The Perfect Dress - Carolyn Brown Page 0,117
the moisture from her face. Fanny Lou noticed and whipped out a cardboard church fan.
“Here, use this. Don’t you dare go into labor or pass out in this heat,” she said.
Graham took it from her and kept a breeze going across Mitzi’s face. “Want to go on back home and sit under the air-conditioning? We don’t have to stay for the whole thing.”
She shook her head. “I’m not a delicate flower. I’m more like a big old wild sunflower growing out on a fencerow. And Daddy made ice cream for afterwards. That’ll cool us all down.”
“Ice cream?” Hazel squealed. “We get ice cream, too?”
“It’s part of the July Fourth tradition. We watch the fireworks and then go back to the shop for ice cream,” Jody explained.
Mitzi glanced over her shoulder. The diamond engagement ring on Jody’s finger sparkled under the football lights. In another few weeks, after the baby was born, there would be another destination wedding.
Jody and Quincy were going to be married in West Virginia as soon as Mitzi could travel after giving birth. When Quincy had found out that Jody wanted a mountain wedding, he’d offered to take her to the Alps, but she’d refused. The hotel she’d found in Morgantown, West Virginia, had exactly the kind of place she wanted—a nice little veranda overlooking the mountains in the distance.
Mitzi visualized Jody in the dress that hung in the fitting room. A lovely cream- colored watered silk, it hugged her now curvy body and then belled out at knee level. When she’d tried it on the last time, she’d taken her braids down, and loose curls fell to her waist. Quincy was going to be speechless when he saw her on their wedding day.
The twins had offered to keep Hazel after the wedding. They’d made a spreadsheet of plans to keep her occupied and happy for a couple of days so that Quincy and Jody could get away for a short time in a nearby honeymoon cabin.
Paula would be the only one living above the shop after Jody moved out to the house with Quincy, and even that probably wouldn’t be for long. She’d met a male nurse when she was in the hospital giving birth to Ivy Jane, and things were getting serious. He was sitting at the end of the row with the ten-month-old baby in his lap, smiling every time she clapped her hands over the fireworks show.
“If someone had told y’all last year at this time what would be happening in a year, would you have believed it?” Fanny Lou asked.
Mitzi shook her head. “Not in a million years.”
“Looks to me like y’all need to be figuring out what Paula’s perfect dress is going to look like,” Fanny Lou said from behind her hand.
“That’s her decision, and she’ll tell us when the time is right,” Mitzi said and then gasped during the last beautiful display in the sky.
“It is pretty, isn’t it?” Graham leaned over and kissed her on the cheek.
“Yes, it is, but . . . this is a little embarrassing.” She felt heat traveling into her cheeks.
“What?” he asked.
“My water just broke,” she answered. “I guess what I’ve been having all day isn’t false labor at all. Don’t make a big deal out of it. I already look like I wet my jeans.”
Graham helped her up with a hand and then pretended to stumble and, in the process of righting himself, spilled half a bottle of water in her lap.
“I’m so, so sorry, darlin’,” he apologized. “Let’s get you home. Alice, can the girls ride to the shop with you?”
“You are a genius,” Mitzi whispered as they slowly made their way to the van. “I love you more right now than I did an hour ago.”
He helped her inside and then raced around the back of the van to get into the driver’s seat. “Keep those words in mind when you start to push.” He grinned. “Just think, we get to meet our son in a few hours.”
“Let’s get me to the hospital and settled in before you call the rest of the family, okay?” she asked as a contraction took her breath.
“Anything you want, darlin’,” he said. “But we’ll have to let them know soon. If we don’t show up at the shop for ice cream, they will panic.”
“And there’s another pain. That’s only two minutes from the last one.”
“We might get this baby before midnight yet.” Graham put the van in reverse and pointed it toward Greenville. Fifteen minutes and seven contractions later, he parked near the emergency room and rushed around the vehicle to help Mitzi get out. A nurse hurried out with a wheelchair and took her away with Graham following right behind them.
Mitzi had been to the Lamaze classes, so she was as prepared as any expecting mother with a first child could be. And she hadn’t worried about Graham because he’d been through all this before when the twins were born. Yet two hours into the labor, when they said it was time to push, she realized she should have been more concerned about Graham. He kept mopping sweat from her forehead with a cool rag and telling her how much he loved her. But not doing much else.
“I’m so sorry you’re in this much pain,” he said.
“You’ve been in the labor room before . . .” she panted like a puppy. “Oh, sweet Lord, I’ll be glad to get this baby boy out into the world.”
“Darlin’, the twins were born by C-section. I wasn’t in the room,” he said.
“You could have told me that before,” she moaned.
“It never came up.”
The nurse came in and checked her. “Okay, you’re at a ten and it’s time to push.”
“I’m ready.” Mitzi remembered that Paula had to push for thirty minutes. She looked at the clock. If the baby could get there before midnight, he’d be born on the Fourth of July like she’d always wanted. She had twenty-eight minutes. She grabbed the bed rails and gave it all she had on the next contraction.
The doctor came into the room, guided Mitzi’s legs into the stirrups, and pulled over a stool to sit on. “That’s the way to get things done. Give me several more like that, and we’ll get this job done in a hurry.”
At two minutes until midnight, Graham cut his son’s umbilical cord and put the screaming red-haired boy into Mitzi’s arms. “He’s beautiful.”
“He’s got my hair.” Mitzi kissed the baby on the forehead. “But he’s the image of you.”
Midnight had come and gone by the time the medical team got the baby cleaned up and wrapped in a blue blanket. Mitzi wanted to stay in their little three-person cocoon for days, but the family—both those by DNA and those by love—were waiting, so she nodded to Graham to go get them. They filed into the room in awe at the baby lying in his mother’s arms.
“Y’all come meet Taylor Graham Harrison. He weighs nine pounds, ten ounces and is twenty-two inches long. He’s going to be a big boy like his daddy.”
Dixie and Tabby didn’t waste a bit of time getting from the door to the bed. “Oh, Mitzi Mama, he’s beautiful,” Tabby said. “We promise we’ll spoil him rotten.”
“So rotten that the garbageman won’t even want him,” Dixie giggled.
“But he’s going to learn to play ball, not sew dresses,” Alice declared.
“Maybe he’ll be a ballet dancer. Whatever he wants is what he’s going to be,” Tabby said.
Alice and Fanny Lou both groaned.
“But today he’s going to be a much-loved baby,” Jody said. “I can’t wait until Quincy and I have a sibling for Hazel. We’ve talked about it and we’re going to start trying as soon as we’re married, just like y’all did.”
“Where’s Ivy?” Mitzi asked.
“Quincy is watching her and Hazel at the shop.” Paula touched the baby on his chubby cheeks.
“He has red hair.” Tabby held her hand out toward Dixie. “Pay up, sister. You owe me five bucks.”
“It’s the light. His hair is going to be dark like ours. I get to hold him first,” Dixie said. “Please, Mitzi Mama, let me be first.”
“He’s so beautiful.” Harry wiped away a tear and kissed Mitzi on the forehead. “Your mama would be so happy to see our first grandbaby.”
Mitzi patted her dad on the cheek. “She sees him, Daddy. Remember what you told me? There’s holes in the floor of heaven and she sees all the wonderful things that happen to us.”
Harry nodded. “That brings me peace. Now give that baby to his daddy. Graham should be the first one to hold him. After all, Taylor is his son.”
Mitzi handed the baby to Graham. “Family, friends, a new baby, and the love of my life all in one place. I’m truly blessed.”
“Life is good. No. Life is great,” Graham said as Taylor wrapped his chubby finger around his pinkie.