The next three weeks crawled by at a snail's pace, and ten days past her due date she was so exhausted she sat down and cried when Jane wouldn't eat her dinner.

“It's all right, sweetheart.” He had offered to take them out but Jane had a cold and Liz was too tired. She didn't want to get dressed up anymore and her hips hurt constantly. Bernie read Jane a story that night and took her to school the next day himself, eliminating the need for the carpool. And he had just walked into his office when his secretary buzzed him on the intercom, as he glanced over some reports from New York about their sales figures for March, which were outstanding.

“Yes?”

“It's Mrs. Fine on four.”

“Thanks, Irene.” He picked up the line, still perusing the reports and wondering why she had called. “What's up, sweetheart?” He didn't think he'd forgotten anything at home. He wondered if Jane's cold had gotten worse and she wanted him to pick her up at school now. “Everything okay?”

She giggled, which was a major change from her mood when he'd left that morning. She had been distracted and grumpy and she had snapped at him when he suggested they go out to dinner that night. But he understood how jumpy she was and how lousy she felt and he didn't get upset when she barked at him. “Everything's just fine.” She suddenly sounded excited and happy.

“Well, you certainly sound cheerful. Anything special happen?”

“Maybe.”

“What does that mean?” His antenna suddenly went up.

“My water just broke.”

“Hallelujah! I'll be right home.”

“You don't have to, nothing major has started yet, just a few little cramps.” But she sounded so victorious and he couldn't have stayed away. They had waited nine and a half months for this and he wanted to be there with her.

“Did you call the doctor yet?”

“I did. He said to call him when things start to happen.”

“How long does he think that will take?”

“You remember what they said in class. It could get going half an hour from now, or maybe not till tomorrow morning. It should be soon though.”

“I'll be right there. Do you want anything?”

She smiled at the phone. “Just my sweetheart…. I'm sorry I've been such a bitch these past few weeks. … I just felt so rotten.” She hadn't even told him how badly her back and hips hurt all the time.

“I know you did. Don't you worry about that, baby. It's almost over.”

“I can hardly wait to see the baby.” But suddenly, she was scared too, and when he got home he found her very tense, so he rubbed her back, and talked to her while she took a shower. And the shower seemed to get things started. She sat down afterwards with a serious look, and she winced as she got the first strong contractions. He made her breathe, and got out his favorite watch while he timed them. “Do you have to wear that thing?” She was getting grouchy again, but they both knew why from what they learned in the class they had taken. She was probably going into transition. “Why do you have to wear that watch? It's so gaudy.” He smiled to himself, knowing that she was getting closer. Her irritability meant this was the real thing.

He called Tracy at school and asked her to take Jane home with her that afternoon. She was excited to hear that Liz was in labor, and by one o'clock the pains were coming hard and fast, and Liz could barely catch her breath between them. It was definitely time to go, and the doctor was waiting at the hospital when they got there. Bernie was pushing Liz in a wheelchair as a nurse walked behind them, and Liz signaled to him to stop each time she had a contraction. And suddenly she began to wave frantically, unable to catch her breath as one contraction became two and then three and four without letting up, and she started to cry as they helped her out of the wheelchair in the labor room, and up onto the bed where Bernie helped her take her clothes off.

“It's okay, baby…. It's okay. …” He suddenly wasn't scared anymore. He couldn't imagine anyplace else to be, except with her, as their baby came. She let out a hideous scream as the next contraction came, and a worse one as the doctor examined her. Bernie held her hands and told her to breathe but she was having a difficult time concentrating and she was losing control, as the doctor looked down at her, satisfied with her progress.

“You're doing fine, Liz.” He was a warmhearted man with gray hair and blue eyes, and Bernie had liked him from the first, as had Liz. He exuded competence and warmth, as he did now, but Liz wasn't listening. She was clutching Bernie's arm, and screaming with each contraction. “You're eight centimeters dilated …two more to go …and you can start pushing.”

“I don't want to push … I want to go home. …” Bernie smiled at the doctor, and urged her to pant. And the next two centimeters went faster than the doctor expected. She was in the delivery room pushing by four o'clock, and it was eight hours since labor had begun, which didn't seem long to Bernie as he talked to Liz and quieted her over and over, but it seemed like an eternity to her as the pains continued to roar through her.

“I can't take anymore!” She suddenly screamed, refusing to pant anymore. But they were putting her legs in the stirrups now, and the doctor was talking about doing an epi-siotomy. “I don't care what you do…. Just get that baby out of me….” She was sobbing now like a child, and Bernie felt a lump rise in his throat as he watched her. He couldn't stand watching her continue to writhe in pain and the breathing didn't seem to help her at all, but the doctor didn't look worried.

“Can't you give her something?” Bernie whispered and the doctor shook his head as the nurses began to run around everywhere and two women in green surgical suits came in pushing a bassinet with a heat lamp, and suddenly it all became real. The bassinet was there for their baby. The baby was coming, and he bent low next to Liz' ear and encouraged her to breathe, and then push when the doctor told her.

“I can't…can't…hurts too much …” She couldn't take much more, and Bernie was stunned when he looked at his watch and saw that it was after six o'clock. She had been pushing for more than two hours.

“Come on.” The doctor was intent now. “Push harder …come on, Liz! Again …Now! …that's it…that's it…come on …the baby's head is crowning …he's coming through …come on!” And then suddenly along with Liz' howl of anguish, there was another smaller one, and Bernie stared as the baby's head came from between her legs into the doctor's hands, and he propped up Liz' shoulders so she could watch and push again, and suddenly he was there. Their son. She was crying and laughing and Bernie was kissing her and crying too. It was a celebration of life, and just as they had promised, the pain was almost forgotten. The doctor cut the cord once the placenta was out, and he handed Bernie his son as Liz watched, trembling on the delivery table as she smiled, and the nurse assured her that the trembling was a normal reaction too. They cleaned her up as Bernie held the baby's face next to hers, and she kissed the satin cheek of their baby.

“What's his name?” The doctor smiled at them both as Bernie beamed and Liz continued to touch the baby with wonder.

They exchanged a look, and Liz said her son's name for the first time. “Alexander Arthur Fine.”

“Arthur was my grandfather,” Bernie explained. Neither of them was crazy about the baby's middle name, but Bernie had promised his mother. “Alexander A. Fine,” he repeated, and bent to kiss his wife, with the baby in his arms, their tears mixing as they kissed, and the baby slept happily as Bernie held him.





Chapter 16

The arrival of Alexander Arthur Fine created a stir like no other that had occurred in the recent history of his family. Bernie's parents arrived, carrying shopping bags full of gifts and toys, for Jane, and Liz, and the baby. Grandma Ruth was especially careful about not neglecting Jane. She made an enormous fuss over her, for which Bernie and Liz were grateful.

“You know, sometimes just when I decide I can't stand her, my mother does something so nice, I can't believe she's the same woman who's always driven me crazy.”

Liz smiled at him. They were even closer now that they had shared Alexander's birth. They were both still awed by the experience. “Maybe Jane will say that about me one day.”

“I don't think so.”

“I wish I were sure of that.” Liz laughed at him again. “I'm not so sure I'm exempt. … I think a mother is a mother is a mother. …”

“Never fear. I won't let you …” He patted Alexander's behind as he lay sleeping on his mother's chest after she had nursed him. “Don't worry, kid, if she shows any early signs, I'll beat the hell out of her for you.” But he bent to kiss her, as she sat comfortably in their bed, in an ice blue satin bed jacket his mother had brought her.

“She spoils me rotten, you know.”

“She should. You're her only daughter.” And she had given Liz the ring that Lou had given her when Bernie was born thirty-six years before. It was an emerald surrounded by small, perfect diamonds. And they had both been touched by the importance of the gesture.

They stayed for three weeks, at the Huntington again, and Ruth helped her with the baby every day while Jane was in school, and then in the afternoon she took Jane out for special treats and private adventures. It was a huge help to Liz, who had no one to help her and refused to let Bernie hire anyone. She wanted to take care of the baby herself, and she had always cleaned her own house and done her own cooking. “I couldn't stand having someone else do it for me.” And she was so adamant about it, that he let her. But he noticed that she wasn't really getting her strength back. And his mother said as much to him before she left for New York.