Page 19 - WTP Vol.X#1

open, we entered like extras early in disaster mov- ies, the couple who carelessly confront the over- loaded, late-rising cargo plane, and I paused on the upslope, cautious and choosing blindly where a runway ended just above, planes taking off at seven-minute intervals like early contractions, both of us holding our breath after we’d timed a takeoff past six, expectant, proximity to size and power calling up a mix of thrill and terror. “Let’s go,” my wife said after the third plane. “This is aw- ful.” I kept us there for five.
The Day After Planes
Morning:
My wife keeps her scheduled doctor’s appointment. The younger doctor at the office predicts a girl and late, relying on the way she is carrying the fetus. He tells her he is opposed to my being in the delivery room. “There’s a reason it’s never happened before in our hospital. Things can go wrong, and if he can’t handle it, he’s a problem nobody needs.”
Afternoon:
My wife says she is having contractions. “They’re pretty far apart,” she says. “It’s probably false labor. The doctor just said the baby will be late. Go play tennis like you planned. I’ll just relax and then start dinner in an hour or so.”
Early evening:
I leave the courts early. The contractions, when I get home, have become more intense. They arrive more frequently. Dinner is postponed. “It’s going to be a month early,” my wife says. “It’s like those airplanes started something.”
Late Evening:
The practice’s older doctor is on call. He welcomes my intention to be in the delivery room and predicts
nothing except the expectation of a successful birth. “This is late-term premature,” he says. “The best kind.” I tell him about his colleague’s prediction. “Dr. Nostradamus,” he says and laughs. “He gets his share of coin flips.” In the delivery room, my wife pants. The nurses inspect and then ignore me. When the doctor says, “You have time to get something to eat,” I follow him out.
Midnight:
“I know where you ate dinner,” my wife says. “Chili dogs with onions are unmistakable.” Then she pants.
Lesson Five: Early Morning
First, notice the doctor’s car radio glowing below the hospital window, the lot, after midnight, nearly empty, announcing there is time, yet, to listen for a baseball game’s outcome formed by extra innings.
Second, wait in a dressing room as if you have an ap- pointment.
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At last, pay attention when the doctor returns and offers scrubs, saying, “The Pirates won, put these on.” Now slowly dress, becoming who you have asked to be, the first father permitted in that hospital’s deliv- ery room.
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Feel how the nurses, one young and one old, wish you were elsewhere while you encourage and your wife pants. Suspect that the doctor is sparing you by never once mentioning problems made more likely by early delivery.
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Listen to the nurses’ voices say “push,” sounding like old friends. Hear blessing in the doctor’s matter-of- fact assurance even as the nurses shift to a unison “boy” just before everybody’s speech is paused by the first long expletive of presence, despite, regardless, and notwithstanding.
Fincke’s latest collection of essays, The Darkness Call, won the Rob- ert C. Jones Prize (Pleaides Press, 2018). Earlier nonfiction books are published by Michigan State: The Canals of Mars (memoir); Amp’d (literary journalism), and published by Stephen F. Austin is Vanishings (personal essays). His essay “After the Three-Moon Era” was selected to appear in Best American Essays 2020.
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