The Golden Willow Read Online Free PDF Page B

to bring up a child.
    And perhaps too, Ruby and I were changing a little and growing more mature in our thinking. We had met a lot of interesting people there, but we felt that a quieter, more conventional environment would be better suited for our growing family. There was another reason. Ruby had changed her job at Brentano's for one with thegovernment at much better pay. She worked now in the Treasury Building in the Wall Street district, and she would be able to walk there in less than half an hour, something she preferred to crowding onto a subway.
    In Knickerbocker Village there were elevators to go up and down—no more stair climbing. And there was a separate bedroom, which would be the baby's room, and which we furnished in advance with a crib and dresser. There was a garden below, with benches to sit on, and other young couples like ourselves, some who already had children, others who were expecting them, as we were. There was a friendly, congenial atmosphere that we liked, and no more thumping when the modern dancer began her mysterious furniture moving late at night.
    Ruby's pregnancy was scarcely noticeable while she was dressed, people marveling when they learned the month she was in. Then one unseasonably hot night in September, we came home from a movie and had scarcely opened the door of the apartment and entered into the hallway before Ruby gave a cry and I heard a trickling sound. There was water on the floor around her.
    “Quick,” she said, as I rushed to help her to a chair. “Call the doctor.”
    I did while she sat on a wet chair. It was a day when doctors answered calls immediately. His voice came at once, and after I'd told him what had happened, he said, “The water bag has burst. Get her to the hospital at once.”
    I led Ruby outside, and we were lucky: There was an empty elevator waiting. In a few minutes we were down and outside on Monroe Street looking for a cab. Luck again: A cab pulled up, and I bundled Ruby into it. Soon we were at Beth David Hospital, and Ruby was taken from me, and Dr. Hibbard was taking me aside andsaying things that weren't exactly comforting. “I have to tell you this,” he said. “We're going to try for a normal delivery, but it's possible she might need a cesarean, and in that case, there'll be some risk. So you have to be prepared.”
    I wanted to stay, but he urged me to go home and wait until I heard from him. I'll never know why he made it sound so dramatic. Cesareans were common enough even in that day, and there were relatively few fatalities. But anyway, it gave me a sleepless night, and I got up once during the night and sat at the window looking out at the few lighted windows still on in the courtyard, imagining all sorts of things. It was the first time in our married life that we had been separated, and perhaps even under more normal circumstances I would have been sleepless without her.
    But that night I went through all sorts of misery, with the doctor's warning sounding in my ears, and thoughts of how I could go on living if Ruby died. I would find out someday, and I would not be far wrong in what my apprehensions were that night. But that was not the time for it. Nor, when I think back on it, had there been any reason for that doctor to have put such fear into me.
    Early the next morning my phone rang, and Dr. Hibbard's voice came over sounding more cheerful and optimistic. There had been a cesarean, and Ruby had come out of it quite well, and so had the baby, and it was a boy weighing eight pounds. Congratulations!
    I rushed to the hospital, and some of my joy vanished when I looked through a glass screen and saw my son for the first time. His face was a mass of red wrinkles and he was crying.
    The intern at my side laughed at my expression. “Don't worry,” he said. “We all look like that when we're born, but we all change.”
    He was right, of course, and I was reassured about Ruby. She was smiling when I came in to see her, and lifted up