down the stairs and walked into Vanessa's room. She shook her gently by the shoulder, bent to kiss her, smoothed her hair, and then gasped suddenly as she knelt beside the bed, but when Vanessa woke up, the pain was over.
“Come on, sweetheart, it's time to go.”
“Time to go where?”
“To the hospital to have the baby.”
“Now?” Vanessa looked startled and when she glanced out the window, she saw that it was still dark outside. Serena only wished that she could have waited until the arrival of the two uncles. Vanessa would just have to come to the hospital with her. They would set up a cot for her in another room if they had to. And she knew that Teddy would be there by Tuesday.
“Come on, love, get up. Just hop into some clothes and take a nightie. And a book,” she added as an afterthought, and then she gasped as a horrifying pain ripped through her.
“Oh, Mommy!” Vanessa leaped out of bed, unprepared for the agony she saw on her mother's face. “Mommy, are you all right? Mommy!”
“Shhhhh … darling, I'm fine.” Serena gritted her teeth and tried to smile. “Be a big girl and call a taxi … and hurry!”
Vanessa ran downstairs in her nightgown, carrying blue jeans and a T-shirt with her. She dressed while she waited for the cab company to answer, and when they did, she explained that it was an emergency, her mother was having a baby.
The taxi was at the front door less than five minutes later, and Vanessa helped Serena into it. She felt very grown-up as she helped her mother, and less frightened than she had been when she had seen the first pain, but she winced when her mother had another.
“Do they hurt that much?”
“They're just strong so they can push the baby out.” Vanessa nodded, but she still looked worried. The pains seemed to get harder as they approached the hospital, and when they arrived, Vanessa took the money out of her mother's bag and paid the driver. He smiled at them both and wished Serena luck, and two nurses came out to help Serena into a wheelchair. She was smiling wanly at Vanessa and waving one hand as they wheeled her away, and Vanessa settled down in a corner of the waiting room, assuming that her little brother or sister would be born a few minutes later.
When nothing had happened an hour later, she asked a nurse, but they brushed her off, and by midafternoon she was panicked. Where was her mother? What had happened? Why hadn't the baby come? “These things take time,” a nurse told her. When the shift changed at four o'clock, the nurses were kinder to Vanessa. No one understood why she was in the waiting room all alone, but finally someone realized that no one was coming for her and the poor child hadn't even eaten. She had complained to no one for fourteen long hours, and when finally one of the nurses brought her a sandwich, she burst into tears.
“Where's my mother? What happened? Why didn't she have the baby?” And then with huge eyes, “Is she going to die?” But when they smiled and told her that that was nonsense, she didn't believe them. When they left her alone again, she wandered off and began to drift down the halls, until she came to an ominous room with a smoky glass door marked LABOR. As though she sensed what she would find within, she straightened her shoulders and slipped inside, and what she saw there made her gasp sharply. It was her mother, lying on a white table, her legs strapped onto what looked like boards high in the air, her face contorted with pain, her hands restrained, her blond hair matted, and her mouth open in a scream.
“Mommy!” Vanessa was instantly in tears as she came toward her, and there was no one in the room with Serena. “Mommy!” She instinctively began to free her hands and Serena looked at her blindly. It took her a moment to recognize her own child and then she began to cry as hard as Vanessa.
“Oh, my baby … my baby …”As her hands were freed she touched the long golden blond hair, and then suddenly she clutched Vanessa's shoulder. The child nearly screamed out with the pain, and sensing it, Serena freed her, but she was unable to restrain a horrible groan.
“What's wrong … oh, Mommy, what's wrong?” Vanessa's eyes were huge with