Untitled: Part Two

"What do you mean, there were complications?" Heather's husband Sean shouted at the doctor.

Elizabeth cringed at her son's of law's outburst even though she felt like shouting as well. It made no sense. It was the year 2001, not 1901. Complications at birth was suppose to me antiquated...like small pox. Or at the very least, like Polio. These things just were not suppose to happen anymore.

But here they were. 

Elizabeth and Walter had arrived at the hospital half hour after Heather and Sean had arrived. They were the only two people in the o.b. department's waiting room, a situation that Elizabeth found sad. It truly seemed as if even the most natural phenomenon such as childbirth had been put on hold for that day as the world sat mourning the end of an age of Innocence. 

There had been a television set in the corner broadcasting the same thing that played on all the networks. Without having to ask, Walter went over to the set and turned it off. Neither one of them wanted to be reminded of tragedy of the outside world on what they needed to be a happy occasion, the birth of their first grandbaby.

They waited in the room for hours. Walter flipped through the sorry selection of outdated magazines that you find in every doctor's office and hospital waiting rooms the world over. Elizabeth tried to read the book she always had tucked away in her purse though she found that she could not concentrate on the words, reading the same passages over the over again without making any kind of sense out of them.

She felt unsettled. She didn't think that it was the time that the two of them had been sitting in the waiting room, it was Heather's first baby and Elizabeth had been in labor with Michelle for more than a day but she was still unsettled. She decided that it was the events of the day, and the news that Junior would be heading overseas into a situation no one would be able to guage yet but even knowing that did not calm her nerves. Elizabeth felt as though something else was going on.

"Do you think that maybe we should try to find out what's going on with Heather?" 

Walt mumbled something from behind the six month old Time magazine. He was distracted, most likely from the article about the most recent Presidential election, a subject that Walter had not been able to let go of. Even now, nine months after President Bush had moved into the White House, Walter made sure everyone knew his thoughts of the disaster the election had been and how the Republican party had cheated their way to the top. Elizabeth didn't consider herself a Republican but wasn't sure if she considered herself a Democrat either. 

"Walter, did you hear me?"

Finally Walter set down the magazine and looked at his wife. 

"I'm sure everything is fine," Walter said but he said this as he was looking down at his watch and didn't sound convincing.

"I just thought Sean would have come out to let us know what's going on."

"Elizabeth, you know how Heather is. She probably has Sean completely on lockdown."

"You're right, I'm just on edge with everything that's going on."

"Hey, Junior is going to be fine. They'll go over to the Middle East, so what they need and get out. Remember how things were in The Balkans?"

Without looking to see if his wife understood what he was talking about, Walter went back to his magazine and Elizabeth went back to worrying. 

Then Sean came into the waiting room. He didn't seem to notice Elizabeth or Walter sitting there, he was aggitated and immediately started pacing the room. 

Elizabeth stood up and walked over to her son in law and touched his arm. He flinched at first until he registered who had touched him. 

"What's going on?" Elizabeth asked him as she gently took his arm and led him to the bank of chairs. 

"I don't know, something, but they didn't tell me much." Sean took a few shuddering breaths. "The baby is fine; everything about her is perfect. But something is going on with Heather."

"What's wrong? What's going on?" Walter demanded of Sean.

Sean could only shrug. "I don't know. One minute everything is fine, I hold the baby, then they give her to Heather to hold and then suddenly all those machines started beating. The nurses grab the baby and take her away and then they kicked me out without telling me what's going on. 

Walter stood up. "I'm going to go talk to someone," he announced to his wife and son in law.