Page 109 of Thursdays at Orange Blossom House
In-two-three—
Dorothy feels a ripple across her belly like a pod of dolphins are swimming inside her.
‘This hurts!’ she gasps. ‘It’s hurting!’
‘Are you willing to go over the speed limit?’ Grace Maud mutters to Patricia.
‘Are you joking?’ Patricia responds.
‘No. That contraction was very close to the last one.’ Grace Maud turns and smiles reassuringly at Dorothy. ‘Count, Dorothy.’
The pain subsides but Dorothy feels something give way between her legs. Something warm and wet and …
‘Oh nooo! The dolphins!’ she says.
‘What?’ Patricia sounds worried.
‘The dolphins have caused a wave!’ Dorothy reaches down and feels her thighs, which are slick with whatever just emerged from her.
Patricia starts to laugh. ‘What dolphins, Dorothy? What are you talking about?’
‘Oh … that was in my head.’ Dorothy starts sniffling, then crying. ‘I’ve ruined your car.’
‘It’ll come out,’ Patricia says.
‘That’s just your waters breaking, darling,’ Grace Maud says cheerfully, as if she’s talking about a couple of drops spilled. ‘Natural part of the process.’ Her head turns to Patricia again. ‘We need to get there as quickly as we can.’
‘Bugger it,’ says Patricia, and Dorothy feels the car lurch as it accelerates. ‘If the cops stop me they can take Dorothy to hospital with sirens on.’
‘I’m terrible! I’ve ruined your car and you’re going to get a speeding fine!’ Dorothy tries to move position on the back seat, but finds herself sliding along it instead. Now she’s not a beached whale – she’s in the ocean.
‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself,’ Grace Maud commands and Dorothy immediately feels more alert.
‘Now,’ Grace Maud continues, ‘if we had time to pull over and clean you up, we would, but we don’t. This baby’s coming soon. But I think we’ll make it. You just keep counting those breaths and we’ll be there before you know it.’
Dorothy tries to concentrate on her breathing, interrupted every few minutes by a contraction.
‘Keep your legs together!’ Grace Maud says at one point and Dorothy does what she’s told. She doesn’t want to ruin Patricia’s car any more than she has by actually giving birth in it.
No police officer stops them on the road as they roar into Cairns, heading for the hospital, and Patricia comes to an abrupt stop at the entrance to Casualty.
‘Could you take her in?’ she says to Grace Maud. ‘I’ll move the car. And I’ll call Frederick once I’m inside.’
Grace Maud exits and opens the back passenger door, holding out her hands for Dorothy to take.
Dorothy cringes as she feels her damp dress clinging to her legs and fluid running down her shins, and doubles over as another contraction – close, so close to the last one – overtakes her.
She’s barely aware of Grace Maud holding her arm firmly as they walk through the doors, nor can she hear what Grace Maud is saying to the nurse who has appeared at their side. Then she is placed on a gurney and wheeled through swinging double doors.
All she can think of is the baby inside her and the pulse of life within her. The beating of her heart and the pain that tells her that all she has wanted, all she has suffered for, all of her hopes and dreams and yearnings, are coming into being. This time she’s made it. This time her baby is real.
‘You’re going to be fine,’ someone whispers in her ear and Dorothy doesn’t know if it’s a nurse or a doctor or a kindly spirit.
All she knows is that all the years behind her and all the years ahead have come to this one moment, and she is right here, right now, in pain and in love, waiting for her baby to be born.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
That drive from Port Douglas to Cairns to get Dorothy to hospital felt like a strange dream mixed with flashes of a nightmare. It wasn’t until Patricia was home that she remembered that Dorothy’s waters had broken all over the back seat and she spent the rest of the day cleaning them up, although she didn’t mind, not for a second.
