Chapter Thirteen
Jenalyn
I begin to worry as I wonder what’s taking Clara and Sid so long to accompany us. Just as I’m about to pass Leo off to Stormie, Sidney and Clara make their way into my closet with several candles and flashlights in tow. I notice both of their cardigan sweaters appear to be bulging with a few extras, so my eyes shift focus to their bulging pockets and what’s underneath.
“I brought some bottled waters,” Sidney tells us as she begins pulling them from the confinement of her sweater.
“I also brought some extra diapers, bottles, and snacks for the babies,” Clara states.
“Oh, thank fuck,” Tess and I blurt out simultaneously, which causes us to momentarily look at each other.
Amidst all the chaos, I never thought of that, so I’m glad Clara and Sidney did. My phone pings, and I notice it’s a message from Justice.
Y’all take cover immediately! It’s bad, Jen, but please don’t panic. We’re trying to get to y’all, but we’re stuck for the time being. Kiss our babies for me. I love you with all that I am. I’ll be there as soon as humanly possible.
Echoes of notifications from the men to their women serenade my closet as they begin to come in.
I send him a reply: We’re fine, Jus. Please just hurry home if you can. Be safe. I love you.
“Fuck,” Vanna hollers out. “My phone only has ten percent battery life now. I knew I should’ve plugged in earlier.”
“No worries. Between the five of us, we should be good,” Tess says, reassuring her.
Both of their statements cause me to look back down at my phone and let out a sigh of relief when I notice that I have fifty-three percent left myself. Everyone shoots a reply to their men.
Suddenly, the howling winds of mother nature and her wrath grab our attention as the house begins to shake, and I can hear glass shattering outside in my bedroom.
My heart begins to beat rapidly and my adrenaline kicks into high gear. Quickly I glance around my enormous closet and see nothing but sheer terror on my girls’ faces. Cami, Leo, and Carter are all screaming and crying uncontrollably. Savanna is doing her best to console my daughter as she brings her head into her chest and begins to rock her back and forth. Tess and I follow suit with the boys, but it doesn’t seem to be working and all I’m doing is building up a sweat.
The power flickers once more and finally goes out altogether. I wait for a few seconds for the generator to kick in, but it never does.
The loud repeated bangs on the roof from the hail sound like Godzilla himself is trying to rip my house apart. Suddenly, there’s light from within the closet and it’s coming from the flashlights Clara and Sidney brought in here.
“Why the fuck is the generator not working?” I belt out.
“Honestly, my brother builds this fortress of a house, and he doesn’t bother to build a storm shelter? And, have y’all even used the generator, Jenalyn?” Vanna asks.
I stop to think about her question and realize that well, no, we haven’t. “No. We haven’t had a reason up until now I suppose. That’s a ‘man thing’ anyway. How’s that supposed to be something I know anything about?”
“I’m scared, girls,” Tess says.
“Everyone needs to just try and stay calm. If not for yourselves, then for these babies,” Clara tells us.
My house begins to shake with such force, that even I want to cry at this point. I just want Justice here.
The sound of Vanna singing as she rocks Cami back and forth, holding her head closely to her chest breaks free.
“The itsy-bitsy spider, crawled up the water spout,” she begins, as she looks over at me and I can’t help but be slightly amused at her choice in lullabies. That song is sort of a thing from our past that we haven’t really shared with the others. Although the memory to go along with it is somewhat disturbing, it’s ours nonetheless, and to my surprise, it seems to be calming Cami down.
Tess and I chime in and before we know it, the destruction and devastation surrounding us is momentarily forgotten. The three of us are sitting on the floor rocking the kids back and forth as we sing along, doing the hand movements to show them what’s happening.
By this time, I’m fastly becoming drenched in sweat, and I know the others are too. Worried about Stormie seeing as how she’s eight months pregnant, I look over at her to see her gulping down a water. There is something different looking about her, and I can tell by her inability to get comfortable that something’s not quite right.
“You okay, Storm?” I ask her and my tone comes out a bit more frantic than I had intended it too.
“I’m fine...I,” she stops and clenches her round belly before she cries out in obvious pain. “I’ve got some serious cramping going on!”
Sidney quickly finds her feet and starts hollering out orders. “Pillows and towels, now!”
Both my brows arch. Pillows? Towels? Surely this isn’t really about to happen right here in my closet, and during a fucking tornado? I am in no way prepared to help with the possible delivery of any baby, especially in my closet.
“Ouch! Fuck!” Stormie hollers out again.
I would make a horrible midwife, because I’m frozen like a statue. Clara grabs several pillows from the shelves in my closet, and Vanna passes Cami off to me and she crawls in my lap and buries her tiny head against my belly. I wrap my free arm tightly around her as I watch Vanna grab some clean towels. Yes, I’ll admit, for a fleeting moment I inwardly cursed the thought of my solid white towels being forever ruined with blood, and all that comes out of a woman during childbirth. Snapping back to the task at hand, I remind myself those are replaceable items, and Stormie and her baby are not.
Sidney and Clara begin to situate Stormie with the pillows into a more comfortable position. On Sidney’s order, they roll Stormie onto her left side and again, she cries out in pain.
“Vanna, Clara, I need you two to get over here with several of those flashlights. I need to check her cervix for dilation,” Sidney states, as she begins to remove Stormie’s shorts. “Fuck!”
“What is it?” Tess asks.
Sidney looks at me. “Where do you keep the lube?”
“Pardon?” I ask her, stunned at her question.
“I need it to check her cervix, Jenalyn.” Sidney looks up at Clara. “We need some hand sanitizer, rubbing alcohol, something. You might have to venture out and into the bathroom.”
“Like hell,” I interrupt, “I’ve got an emergency first-aid kit in here with just about anything you can think of. No way in hell is Clara going out there!”
I stand, taking both of my babies over to Tess. “Go to auntie Tess,” I tell Cami. “Think you can handle three kids while I search for lube and grab my first-aid kit?” Well, those are two things I never thought I’d use in the same sentence.
Tess nods her head to gesture yes, and I place Leo in her free arm as Cami crawls into her lap.
“I know where your first-aid kit is. I’ll get that,” Vanna says, before the rumbling of what I can only describe as Satan unleashing demons rips through my home.
“I’ll get the...lube,” I say, before the wrath gives my house such a beating things begin to fall from the shelves. “Cover their heads!” I holler out, looking back over my shoulder to Tess, noticing she’s already crouched over and doing just that.
Turning my gaze back to the task at hand, I hear Stormie scream out yet again. I know that scream, and it’s a good indication of a woman feeling like she’s being ripped in two. Yep, she’s got to be in labor. My hands are shaking, but I find my treasure chest and pull it down.
I begin to dig through it before Sidney starts yelling for me to hurry. Fuck! My hands are sweaty, and I’m shaking and trembling so bad I’m certain the lube is going to just slip right out of my grasp. Inwardly I begin to cuss myself as I read off the labels.
“His and hers. Nope. Warming sensation. Nope. Anal ease. Nope. Fuck,” I mumble these words underneath my breath. Never did I imagine in my wildest dreams I’d be digging through my toys and lube during a fucking tornado. “Astroglide! Yes!” I shout, as I pull it out and toss it to Sidney as she glares at me impatiently waiting. “What?” I ask her as I feel my cheeks begin to blush. “Hey, don’t any of you bitches judge me. I’ve seen Tess’. That shit puts mine to shame and rivals any collection a porn star probably owns.”
“Hey!” Tess scoffs at me.
Clara, Vanna, and myself have flashlights and Sidney orders us to get down on her level with the light as she slides a pair of gloves on and lathers them up with lube. I desperately want to apologize to Stormie for being all up in her lady bits like this, but I just aim and turn my head away.
“Um, girls, I have no service on my phone,” Tess informs us.
“That’s awful, Tess, but can’t you see we have more important matters at hand right now?” I tell her sarcastically.
“Me, either,” Clara says, “And we need an ambulance...something,” she says frantically.
“She’s four centimeters dilated, and fifty-percent effaced,” Sidney blurts out. “Baby is definitely trying to make an appearance, but she’s not so far progressed yet so we might have hope if we can get service on any of our phones.”
I turn my flashlight to Vanna who is sweating profusely, and looks pale. “Water! She needs some water,” I belt out.
Clara grabs Vanna’s chin and pry’s her mouth open and begins pouring some into it. Next, she takes another washcloth and pours some on it and places it on Vanna’s neck. Savanna slumps down against the wall and I notice some of the color come back to her face.
“This is why I’ll never have kids,” she tells us, causing the closet to erupt in laughter.
I kneel down, eye level to her. “Never say never.” I pat her shoulder.
“Anyone getting any service?” I ask.
Different variations of ‘no’ can be heard except for Sidney. “Yes! I’m calling for an ambulance,” she says as she begins to dial out. Pulling her phone away from her ear, she scrunches her nose and a look of displeasure takes formation on her face. “Busy? Fucking 911 is busy? Since when?”
The wind is still loud and growling its anger at us as the large balls of hail continue to pound away at my roof. I check my phone again and I notice I have service, but I’m not sure for how long. I try 911, but also get a busy signal. So, I take advantage of what time I have and try calling Justice, only his phone goes straight to voicemail. Shit. I bet their service is cutting in and out, too.
“Anyone else able to get through to any of our men?” I ask, “looks like they’ll be our only hope since the emergency line is busy. Stormie, you just hold that baby in there as long as you can.”
She looks up and replies to my last statement with a death glare, telling me all I need to know. I’ve been there, so that probably wasn’t an appropriate thing to say in that moment. Tucking my proverbial tail between my legs, I look back down at my phone to notice I no longer have service.
“Um, Jenalyn,” Clara says, catching my attention.
“Yeah?”
“Water’s beginning to come in underneath the doorway.”
I glance down and see that water is, in fact, starting to slowly stream in. Fuck, guess I’m going to be buying even more towels than I originally anticipated. I grab a few more off the shelf and push them under the door to stop the water from coming inside the closet.
“I hate to be the bearer of more bad news, but it’s leaking in from the ceiling too, Jenalyn,” Tess tells me, and I follow her gaze over to the corner where my clothes and shoe collection is. I look around at my huge-ass closet and see the plastic pails that I bought for something and grab them, placing them on the floor to catch the drips. It’s the best I can do right now, but at least it’ll hopefully keep us all a little drier. When we make it out of this fucking nightmare, I’m insisting we build a storm shelter.
Intermittently Stormie hollers out in discomfort and we take turns giving her sips of water, and wiping her face with a cool, damp cloth.
All three kids begin crying again, so I go relieve Tess to console my babies.
Sidney checks Stormie again, and no more progress has been made to Stormie’s dismay and my relief. Sidney tries to give Stormie some Tylenol, but she pushes her hand away. “This shit doesn’t help with a fucking hangnail, there’s no way in hell it’s even touching the discomfort I’m in right now.”
“You know, there’s a story behind Stormie’s name, and I bet you can guess how she got it,” Clara begins, “she was born during a severe storm just like this. Of course, I was at my midwives, and we also lost all power.”
“If it feels like this and I’m only four centimeters dilated, I’m probably going to die the further along I get. Joker’s ass is the luckiest fucker alive right now, because if he were here, he’d no longer draw breath,” Stormie tells us and we all giggle before she screams out again as another contraction hits.
I catch myself rolling my eyes and look around to make sure nobody noticed, but Tess did and she makes sure I can read her lips as she silently calls me a ‘bitch’.
I narrow my eyes at her and flick my head to one side quickly, letting her know I don’t care.
“Okay, I’m not sure how this happened, and delivering babies isn’t my specialty, but Stormie’s one-hundred percent effaced and six centimeters dilated. Girls, we’re going to be delivering a baby here fairly soon,” Sidney informs us.
If I could click my fucking heels three times and wake up from this nightmare, that’d be great. No way to get a hold of emergency when we do have service, and to top it off, we can’t even get a hold of our men. I’ve never in my life been so frightened as I am right now. Not only does Stormie’s baby’s life hang in the balance, but we have no idea if our men are alive or dead.
I look around my barely-lit closet and amongst the kids all crying, see tears streaming down Tess, Vanna, and Stormie’s faces. Sidney and Clara are the true heros right now, and I don’t know how they’re holding it together. I want to be strong right now, and as much as I try, I fail. A slow but steady stream of tears roll down my cheeks and pass over my lips as the salty substance enters my mouth. Justice, please get to us. Please be okay I think to myself as I squeeze our babies close and pull them into my embrace.