WHEN THINGS GO SOUTH

Chapter 4 - Sweet Child of Mine

"Take this baby out!" I declare more than a few times. I am dying, and I am sure of it.

The nurses assure me I am not. "Oh sweetie, I know it feels that way, but this is how everyone feels during labor. You are going to be just fine."

I try to make them understand that this was different, that I am really dying, and they aren't doing anything about it. To make matters worse, just hours before, I had eaten three tacos and felt like a fire-breathing dragon. I had fixing tacos down pat. So we ate a lot of tacos. Right after I had eaten and sat down on the couch, I got a pain in my back, then another. I wasn't sure this was it, but Nick grabbed my overnight bag, and we stopped at Mommas on the way to the hospital. By the time we get to Momma's, my pains have eased up a bit.

I need to know if this is it. It isn't at all the pain I have heard about; it's just a little uncomfortable, nothing terrible. Not at all like the horror stories I had heard from Momma, all her friends, and my aunts. I'm thinking if this is labor, this will be a breeze. Momma declares, "Lord Riley Blair, I don't know if this is it or not. Let's call Granny Ree and see what she thinks."

I talk to Granny Ree on the phone and explain how my pain feels; she replies with, "Oh honey, I think this is it, but I have prayed to the Lord for this to be so easy on you, that you don't even know what it is."

The good Lord must have been busy when Granny Ree made that request, or he was going to let me pay the price for my transgressions. About nine hours later, I'm begging for someone to just knock me over the head with something.

I am praying and praying and making so many promises to the good Lord if he will just make this baby come quickly before I die.

A few minutes later, the nurse checks me. "Lord honey, that praying worked! You just dilated from four to ten centimeters in seven minutes!" She didn't have to tell me; I knew my desperate prayers had to be getting through.

My father-in-law would later tell me he could hear me testifying all the way down the hall.

Ten minutes later, I'm holding a beautiful seven-pound baby girl. This must be where the term love at first sight comes from. Jordan Ree is twenty-one inches and seven pounds; of course, I would name her after my Granny.

You just aren't from the south if you don't carry your Granny's first name as your middle, though Momma once told me she thinks I carry one of my Daddy's old girlfriends. Jordy is healthy and perfect. She has a head full of black hair like mine, but she sure has her Daddy's bone structure.

A couple days later, we came home from the hospital. I don't know how to take care of a newborn, and to be honest, it scares the daylights out of me. I know how to change a diaper, and that's about it. Formula, what in the world is that? And measuring and adding water ounce for ounce. Sterilizing bottles, nipples, lids, and how often should I feed her this formula stuff? How many times should she burp? What if she chokes? What if she just stops breathing while sleeping? (I read that can happen.) How many times do I clean this bloody little cord thingy on her belly?

Thank God Momma, and Nick's mom take turns staying with us day and night for the first three weeks.

After Jordy got a few months old, it was much easier, though I still call Momma numerous times a day, pacing the floors with Jordy, me panicking with her screaming to the top of her lungs. I would beg, "Momma, she won't stop crying; I have tried everything!"

Momma advises, "Just be calm, Riley Blair, rock her in the rocking chair and sing to her."

I exclaim through whining and tears, "I have sung everything from Rod Stewart to Swing Down Sweet Chariot. She has been up all night either crying or just wide awake." By this time, we are both crying, and I'm pretty sure I have given birth to a vampire.

When I was a little girl, I had promised myself that I wouldn't fuss and fight in front of my children the way my parents did. We didn't because Nick was rarely home for the most part. I would usually take Jordy to Nick's mother's and go out looking for him. I would always find him where he shouldn't be, doing things he shouldn't have been doing.

I would take him home or at least try to. After a while, I stopped, and Jordy and I were in our little trailer most of the time alone.

We would play during the day, watch cartoons, and learn how to crawl. I worked nights at the grocery. After work, I would pick Jordy up from Nick's mom and go home. If Jordy and I were awake when Nick came in, Jordy would crawl to him with a big smile. She was always happy to see him, but I could hardly stand to look at him.

Nick had taken my hopes of building a strong marriage and a good and stable home for Jordy and destroyed them. We were in bed most of the time when he would come dragging in. I would lie awake for hours until I heard a car pull in to drop Nick off. Usually, it was one of his buddies, but a few times, it was other girls.

Things had gone too far. He had no respect for Jordy and me because he had none for himself. I think he thought I would never leave because of Jordy and my need to fix things so as not to have her grow up in a broken home.

Nick showed no signs of doing better. On the contrary, he had gotten into even harder drugs and would take our last dime to get what he wanted, at this point, what he needed.

Nick liked what he was doing, and he still had support doing it. His mother unknowingly was enabling him. Nick is an intelligent guy, he can do anything he wants in life, and he does; he wants to be high, and that's what he is.

He has already let drugs turn him into someone who cares about nothing else in the world but getting high. I am young, still full of hopes and dreams. I don't want this life, and I sure don't want it for my daughter.

I continue working at the grocery store and going to school. Graduation comes in May, then I can go to work full-time. After that, I plan on leaving Nick. For good this time.

After graduation, I consider college, but there isn't a career that interests me. What I had planned before was moving out of this little town to New York or some big city and following wherever my dreams led me. That was just a crazy dream that came and went.

Jordy was ten months old at my graduation. Before Jordy's second birthday, I moved everything we had back into Momma's. Momma was supportive since she really couldn't stand Nick anyway. Momma and Nick's parents were a big help with Jordy.

Some nights Jordy and I would go out to the farm and stay with my grandparents. I wanted Jordy to experience the things on the farm I did as a child. Our days on the farm were perfect and peaceful. We took walks down the same old dirt paths Lyle and I did as kids, picking and sucking honeysuckles along the way. We caught lightning bugs in jars and picked Granny Ree tubs full of berries for her blueberry pies.

Granny Ree and I would sing gospel songs in the kitchen while peeling potatoes as Jordy sat on the kitchen table rolling out biscuit dough.

Jordy wouldn't get to experience the days of being in the log woods like Lyle and I did. We would spend the entire day running through the woods or sitting in the cab of the log truck with Granny while she read us stories from the Bible, and Pa cut down timber.

Until one horrible day years later, one of those trees fell on Pa's leg and broke it. After that, Pa's health started to decline; there would be no more logging and no more farm.

The following year the farm was put up for sale so that Granny and Pa could move to town and be closer to the hospital. I was thankful Jordy got to experience the things she did on the farm, but it hurt so much to see it go. A piece of my heart would always be on that farm.