“What about the father? He have any part in this plan of yours?”

Her head pumped wildly back and forth. “No-he’s not supposed to. That’s not the way it works-” Her breath gushed from her in a cleansing torrent. “Oh…God. They’re starting again. They…sort of slowed down for a while, when I was lying down. Now it’s like…there’s no time in between. I can’t rest. It doesn’t stop. I can’t…do this!”

What could he do then but soothe her and calm her and get her settled down and focused again? But he was left feeling confused and guilty, and his questions were still unanswered.

He lost track of time. Or rather, to be more precise, he stopped letting himself think in terms of time. Instead, he started thinking about what they were doing as sort of like climbing a mountain, a great big mountain that was made up of a lot of little mountains. All he had to do was keep climbing the little mountains, one at a time, all the time keeping his eye on the big one, which a lot of the time seemed like it wasn’t getting any closer. But he knew if he just kept climbing the little ones, sooner or later he was gonna get to the top.

He tried sharing his mountain image with Mirabella, but she wasn’t in any frame of mind to appreciate it. She was having about all she could handle just getting over the “little hills”-although when he used that phrase to describe one of her contractions, for some reason, she tried to hit him.

He did his best to keep her relaxed, touched her when she would let him, massaging her back or her legs, rubbing her neck or her feet, depending on the mood she was in. He tried telling her not to think about the contractions, but to think instead about nice things, like good smells and bright colors and her favorite food, which she told him was chocolate-covered cherries. He told her his was macaroni and cheese, but didn’t think she was listening.

When she got cranky and fed up he told her to cuss him if she wanted to, and she took him up on it a time or two. Again he told her to yell, really cut loose and holler, but as much as he knew she wanted to, he couldn’t get her to do it. He didn’t know if it was because she didn’t want to upset him, or because she was afraid of making a spectacle of herself. Maybe, he thought as he began to know some of her ways, a little of both.

He was sorry about that, because he had an idea it would have made it easier for her. It seemed like such a natural thing to do. Like making noise during sex, he thought. And then he wondered why that idea didn’t shame him. But the truth was, he’d been thinking for quite a while about how sometimes it seemed what was happening here and now-this birthing business-was a lot like making love. Only more so. Bigger. A whole lot bigger. Lovemaking to the ultimate degree. It made so much sense to him, because after all, this was what sex was supposed to be about, wasn’t it? Two people in love makin’ a baby.

Yes, it seemed right. Right that he should be holding this woman between his thighs, cradled against his body, her breathing so perfectly timed to his, her breasts heavy against his arms, and feel the tightening, the pulsing, the cataclysmic tremors deep within her body.

So profoundly right.

“Yeah…” he growled as he felt the pressure and the need inside her build. “Yeah, let it go. That’s the way, darlin’. It’s okay…let it go…”

His eyes closed, his lips brushed her ear, his heartbeat rocked him like a boat caught in the ripples of a wake.

“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered hoarsely, wanting so badly to break through her barriers that he hurt inside. “It’s just like loving…like making love when there’s nobody to hear you. Think about it. Makin’ love on a warm summer night in a cabin way out in the woods…with the frogs chirpin’ and the whippoorwill callin’ and the air so soft and sweet…and nobody in the world to hear you but the man who loves you more than life. Let him hear you love him. Come on, darlin’… let me hear it.”

She was so close…so close. He could feel her body arching, feel it building inside her like a cresting tidal wave. He heard the first sounds, like a rusty gate opening-and then suddenly it burst from her in an anguished, gut-wrenching wail: “I ca-a-an’t!”

His chuckle was sympathetic but insistent. “Sure, you can…sure, you can.”

But he’d already broken the dam, and the vocalizations he’d wanted came pouring out, complete with words. “I don’t know…I don’t know… I’ve never…made love before…”

He laughed softly, thinking how funny she was, how sweetly confused. Stroking her damp hair back from her forehead, he murmured tenderly, “Darlin’, what in the world are you talkin’ about?”

“I mean,” she growled, “I’ve never made love before. Can’t you understand English?”

Sweating and muttering furiously, she subsided, leaving him bewildered, to ponder what she could possibly have meant by such a statement. He could think of a couple of possible explanations, none of which made him feel good. The unanswered questions sat in his chest like an anvil.

After that, when the contractions got to be too much for her, he told her to think of her baby. Her sweet, precious baby boy, and how good it was going to be to hold him in her arms soon. Think of that, he told her. Don’t think about the contraction. Think of your baby.

Himself he told to think of nothing at all.


It seemed to Mirabella as though she’d been existing in a nightmare-or rather, in a sort of twilight world between wide-awake and dreaming. What it reminded her of was a time long ago in her childhood-the last and possibly the only time in her life that she’d been sick. Really sick. She remembered being in bed, having a terrible, terrible headache that seemed to go on and on. A second had seemed like an hour when it was happening, but then she would find that hours had passed in what she’d thought were only seconds. She remembered hearing people talk to her, hearing herself answer, knowing she was doing things-drinking water, taking medicine, eating soup, and getting up, trembling, to go to the bathroom-but having no real control over anything that happened to her. Right up until the moment when she’d opened her eyes, gazed into her parents’ worried faces and said in a loud, clear voice, “I want waffles.”

She was in the waning moments of a contraction, coming down the back side of the mountain-that had been Jimmy Joe’s idea, those mountains. How many more of them were there, she wondered, before she reached the top? Hundreds, probably. Hundreds and hundreds.

She felt an urge to hiccup, or perhaps to burp. But when she gave in to it, the ripples in her stomach seemed to want to go down toward her pelvis, rather than up toward her throat. “Oh,” she said, startled.

“I want to push,” she announced.

Jimmy Joe’s face hovered above her. He looked exhausted. “Well, that’s good,” he said huskily, smoothing back her hair. “Real good. Looks like you’re gonna be havin’ a baby pretty soon.”

For some reason he looked much older than she remembered-at least ten years older. She reached up to touch his face, trying to rub away a deep crease that had appeared near the corner of his mouth. With deep pity she said, “Oh, no, not yet. I still have all those mountains to climb. Lots and lots of mountains…”

There it was again-that strange, upside-down hiccup.

“No more mountains, Marybell.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but instead of words, what came out was a low, growling sound. Was that her?

“That’s it, you just go right ahead and push.”

“I’m not…pushing,” she gasped stubbornly. “Can’t have this baby yet. Still…have…mountains…oh!”

“No more mountains.” She felt Jimmy Joe’s body behind her, lifting and supporting her. “Just a great big sheer rock cliff. Now you gotta pull yourself up to the top, you hear? Pull yourself up, hand over hand, one pull at a time… Way to go…good girl. Now you rest a minute…just rest…”

Rest? That’s easy for you to say, she thought resentfully. First all those mountains, and now he wanted her to pull herself up a cliff? What kind of a superwoman did he think she was? Here, her body was trying its best to turn itself wrongside out, and on top of that, now somebody-some strange man with a Texas accent-was yelling at her to, “Come in…come in!”

Jimmy Joe jumped up like he’d sat on a pinecone. Laying Mirabella back against the pillows as gently as he could, he lunged for the CB mike and got his thumb on the button.

“I’m readin’ you loud and clear!” he shouted. “Come on back.”

“Ah…this the fella with the lady havin’ a baby, out there on the interstate?”

“That’s me!” yelled Jimmy Joe. “Sure am glad to hear from you.” And that, he thought, had to be the biggest understatement he’d ever uttered in his life. He was so relieved, his insides felt like jelly. “Hey, where are you? Baby’s on its way. Right now. We could sure use some help!”

“Ah…well, we’re gon’ try our best. Listen, I got me a gas station over here, just west of Vega-my power and phone’s been out pert’ near all day, just come back on a little while ago, an’ looks like it’s a good thing it did. Didn’t have my radio on, it bein’ Christmas Eve, an’ all. Anyways, I got a telephone call from the state police. They got a chopper stand-in’ by, but they not gonna be able to get it in the air until the weather clears. So what they done is, they got me patched through to the hospital in Amarillo. Got a doctor here on the line right now. Wants to know how far along she is.”

With the realization that that excited voice on the radio was all the help he was going to get, Jimmy Joe felt the terrifying sense of responsibility settle once more onto his shoulders. He closed his eyes briefly, then shrugged it off and spoke into the mike with a calm and confidence he was a long way from feeling. “She’s wantin’ to push. Ask the doc if it’s okay to let her, or if she ought to be pantin’, or something.”