“Tell him to hurry,” Josephine said.
Rose nodded, picked up the phone, and dialed Ted. She told him quickly, carefully, what was happening, and he promised he’d leave the school and be there within ten minutes. “Tell her I love her and can’t wait to meet my grandchild,” Ted said before hanging up. Rose did not convey the message, although she wasn’t sure why.
While they waited, Rose pulled one of the bakery chairs over for Josephine to sit in, and she flipped the Closed sign around on the front door. She saw Kay Sullivan and Barbara Koontz pause outside and give her a strange look, but she merely gestured to Josephine, who was breathing hard, her face pink and gleaming, and they understood. They did not offer to help, though; they merely averted their eyes and hurried away.
“Chérie, it is going to be all right,” Rose said, pulling a chair up beside her daughter and putting a hand on her knee. “Your father will be here soon.” She wished she could do more, bring her daughter more comfort. But there had been a gulf between them for years, entirely of Rose’s own making. She hadn’t known how to reach across the coldness of her own heart to reach her daughter.
Josephine nodded, breathing hard. “I’m scared, Mom,” she said.
Rose was scared too. But she could not admit this. “It will all be fine, my dear,” she said. “You are going to have a happy, healthy baby. Everything will be fine.”
And then, Rose said something she knew she would regret, but it had to be said. “My dear Josephine,” she said, “you must tell the baby’s father.”
Josephine’s head shot up, and she looked at her mother with blazing eyes. “It’s none of your business, Mom.”
Rose took a deep breath, imagined the life this baby would have without a father, and couldn’t bear it. “My dear, your child must have a father. Like you did. Think how important your father has been to you.”
Her daughter glared at her. “Absolutely not, Mom. He’s not like Dad. He doesn’t want to be part of this baby’s life.”
Rose’s heart hurt. She put her hand on her daughter’s belly. “You never told him you were pregnant,” she said softly. “Perhaps he would feel differently if he knew.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Josephine said. She paused and doubled over, another contraction racking her slender frame. She straightened up, her face red and pinched. “You don’t even know who he is. He walked away from me.”
Rose’s eyes filled with unexpected tears, and she had to look away. This was her fault, she knew. Despite all the things she had tried so hard to impart to her daughter, the lessons she had tried to remember from her own mother, she had really only succeeded in imparting coldness, hadn’t she? Her heart had simply ceased to exist on that dark, empty day in 1949 when Ted returned to tell her that Jacob had died. Josephine had been just a little girl then, too young to know she had lost her mother that day.
And now, Rose realized, she had failed in the most important thing of all. She had raised a daughter who was as closed and cold as she was.
“You need someone to watch out for you, to love you, to love the baby,” Rose whispered. “Like your father loved me and you.”
Josephine looked at her mother sharply. “Mom, it’s not the 1940s anymore. I’m perfectly fine on my own. I don’t need anyone.”
There was another contraction then, and suddenly, Ted was rapping on the front door, his shirt rumpled and his tie twisted to the side. Rose stood and crossed the room to let him in. He gave his wife a quick peck and grinned at her. “We’re going to be grandparents!” he said. Then he crossed the room to Josephine, knelt beside her, and whispered, “I’m so proud of you, honey. Let’s get you to the hospital. Just hang on a little longer.”
Josephine’s labor was quick, and although the baby was born a month early, the doctor came out to report that she was healthy, although a bit underweight, and that she’d be ready to meet her grandparents shortly. Rose and Ted watched the minutes tick by in the waiting room, and as Ted paced, Rose closed her eyes and prayed. She prayed that this child born today, on this, her own fiftieth birthday, wouldn’t be as cold as she herself was, or as cold as she had made her own daughter. She prayed that the mistakes she’d made with Josephine would not be passed on to the new baby, who had a blank slate, a new chance at life. She prayed that she’d be able to show the baby she loved her, something she’d never been able to do with her own daughter.