. 26-32

Chapter XXVI

"God damn, you guys sure took long enough to get to home base!"

"Terri! God, it's been a while since I last saw you! Boy have I missed you!"

"Yeah, I think that she's been picking on me lately."

"Gwynn! You're both here? Oh wow!"

Suddenly, I was a little worried.

"Uh, Terri, are we still on track or have I literally fucked things up."

In the dream state I had the sense of looking at Gwynn to see how much trouble I was in.

Gwynn and Terri seemed to share a conspiratorial glance before Terri answered,

"No, we are all on track for what looks to be my next, and happiest, life."

Some light began to dawn.

"Uhh..."

"Yes, you guessed it! One of your X sperm is about to connect with Mom's egg. In a while I will be able to call you Daddy!"

I cannot believe the concatenation of emotions that came crashing together all at once: happiness, love, anticipation, impatience, worry, foreboding, and fear.

"I... Holy shit! Wow! Where the fuck do I start?"

"Well, the probability thread with the most likelihood of positive outcomes has you proposing to marry Mom."

"Gwendolyn Mendoza, will you marry me? Will you love me as I will love you until death do us part?"

Gwynn giggled happily and replied,

"Yes, Stefan Menzel, I will marry you and love you till death do us part!"

"Wow! That feels wonderful! But, Gwynn, I thought you were infertile! What's up with that?

Gwynn seemed to shake her head and Terri cut in with the answer.

"Mom's blockage was almost totally mental. Randy did a little physical damage, but his role was mainly to lock in the mental blockage; and he did do a good job at that!

"Over time, the mental block was starting to cause physical damage, so you came along at just about the right time, Stef, uh Dad."

"Terri, there is one thing that makes me feel a bit uncomfortable. Having you for a daughter makes me feel wonderful, but there is also something in the background that feels kind of like incest! What is your take on that?"

"There is no genetic link between the Terrance that was and the Terrance that will be, so there is no incest in that regard. Beyond my personality and an intuitive sense of what I have learned so far in my path through sentience, very little of the old Terrence will be present in the Terrence to be.

"There are three danger spots that we have to be careful of until my brain has reached maturity around age twenty-five. First, Dad, you need to get rid of your trailer and get different living quarters. The trailer could trigger latent 'ghost memories' that a little girl could not begin to understand and to deal with.

"Second, you and I should never be together at the mining camp until I am at least twenty-five. Twenty-five is probably overkill in this case, but I know that you are risk-averse and wouldn't want to take any chances.

"Finally, never let me get close to where the old Terrence died! If I ever get within a hundred miles of that spot, explain to me what is going on and why it would not be wise for me to go there until I am more than twenty-five and have developed some psychic skills and strengths.

"Oh, and in the world of incestish business, there is a low-probability thread that I would love to have come to pass! Dad, IF you manage to catch the wave of life-lengthening science, AND avoid a number of fatal pitfalls along the way, we will be getting married when I am more than a hundred years old! If it's going to happen, I can hardly wait!"

Gwynn broke into the conversation at this point.

"Terri, after I sent your message to Stef, all of your overt visits have been so nice! I have come to look forward to your visits to my dreams... And in some ways maybe I've even come to depend on them. Is this the last time that I will get to visit with you?"

"No, we should be able to chat like this until around the end of the first trimester. For now, I have my psychic hooks into the sperm cell and the egg that I want to have come together, but the fetus doesn't have a full claim on my spirit until the first breath of life enters its lungs as Genesis implies and some say that Genesis flat-out states.

I'm pretty safe with those connections right now. All I have to do is make sure that I don't happen to be close to the birth of a baby that has not yet attracted a spirit to it. A baby without a spirit or a soul cannot exist, so that first breath can be an amazing maelstrom of spiritual suction that no unattached spirit can resist!

"During the second and third trimesters, it will get harder and harder to break part of me away from the fetus and to visit both of you. However, I plan to work hard to make it happen so that I can keep you abreast of developments in the womb and provide early warning if something untoward happens."

"Which makes me think, there is more of a long-term forecast that I should pass on to you. Along all of the high-probability threads, the American empire is joining all the previous empires in the history books. It will cease to exist in all of our lifetime threads that are connected to a high probability.

"We can survive the demise of the American empire in most of our high probability lifelines, but it will be hard if we are inside the empire. If you can manage to create a bolthole outside the empire, life is likely to be much easier and more pleasant.

"There are useful lessons to be learned on both paths, so the path taken is pretty much up to you. If you want to try your luck outside the empire, then learning a second language would be a wise move. Mom, you already have a working command of Spanish that you could push toward fluency. Dad, I know that you have a hell of a time trying to get your head around anything but English, but..." And here Terri giggled.

"...if we ever do get married, you will have mastered another language, so I know that you can do it!"

Chapter XXVII

Suddenly I was wide awake and every hair on my body felt like it was standing straight up! I looked around trying to figure out what was going on.

Gwynn's eyes popped open. "My, you left in a big hur..."

"Shhh!"

I unzipped the door to the tent and cringed at what seemed like jet-engine loudness as the zipper ran along its track! I grabbed my walking stick, pulled the sheath off of the blade and began checking out the camp and the area around it.

A few minutes later, I got back to the tent and found Gwynn sitting on the 'kitchen table' boulder with her sheath knife in hand. I stopped a few feet from her and smiled. "Well, Mrs. Menzel to be, don't we look like a tableau out of an X-rated Tarzan movie?"

Gwynn's serious mien cracked into a crooked smile. "Yeah, I can pretty much see that. Just one problem though; Tarzan doesn't wear glasses.

"So, what did you find?"

"It looks like a bear decided to stop at our water fountain. If you want to come over, there are some nice tracks in the mud and sand."

"Oh, wow! Yes, let me see them!"

We had breakfast, broke camp and managed to arrive at the East Entrance by about mid-afternoon. During the whole three days, the only people we saw were the folks that we met at the information kiosk as we came out.

The bottle of Port allowed us to celebrate a number of shake-down-cruises before it gave up the ghost.

Gwynn and I were married in a civil ceremony a few weeks after we got out of the wilderness. We were in a hurry, so it was a tiny ceremony mostly attended by Gwynn's friends at work.

About a week after the wedding, we traded both our trailers for a bigger unit that my truck could still pull. That was also around the weekend that Taylor and Amber managed to drop by and say "Hi" and "Congratulations." I think that Taylor was there mainly to see what kind of craziness his old man was getting into, but Amber was there to play Sherlock Holmes! It didn't take her too long before she accused us of being pregnant and we had to fess up with the facts as we understood them.

Gwynn completed her contract in the Spring and we moved to a new contract in the northern Rockies for the summer and then Gwynn took a sabbatical from nursing for a while. It was during the summer job that Ivan and Nancy came out to see us and to do a little camping and hiking in the woods. Both of them had been talking with Amber and were curious about this beautiful woman that their old man had managed to knock up and the backstory leading up to it all. All of us had a fun time and we answered any and all of the questions that they came up with.

During all of this time both of us had some issues that tried to intrude on what was mostly an extended honeymoon. In some ways the issues drove us closer together.

In my case, I had had mild headaches off and on ever since Terri had beaned me on the head with her walking stick. By the time November rolled around, the source of the occasional headaches seemed to have healed enough that it had become a low-level ache that I knew was there but which was now mild enough that I could and did ignore it.

In Gwynn's case, she carried the growing weight of Terri far enough forward that much of the weight was carried by her back and not by her pelvis.

From day one, Gwynn and I had been a touchy-feely couple and these issues kind of gave us an excuse to become even more touchy-feely. Gwynn got very skilled at giving me scalp massages and I definitely regretted that they became less frequent as the headaches became less severe and the mild ache settled in.

As Gwynn's waistline grew and her weight increased, I became quite proficient at giving her back rubs and eventually full-body massages. Later, I found her a support harness that put some of the weight of the baby on her shoulders rather than leaving it all on her back and at an angle guaranteed to cause backaches.

All of my boys had been born at home under the watchful eye of a midwife except for Taylor who had been delivered at home by a regular doctor who made housecalls to deliver babies. Partly because of this history, Gwynn decided that she wanted to deliver Terri at home and had found Maria Manitowoc, a midwife that she was comfortable with and who she was working with effectively.

About a week before Thanksgiving, Gwynn woke up very upset! "Stef, I'm wondering if we have to have Terri delivered at the hospital!"

"Why? What's wrong?"

"Terri visited me last night. She told me that she got a glimpse inside the black box and discovered that a home delivery was much more dangerous than a hospital delivery in our case. She said that you would understand the reference to a black box. This is awfully late to be switching horses in midstream! The whole business has got me as nervous as hell! What do you think about it?"

"It's been quite a while since she was able to visit either one of us. She is all but locked into that fetus by now. What kind of an emotional note did you sense from her?"

"Uh, she seemed to be working awfully hard to talk with me. Maybe that's why the dream didn't seem to last very long."

"Hmm, my call is to take her advice. It will cost a bit more, but I think that it will be more like adding a horse to the wagon team rather than switching horses in midstream. After all, Maria has been coordinating with Doc Williams who would do the delivery anyway if Maria runs into complications that she can't handle."

"Well, fooey! I don't like hospitals since I spend so damned much time in them anyway!" Gwynn gave me a rueful smile and continued, "After all, hospitals are for sick people and childbirth is so natural it has been going on long before a hospital was even a figment of some person's imagination!

"I was kind of hoping that my darling husband would figure out a sneaky way of keeping me out of the hospital, but so be it, a healthy baby is number one on my hit parade!"

"Uh, unless Terri was more explicit than you indicated, we don't know if we should be worrying about you or her." I gave Gwynn a little hug. "I have no interest in losing either one of you no matter how natural the process may be!"

"Okay, traitor." Gwynn gave me a smile and a quick kiss. "I'll call Maria and let her know that we need to change the program. I hope she understands!"

"She's a professional. I don't think you need to worry."

A while later, I was getting some bills, banking, and bullshit done on the computer when Gwynn interrupted me. "Stef, this is getting kind of scary!"

"Oh? What now?"

"I called Maria and was wishing that I still had my Kevlar helmet to put on when I made the call. Well, after pussyfooting around the topic it finally came out that she was happy as can be with the news! She has been trying to figure out how to be honest and still tell us that we needed to deliver in the hospital and not at home."

"This is starting to sound like one hell of a whopper coming on!"

"Oh boy! You got that one! Except that this whopper is for real!

"Maria told me that she has been having bad dreams regarding Terri's birth. She said that for about a week before the dreams started, she was already having a bad feeling about the birth. Like she said, there is absolutely no physical indication that anything is wrong with me or the baby, BUT, and here's the zinger; she trusts her intuition because in the past it has almost never been wrong.

"She didn't know how we would react to a recommendation based on just intuition so she has already been discussing her concerns with Doc Williams who has worked with her for a long time and has learned to respect her gut feelings.

"Anyway, the bottom line now is that she will deliver the baby as planned, but in the hospital. Doc will be in attendance at the birth but, hopefully, just as an observer."

I got up and gave Gwynn a gentle hug with a light back rub and a kiss. "Well, it sounds to me like the two most important people in my life are safe and in good hands.

"Have you decided yet what you want to do for Thanksgiving?"

Chapter XXVIII

GWENDOLYN

My labor pains started on a cool morning in the first week of December. As soon as I was sure that I was having real labor pains and not false labor, we notified Maria and Doc Williams.

Since this was my first baby and I was over thirty, Stef, Maria, Doc, and I all expected that the labor would be extended to one degree or another. To counter this potential negative, Stef had become a real pain in the arschloch about our diet! Since Spring, our only fun food fling had been Thanksgiving, which I will confess that we did up right!

On the other hand, Stef had been a real angel about escorting me on walks around town and hikes in the countryside in order to keep me strong and in good cardio health. On one memorable occasion I twisted my ankle a bit and that gray old man carried me for at least a mile back to the truck. I still swear that I could have made it back under my own power, but he wouldn't have a bit of that!

The day that my labor arrived, we circled the RV park hand in hand more times than I thought to count. I quickly discovered that if I could bend over, the pain of the contractions seemed to be more bearable. After Stef learned that, he would stop wherever we were in our walk and either pick me up and hold me in his arms or if he could find a place to sit he would hold me in his lap until the pain had passed.

Around noon, Maria joined us in our march around the RV park. She added a periodic gynecological check to our march and program of contraction interval timing.

Late in the afternoon we all went to the hospital and got me processed in without any glitches or hiccups. By sunset we were all in the delivery room and Terri was beginning to crown. Maria was watching progress and telling me when to push and when to breathe. Doc was watching Maria and asking a question about her technique and philosophy from time to time, but otherwise was mostly just staying out of the way. Stef was holding my hand, and hugging me, and kissing me and encouraging me. He was being so attentive that Maria probably classified him as an old gray nuisance, but oh God, I loved that man! Oh, and there were at least two nurses floating around, sort of in the background.

My God, it hurt! But the mirror overhead enabled me to watch Terri enter the world a push at a time. As her feet came into view, Maria announced, "Congratulations, Gwynn, it is a healthy baby girl!" As everyone in the room cheered, Maria placed a very wet, slightly bloody, and very wrinkled little girl onto my belly.

Doc was the first to speak. "Hmmm, she's not breathing yet. Do you want an aspirator Maria?"

Before Maria could reply, Stefan had placed his hand on Terri's back and said, "Terrence Aravaipa Menzel, welcome to the world!" A second later, Stef had leaped to his feet knocking his chair onto its back! He was in a combat crouch and I had an image of a mother bear standing between her cubs and a pack of wolves! He suddenly exclaimed, "Yes! I... What?" before his eyes went glassy and he collapsed onto the floor.

Everybody screamed, but the loudest scream was from Terrence Aravaipa Menzel!

Suddenly, Doc was in charge! "Maria! You stay with the mother and baby! They are not to be separated! Oh! And you are in charge of delivering the placenta!

"Nguyen, get these three into room 21C, stat!"

"Uh, Doctor that room is private now."

"I know that! This is an emergency! That's the closest room that I know has an empty bed and these two do NOT need to stay longer and experience more trauma than they have already suffered! Now move!"

"Yes, Doctor!" She and Maria began getting me out of the stirrups.

"Makarova, we need two gurneys and more nurses and the staff physician stat!"

"Yes Doctor!" And she was moving!

While he had been giving instructions, Doc had been wheeling his instrument cart over to Stef. He began doing an examination. Nurses Nguyen and Makarova were helping Maria load Terri and me onto a gurney when Doc exploded with, "Who knows if Wilson the neurologist is still in the hospital—or even still in town—or hell, still in range of smoke signals?"

The latest arrival, a head nurse, I think, replied to the question, "She was walking to the parking lot a few minutes ago, Doctor!"

Put out an APB for her! I need her here faster than a heart attack!"

That was the last I saw or heard of the organized confusion that Doc had created. Nurse Nguyen and midwife Maria were off to the gurney races and got Terri and me into the bed in 21C with breathtaking speed.

"What's going on here? This is supposed to be a private room!"

"Yes m'am. This is temporary! We have an emergency and we cannot avoid this temporary inconvenience for you! Please excuse me now! I have to get back before the doctor decides he wants to have my head for being slow!"

By this time it felt like the whole world had crashed in flames around me! I was exhausted! I hurt like I never imagined it was possible to hurt! I was scared more than I had ever been scared during my entire time in the sandbox! I had a tiny little baby that I had to be strong for! I was overwhelmed and the tears could not be stopped!

Maria cleaned Terri up, wrapped her in a blanket and handed her to me so that I could nurse. I was so proud and so happy with Terri that my heart was literally bursting with love—but the tears continued to flow like Niagara! Terri satisfied her hunger and slipped off to sleep. As for me, I finally cried myself to sleep—or rather, cried myself off to the first nightmare I had had since my first night with Stefan!

I woke up to Terri fussing and found myself looking into the face of a woman in a wheelchair and wearing a hospital robe. The first thing that registered was that Terri was not in the bed with me. I was well on my way to panic mode until I saw that Terri had been placed in a clear plastic bassinet next to my bed. "Terri!"