I have been here all night and for the first time I am alone.  No one is beside me any longer.  My baby's upstairs in her hospital bed, resting... hopefully asleep after the events of the evening.

The corridors and sitting rooms should be familiar to me, but they are not.  I feel like I have been plucked from someone else's life and deposited here in this one... at this time.  I am staring at people, trying to reconnect my surroundings and faces with something I can use to get my bearings.  I should probably sit down before exiting the building.   I don't.

The brightness of the new morning attacks my eyes with garish intensity.  Everything is too bright, but very clear.  That is the most dramatic revelation.  Mid-town Manhattan is sharply in focus.  The colors are vibrant.  (Too vibrant.)  I can see everything more clearly than I would have expected.  The late September air is crisp and oddly still... now that the storm is gone. 

Before I take too many steps, I am facing Central Park.  (I will need my car!  I'd come in fast yesterday afternoon. Parking had been more than a little chaotic... in fact an officer had ordered me to roll down the window so that he could say something to me.  He yelled at me.  (Had he really yelled at me?)  I can still see the silver in his teeth as he bent down to my window.  He was wearing a bright yellow rain slicker and he had no neck.)  I saw his teeth.

(No.  He was telling me where to go and gesturing wildly.  He was trying to help, but I didn't want to follow his directions even though the wind was howling so loud we could barely hear each other.  Too many cars.  More cars coming into the hospital.)

My hands find a parking receipt in my pocket.  Good.  I am laughing strangely.  (She's depending on me.  Me.)  This is not the way I laugh.

There is debris all along the sidewalk and part of the street along Central Park (West?)  I am still laughing.  (She was in such a mess.)  Not for the first time, my mind finds a way to poke at the realization that my life will never be the same again.  Not ever.  (Maybe I should go back upstairs.)

I need to check on our home. (Gloria had proved to be an unpleasant visitor to say the least.  We tried to get away.  Tried to be responsible.) 

The Long Island roads are surprisingly clear now that I am behind the wheel.  I have no trouble driving, except for the buzzing.  (The steering wheel was trying to pull out of my hands.  That car was facing the wrong way.  Spinning.)  Good, no trouble now.  (The car seems so empty.)

As I finally turn onto my block, there is debris in the way.  Large broken branches.  Thick tree branches and two emergency vehicles.  I park down by the playground.  The house is fine.  There is no damage at all... not even a broken window.  (I should make a call.  I should call her sister.  Spoke to her mother already. My parents.)   I call my wife.

It had seemed like a good idea to drive up to Connecticut the night before the hurricane was supposed to hit Long Island.  We stayed with Ric and Cee, his "bride" of several years.  Played cards and listened to music most of the evening.  Ric and I were always partners playing against the women.  I remember running a Boston while the Temptations Greatest Hits played song after song, over and over.  We usally sang with the music when we had a strong hand. We were singing that night because we were winning.  My baby had called me a smart-ass.  Behind the music, I could still hear the winds picking up.

Now, I walk into the new room.  I sit down and just stare at the brand new and as yet, unused furniture.  (Gotta get my shit together.)

I still don't know if the wind woke me up that morning after untold card games the night before... or if she had awakened me. 

"I don't feel so good" she had said to me. 

"Wassamatta Babe?"  I had really been under and I was still not fully awake.

"I dunno, I just... don't feel good." 

Once I joined her level of wakefulness, one of us had the presence of mind to call her doctor.   After a very brief discussion we were told to come in. 

There was a whirlwind blur of activity.  The details escape me.  Worried looks on the faces of Ric and Cee.  Packing our things and loading the car while rain painfully stung my face and hands.  It was not a falling rain.  The rain was being flung at me almost parallel to the ground, propelled by fierce winds.  I fought to protect her face and head as I helped her into the car.  Our friends waved good-bye. 

I don't know when the first pains hit her.  It might have happened before we even got into the car.  I just don't know.  I watched as two cars spun out on the highway in two separate incidents, due to the slippery roads and the gale force winds.  While I wrestled with the steering wheel, my baby was fighting to let go of my hand as yet another spasm struck.  In spite of her pain, she yelled at me to keep my hands on the wheel.  I shouldn't worry about her. 

The drop in air pressure, induced by Hurricane Gloria, prematurely induced labor as well.  Premature by no more than a week or so... but premature.  We arrived at the hospital, jockeying for position with other prematurely induced arrivals.  Existing residents on the maternity ward that would otherwise have left that day... did not check out because of the hurricane.  Chaos reigned. 

It happened fast.  Disembark.  Check in.  Paperwork.  Where is her doctor?  Delivery room.  Hospital gowns.  I am being handled and manuevered as if in a daze.   My baby is in distress, but so calm.  (How can she be so calm?)  Somebody tells me that she is fully dilated.  I know what that means, but my head is full of cotton.  Someone is talking to me.    It is her doctor.   (Where the hell has he been?)  Then, I have this vivid recollection of admiring the muscles in my baby's thighs. 

Then I am looking at hair.  Everything is happening so quickly.  It's a girl.  (Don't you drop her.)  Sudden reassurances and someone's hand is on my arm, gripping me.  Congratulating me?  The people in gowns are all happy.  Mother and child are just fine.  More stuff to deal with?  Another child?  No... just stuff.  (Cotton in my head.)  My baby is sweating, but smiling.  God, she is beautiful.  My baby.

No...  we now have a real baby.  We have a baby girl.  She is now depending on me for everything.

It seemed very fast, but we arrived at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Manhattan the morning that Hurricane Gloria hit New York City.  When I stumbled out into the bright sunshine the next morning, mother and child were resting comfortably upstairs and my world would never be the same.  Not ever. 

Republished from January 2009