A CHILD IS BORN
{This is the fifth part of the second chapter of a story that begins here:}
The Moment Arrives
About two weeks before my first date with Jenny, on the last day of September, my phone rang. I had just arrived home from work.
The voice at the other end was Linda’s. “Mary Ann’s labor has started. I’m taking her to St. Andrew’s Hospital. You can meet me there.”
I was about to become a grandfather. Without changing clothes, I donned my light jacket, picked up a book I had been reading, went to my car, and drove to the hospital. Linda met me in the maternity waiting room. Mary Ann was in the delivery room. Linda had been told that labor was proceeding without complication. It was a matter of time.
Mary Ann had asked Linda to accompany her in the delivery room, Linda had trained as a birthing coach. Her role was to encourage Mary Ann as her labor proceeded. Normally the baby’s father would act as coach. But, in this case, the father had no interest in his daughter-to-be or Mary Ann. After conceiving the child, he abandoned both.
Linda was summoned into the delivery room. I sat in the waiting room. I shared some idle conversation with the one expectant father who was there. I spent most of the time reading the book I brought with me. Hours later, after 11 pm, Linda came through the door to the delivery room to inform me that Evelyn was born. She was a healthy 5-pound baby. Mother and daughter were doing well.
Later, Evelyn was taken to the nursery and I was able to look through the window and see my granddaughter as she began her life’s journey. She had been fed. She was sleeping peacefully, resting after having finished the arduous process of entering the world. Mother was also resting peacefully. All was well.
Trust and Acceptance
Jenny, Mary Ann, one-month-old Evelyn, and I were relaxing in my living room. Mary Ann and Evelyn were meeting Jenny for the first time. Jenny and I had been a dating couple for three weeks. I was holding Evelyn. I had to go get something so I handed Evy to Jenny. Jenny was ecstatic to have the chance to hold a month-old baby. I trusted Jenny with my granddaughter the same way Jenny trusted me to enter her apartment after knowing me through nothing more than a single phone call. There was an unspoken trust between us that has never been betrayed.
Later, when Jenny was not present, Mary Ann chastised me. “I just met that woman. I don’t know her and you let her hold my baby!”
I could only apologize. “I’m sorry. I trust her implicitly. It didn’t occur to me that others might not have that trust. I’ll be more thoughtful from now on.”
Linda also had a few words with me when she found out about it. Eventually, both Linda and Mary Ann grew to like and trust Jenny, but it took some time. Ultimately, Jenny was accepted as a member of my extended family, welcome at all family gatherings to which I was invited. As far as Linda, I made it clear that she should be welcome whenever Mary Ann and Evy were invited.
Paradise Lost
Jenny, Mary Ann, Evy, and I were at Linda’s apartment. A few of Linda’s friends were there as well. I heard Linda mention to one of her friends that she had seen Paul strolling through our local shopping mall arm-in-arm with a woman. “Uh-oh,” I thought, “There is trouble in paradise for Linda.”
Some weeks later, I asked Linda if Paul had been introduced to Evy.
“It’s over,” Linda answered, her head hanging. “We’re not seeing each other anymore. We broke up. It was a mutual decision.”
I felt a momentary impulse to gloat but quickly thought better of it. It would be undignified of me to exacerbate Linda’s obvious pain. Remembering her comment to her friend weeks ago, I knew that “mutual decision” was not the full explanation.
“I’m sorry,” I said, and let it go at that.
Out With the Old, In With the New
In mid-February, Linda and I were walking across a frozen pond. I don’t remember the circumstances that brought us there, but there we were. As we walked, I asked Linda, “Do you regret having ended our marriage?”
“No,” she said, “I miss some of the things we sometimes did together, but I don’t miss being married to you.”
It was a candid answer, and it included the words I wanted to hear: “I don’t miss being married to you.” Hearing those words assured me that she was content with how things turned out for her. I was relieved of any slight reservations that I might have felt about moving on with my life and with Jenny. Linda had let go of me emotionally, and I of her.
I was physically, circumstantially, and emotionally free to forge ahead with my new life.
Chapter 3 — Epilogue
