks and stalls-but lately she had thrown herself into a purple football jersey for the baby. (It was going to be a boy; everybody assumed so, and only boys' names had been considered.)

She set the magazine aside and went over to the flank of pay phones that lined one wall. First she dialed the number at home. When no one answered-not even Daisy, who was usually back from school by three-she checked her watch and discovered it was barely two o'clock. She had thought it was much later. She dialed Ira's work number. "Sam's Frame Shop," he answered.

"Ira?" she said. "Guess what-I'm at the hospital."

"You are? What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong. Fiona's having her baby."

"Oh," he said. "I thought you'd crashed the car or something."

"You want to come wait with me? It's going to be a while yet."

"Well, maybe I should go home to watch Daisy," Ira said.

Maggie sighed. "Daisy's at school," she told him. "And anyhow, she hasn't needed watching in years."

"You'll want someone to put supper on, though."

She gave up on him. (Lord forbid her deathbed should be in a hospital; he would probably not attend it.) She said, "Well, suit yourself, Ira, but I would think you'd want to see your own grandchild."

"I'll see him soon enough, won't I?" Ira asked.

Maggie glimpsed Jesse across the waiting room. "I have to go now," she said, and she hung up. "Jesse?" she said, hurrying toward him. "What's the news?"

"Everything's fine. Or so they claim."

"How's Fiona?"

"She's scared," he said, "and I try to calm her down, but those hospital people keep shooing me out. Anytime someone official comes they ask me to leave."

So much for modern developments, Maggie thought. Men were still being shielded from everything truly important.

Jesse went back to Fiona but kept Maggie posted, reappearing every half hour or so to speak knowingly of stages and centimeters. "It's going pretty fast now," he said once, and another time, "Many people believe that an eight-months baby is more at risk than a seven-months baby, but that's an old wives' tale. It's just a superstition." His hair stood up in thick tufts, like wind-tossed grass. Maggie restrained herself from reaching out to smooth it. Unexpectedly, he reminded her of Ira. However different the two might be in other ways, they both had this notion that reading up on something, getting equipped for something, would put them in control.