The Consequences of Two Phone Calls

Bridget was quietly crying as she asked me "Would you really marry me?" I told her I would, as our child would have enough problems given our situation without being born a bastard. For the first time since she appeared on my doorstep, I saw the glimmer of a smile on her face.

The conversation with my mother did not go well. To be blunt, she was appalled. My mother was far more rigid than my father. She told me (actually us, as Bridget was in the room with me) that she could not believe that I'd done something so stupid, that I'd ruined my life, that I'd embarrassed the family and that I was a great disappointment to her. I'd expected all of that, but it hurt to hear the acid in her voice as she delivered her analysis. She was icy cold toward Bridget, an attitude that did not much improve with time. My parents couldn't afford to finance my college education and provide support to a wife and baby as well. My parents did agree to let Bridget stay in our guest room for the time being, but we were on our own.

The next morning, and with everyone but my grandmother out of the house, Bridget and I talked at length about our future. She was reluctant to marry me, recognizing that I didn't love her and that the marriage probably wouldn't last. She was Roman Catholic, which meant divorce was out of the question, at least under Irish law at the time. I was not, and since we would be living in the U.S., that was less of a concern to me. I made clear to her that despite her reservations, I wanted to take responsibility for her and the baby.

I called the college the following day and got the registrar's office to put me into a leave of absence status. Then I started looking for a job. My father was correct - there wasn't much I was qualified to do and the job market was not all that healthy, either. I had no car, no money for an apartment, no job, no skills and no future.

Gradually, she acquiesced. I called the county offices to find out what we would need to obtain a marriage license and who could perform the ceremony. We were pretty sure the local Catholic church would not, as I would not agree to become Catholic (which would have further infuriated my mother). We were told that we could be married by a judge if we could find one with time available on his or her schedule. The clerk did give us a list of judges who generally enjoyed performing weddings and information on how to contact them.

We arranged to borrow a car and got our wedding license. With that in hand, we told my parents that we were expecting to have the ceremony performed the following week and that we would very much like them to attend, but that we understood if they chose not to. We asked if after the wedding we could move into the basement, half of which was finished and had a full bathroom. They said yes. I had enough money to buy a secondhand bedroom set and a mattress and box spring, all of which were delivered in the next few days. Prior to the wedding, Bridget continued to live in the guest room and I occupied my bedroom. We kissed and hugged, but were not otherwise intimate, having quickly concluded that my parents would not approve. We were in no position to anger them any further.

Shortly before the wedding, my Aunt Mary (not to be confused with Bridget's Aunt Mary) offered us the use of her mountain house in the Poconos for a few days so we could have a brief honeymoon. I gratefully accepted and my parents let us borrow one of the cars to allow us to get there and get around while we were there. We were married by a kindly judge, who pronounced us Mr. and Mrs. My father took the family out for an early dinner, following which we drove the two hours to the mountain house. The community in which it was located was primarily, if not totally, a development of second homes and we pretty much had the entire place to ourselves for the three days we were there.

Neither of us had any sexual experience beyond the one evening in the back seat of the Chevelle. We spent most of our time exploring one another's bodies, seeking to learn how to please one another. To my surprise, I discovered that my new wife was an extremely sexual woman. Bridget's breasts were very sensitive and she loved having them played with. Sucking on them caused her nipples to stand out almost an inch. Playing with them made her so wet we left puddles on the sheets. To avoid staining the mattress, we ended up placing towels under her. We experimented with oral sex and I discovered that she was both responsive and quite vocal when I gave her an orgasm with my fingers or my tongue. And she proved to be an equally enthusiastic giver of oral sex, licking and sucking my cock and swallowing. She enjoyed missionary, doggy and cowgirl, repeatedly cumming as I made love to her and then sucking me back to life to do it again. I don't know if it was the pregnancy hormones or if that was simply her nature, but she was insatiable. We rarely had any clothes on or got out of bed except for meals, bathroom breaks and the occasional change of venue. The house had a large shower in the master bath which we enjoyed together. It also had a hot tub and we frolicked in that as well. By the time we returned home, we were beginning to bond as a family, but not completely. Bridget told me she loved me while we were there, but it was not something I was prepared to say to her. I think she was disappointed but rationalized my hesitancy because of the disruption in my life's goals I'd experienced.

Shortly after we the honeymoon, I was fortunate enough to find a job at the local hospital. It was not a great job, paying only a bit more than minimum wage, but the job benefits included an excellent health insurance plan and the location allowed me to take a bus to and from work. The hours were 7:00 A.M. to 3:30 P.M., although it was a revolving schedule, which meant I worked every other weekend. I had to leave the house by 6:00 A.M. to walk to the bus stop, so we got into the habit of going to bed early in the evening. Given my mother's continuing unhappiness with the entire situation, that was not a bad thing. The chill between my mother and Bridget continued and showed no signs of improvement. What we did almost every evening was finish dinner, clean up the dishes, and retreat to our basement bedroom. With not much else to do down there, we made love almost every evening (although quietly and with greater reserve than we did in the Poconos). Even as Bridget grew bigger with the progression of the pregnancy, we continued our almost hyperactive sex life.

I have to say that Bridget worked very hard at being a good wife. Aside from our extremely enthusiastic sex life, she made a huge effort toward winning over my parents. Since she couldn't work outside the house, she took over almost all the housekeeping and cooking chores. She also provided companionship for my grandmother, whose health was continuing to decline. She and my grandmother became good buddies, much to my surprise. My dad, seeing her efforts, eventually began to warm to ,Bridget too. My brothers accepted her without becoming close. Their lives and ours were too different at this stage. My mother continued to be cold and Bridget occasionally wept on my shoulder in the evening after a particularly frigid exchange with mom.

The hospital was only about five miles from the house, so once I began working there, I started taking my running clothes in a backpack and running home rather than taking the bus, weather permitting. Over the course of a month, the savings from riding the bus one way instead of round trip added a few dollars to our apartment fund. Because my schedule ended so early in the day, I was usually the first person home, allowing Bridget and me to discuss our respective days' activities while making dinner.

Bridget had been writing to her parents at least every other week, telling them about our marriage and updating them on the progress of the pregnancy, even though they had thrown her out and disowned her. She was also in regular contact with her Aunt Mary, who occasionally updated her on what was going on with Bridget's family. Bridget's family never responded, which led to some tearful sessions in the privacy of our bedroom, although Bridget maintained a cheerful front on the subject in the presence of the rest of my family.

As Bridget's delivery date neared, we continued a vigorous sex life. When I expressed concern about whether that was wise given the immediacy of the baby's arrival, she got angry. She told me that she wanted to make sure I understood how important I was to her and how much she loved me. I still had not said plainly that I loved her, although I was beginning to recognize just how important she had become to me.

Do babies ever come in the daytime? I know ours certainly didn't. It was nearly 1:00 A.M. when Bridget woke me to tell me her water had broken and her contractions were five minutes apart. I woke my father to tell him I needed to take Bridget to the hospital and ask him for the use of a car. He handed me the keys and rolled back over. I called the doctor's answering service to tell them that we were going to the hospital and ask for Bridget's obstetrician to meet us for the delivery. We drove to the hospital, where I dropped Bridget off at the emergency room and parked the car. Ten minutes later, she was on a gurney being wheeled into labor and delivery.

Just before she went through the doors, she reached out to me, took my hand and said, "I love you." For the first time since we were married, I said to her "I love you too" and was surprised to find out that I really meant it. She smiled at me, said "I've known that for a long time" and we kissed one more time before she was wheeled through the doors into the ward.

I will be forever ashamed that it took me so long to tell her that I loved her and forever grateful that I finally did when she gave me that opportunity. As the doors closed behind her, I parked myself on a chair outside in the waiting room, with no company but the ward clerk, who was engrossed in whatever it was she was doing. I was scheduled to work that day, so I told the ward clerk that I needed to go down and leave a note for my boss about what was happening and that I'd be back in a few minutes. When I got back to the waiting area, all Hell had broken loose. As I emerged from the elevator, I could hear the call for a code in labor and delivery and I was almost run over by a stampede of doctors and nurses all running down the hallway into the labor and delivery area. I walked over to the clerk and asked what was going on. Without looking up to see who was asking, she said that the woman in labor had coded and the team was trying to revive her and save her baby. I must have made some sort of sound, as she looked up and then covered her mouth in horror, realizing that the woman was my wife, the baby was our baby, and she just had announced to me that my wife was possibly dying in a delivery room.

I ran for the doors, only to be stopped by a nurse coming out who grabbed me and told me I couldn't go in there while they were treating the patient. I explained that the patient was my wife, but she said simply "Sit down over there. You'll only be in the way and you might interfere with our efforts to save your wife and child."

The obstetrician had been with Bridget when she coded and recognizing that whatever was going on could result in the loss of the baby as well as the mother, immediately performed an emergency C section. While the team of doctors worked to revive Bridget, he handed the newborn little girl to a nurse, who took her away from the chaos to clean her up and wrap her in a blanket. With everything going on, the nurse laid her in the bassinet that had been placed in the room and kept an eye on her while the balance of the staff worked feverishly to suture the C section and discover and treat the cause of Bridget's collapse.

I don't know whether it was the fact that Bridget was a new mother, her youth, or that she was married to a hospital employee, but the team treating her worked on her an hour before finally admitting defeat. The doctor leading the team declared her dead at 5:45 A.M. He came out to find me looking up hopefully. One glimpse of his expression shattered all my hopes.

The doctor looked at me and said, "Mr. Morton, you have a beautiful little girl. Your wife died giving birth to her despite our best efforts to revive her. We don't know what happened or what caused her death, but we will find out and let you know. I'm so sorry that such a thing has happened at what should be such a joyous event."

I sank to the floor and heard someone screaming, then was surprised to find that it was me. I was weeping uncontrollably, on my knees, rocking back and forth with my face in my hands. My wife, whom I'd just finally realized I loved and had only once told I loved her, was dead. I'd just become a father and a widower within a few minutes time. I was 18, had no wife, a new baby, a job that couldn't support a family and was living in my parents' house with nothing to my name but a bedroom set and some clothing. And somehow, I had to find a way to lay my wife to rest, raise my child and get on with my life. It was the worst moment of my life.

One of the nurses came over to ask me if there was someone I should call to tell what had happened. She handed me the phone and I dialed my parents' house. When my father answered, I was still sobbing so hard that I was incoherent. The nurse finally took the phone from me, explained what had happened to him and asked him to come down to be with me as quickly as possible.

This same nurse then asked me if I'd like to spend some time with my wife and daughter before they removed Bridget to the hospital morgue and my daughter to the nursery. She led me into the room where Bridget's body lay on a gurney, covered to her chin by a blanket. She wheeled the bassinet over next to me and handed me my daughter, a tiny sleeping redhead with pale skin, just like her mother's coloring. For about 45 minutes, I sat there holding my daughter in my lap and holding Bridget's hand. The tears continued to run down my face until the blanket wrapped around my daughter was wet with them.

My father and mother finally arrived. They spent a few minutes with us before the nurse came in to move my daughter to the nursery and allow one of the orderlies to take Bridget down to the morgue. Before she was wheeled away, I kissed her one last time, telling her once again that I loved her and that I would do my best to make sure I raised my daughter to be the kind of woman who would make Bridget proud and use all my efforts to ensure my daughter knew how much her mother had wanted and loved her.

At this point, I was simply exhausted. My parents persuaded me to go home, get some rest and return later in the day, which I did.

Normally, the new mother ends up filling out the paperwork to record the child's birth and name her. That task fell to me. We'd talked at some length about names but had been unable to agree and had deferred the decision until we were forced to make it. I'd had a couple of ideas for names, but if we had a girl Bridget had wanted to name the baby Margaret Mary, after her mother and the two aunts who had been so generous to us. She intended to call her Maggie. I filled out the paperwork and my new daughter now had a name and a nickname.

The word of what had happened quickly filtered down the hospital grapevine. My boss called me and told me to take all the time I needed to deal with my loss. I had a couple of weeks' vacation time and five sick days, which would give me three weeks off. The hospital also had a bereavement leave program which would give me another week. Two days after Maggie was born, we brought her home and she took up residence in my basement bedroom. The following day, my boss informed me that every single orderly on my shift had donated a vacation day and a sick day to me. With those additional days, I'd have three months to deal with Bridget's death and learn to care for a new baby. It was an act of generosity I will never be able to repay.

I had one more task before I buried my wife - telling her family that their daughter was dead and that they had a new granddaughter. We had Bridget's family's telephone number and my dad arranged an international call for the early evening, Irish time.

The phone rang. It was picked up and I heard a man's voice say "Hello."

I started out with "Good evening, is this the Murphy residence?"

"It is" was the reply.

"Is this Mr. Murphy?"

"It is." This was followed by a question, voiced with some exasperation, saying "Who is this and what do you want?"

"Mr. Murphy, this is Peter Morton. I'm your daughter Bridget's husband."

His reply shocked me: "Have you tired of the whore already? We won't be taking her back even if you are."

At this point I lost it completely. "What the hell is wrong with you? I'm calling to tell you that your daughter, who was my wife and whom I loved, died yesterday delivering our child - your grandchild. I'm calling to tell you this terrible news and ask you if you want us to delay holding a funeral for Bridget until you and your family can attend."

My father, who had been standing by in case I broke down, looked at me and moved close enough to the phone so he could hear what was going on. I could see the color beginning to rise in his face.

Mr. Murphy was silent for a moment. Then he said, "That trollop is no daughter of mine and her spawn is none of my concern. Do with her corpse what you will. We'll not be worrying about her or her funeral."

In the background I could hear a woman's voice begin to scream. At that point, Mr. Murphy hung up the phone, terminating the call.

I have never in my life seen my father so angry as he became listening to the end of the exchange between Bridget's father and me. He was simply incandescent with rage. I think if he could have reached Mr. Murphy at that point, he'd have killed him on the spot. He wrapped his arms around me and said "We'll take care of your wife and help you take care of your daughter" and the two of stood there for a long time, arms wrapped around one another.

CHAPTER THREE

The autopsy revealed an aneurysm in Bridget's aorta, probably a congenital condition, which had ruptured during the stress of delivery. It was that which had killed her. Once that had ruptured, there had been no chance of saving her, despite the feverish efforts of the hospital's medical staff.

We buried Bridget in the family plot. After the exchange with her father, I wanted her to rest with a group of people to whom she had belonged as family, if only for a few short months. There were a surprising number of people at her funeral given the limited contact she'd had in our town. Brian's family was there, including Grandmom and Grandpop. Brian came home from college with his girlfriend, even though it was exam week. Many of the guys from my shift at the hospital took the day off and came with their wives. Bridget had been attending the local Catholic church, walking to the services. Father O'Reilly, the priest, was an Irish immigrant in his 40s. He'd taken a particular interest in Bridget after noticing her accent and had treated her well despite her marriage out of the faith. Several of his parishioners also attended. They'd come to know her from some of the women's functions she'd attended at the church.

Father O'Reilly asked me to stop by the church some time after I was more settled and feeling up to it. He knew Bridget had wanted Maggie raised in the church and wanted to discuss baptizing her, even though he knew I wasn't Catholic. Although this would probably set my mother off again, I told him I would bring Maggie to meet him and get back to him about a baptism before I returned to work.