Ever After by William Wharton Page A

could be buried in holy ground, and so Grandma wouldn’t know. It seems this kind of thing is always happening in that part of the world. West Hollywood is sort of the place where failed actresses and actors wind up their careers, one way or another.
    I don’t know if there’s any way I can contact Aunt Emmaline now, I’m not sure I want to, but I chose Aunt Emmaline’s day for the wedding: I guess because I’m the closest thing to a child she had. One good thing that came out of the experience was my determination never to drink or fool around with drugs, and I never have.
    After the wedding, I return to working at the school, but I begin having trouble with bleeding. I’m sick every morning and feel terrible all day. I’d had an emergency Caesarean with Wills in Los Angeles and the incision was done vertically, both through the stomach wall and the uterus: not exactly what you’d call a “bikini cut.” I want this one naturally, but the doctors in Germany say it’s probably impossible. However they also say they’ll try.
    I’ve found a Frauenklinik nearby, right on the Starnberger See. The baby seems to be growing nicely, but the contractions and bleeding continue. The doctor says I must stay in bed or I could very easily lose the baby.
    I tell them at school and show them the doctor’s certificate that I should stop teaching. Stan is very sympathetic, and comes several times to see how I am. Ruth, his wife, comes regularly to help keep the place up. I’m surprised how the faculty and parents all help. I knew I had some really good friends, Ellen, Pam, Cindy, Dallas, but I never expected they’d dash into the fray so willingly.
    Bert does the laundry, keeps the apartment reasonably neat, takes care of Wills, feeds him, dresses him, all the things that have to be done. He comes home directly from school and gives up his basketball team. I feel spoiled. I keep thinking I’m better, that it’s passed, but after half an hour on my feet I’m dizzy and need to slide back into bed again.
    I’m glad when that seventh month passes. The doctor says, now, no matter what happens, he can probably save the baby, but he’s given up on letting me have a natural birth. He says it’s too risky, still I beg him to let me try anyway.
    By the middle of the ninth month, my contractions begin and we rush to the Frauenklinik , and during seven hours of labor, we try for a natural delivery. But the doctor finally says it’s too dangerous and performs a Caesarean. I cry.
    Dayiel weighs almost eight pounds. She has to be the most beautiful baby ever. She already has strawberry blonde hair and the biggest, deepest blue eyes anyone could imagine.
    Bert comes to visit me in the hospital during his lunch-time, eating sandwiches in the car. He holds the baby, fooling with it, his crazy beret perched on his head, while looking up at me and smiling like a demented fool. I know I’m smiling back in the same way. I have never been so happy.
    Then, right in the middle of sedate Starnberg, we have a typically Oregonian event. A group of Bert’s old cronies from his high school basketball team, five of them, decide, practically overnight, to visit us from the United States. They want to check out Bert’s new baby girl—as well as the famous German beer: a private Oktoberfest in mid-April.
    Bert’s at home when the local policeman leads them to the apartment. They don’t speak any German; to be honest, their English isn’t so hot. The celebrations had started at the first Gasthaus they came across.
    The next day, Bert brings them into the hospital. They’re all wearing heavy-knit sweaters, lumber jackets, jeans, hard-tipped boots with thick-ribbed woolen stockings folded over at the top. The boots have yellow leather thongs lacing them up. They all have different multicolored stocking caps with pom-poms.
    And loud! They seem to think