183 - Meeting Grandpa

183 - Meeting Grandpa
I’m going to be your grandpa! I have the biggest smile. I’ve been waiting to meet you for such a long, long while. – Billy Crystal

Helen’s phone rang early Monday morning, earlier than what she was expecting. Dean had gone to the hospital the night before for her induction. They had been told to expect to have the baby around midmorning on Monday at the earliest.

Groggily she looked at the screen and saw JD in big bold letters. Clicking the green circle, she connected the call. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Dr. Alberton said that she’s progressing faster than expected. Uh, hang on….”

There was the sound of him setting the phone down and then he was talking to someone in the room with him. There were other voices and she could not quite make out who was speaking or what they were saying. Then a single word came through very clearly.

“Push!”

She knew that her son probably would not be coming back to the call for a little while, she ended the call. Rolling over, Helen nudged her husband’s shoulder. “Reese, wake up.”

Shifting, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to him. He nuzzled her neck as he settled in to go back to sleep.

“Damn it, Reese!” she pushed at his arm. “Wake up! Dean’s having the baby.”

Suddenly the man was awake and jumping out of bed. “You mean, like right now?”

“Yes!” Helen laughed as she got out of bed and moved to the closet.

She yanked off her nightgown and grabbed a comfortable baby blue dress. Quickly she pulled on a coordinating bra and panty set before slipping the dress on over her head. Stepping into a pair of black flats, she walked out into the small dressing area.

Grabbing her brush off the table, she ran it through her dark hair trying to calm the medusa hair that she seemed to always wake up with now. When she had the triplets, she had also had a partial hysterectomy with only the uterus being removed. Dr. Alberton left her ovaries, but she now thought that was pointless since she was in menopause.

And miserable.

Her hair was changing, becoming greyer, course and curly. Stray eyelashes started sprouting up on her chin. Leg cramps and sleeplessness at night.

The thing that everyone warned her about, and yet she was not warned enough, were the hot flashes and night sweats. These were no ‘power surges’ as some of the women in the office described them. No, these were nuclear meltdowns.

When they first started a few months ago, they were a little annoying. Now, however, when they hit, she was ready to move to Alaska. Maybe even Greenland or Antarctica.

Reese stepped around the corner, already dressed in faded jeans and a T-shirt that Dean and her men had given him. The black shirt declared that ONLY THE BEST GET PROMOTED TO GRANDDADDY in white script. Sitting on her bench, he pulled on the combat style boots.

“Why didn’t Dean call me?”

Helen stopped brushing her hair and looked at her husband like the idiot that he currently was. Placing the brush back on the table behind him, she leaned in and kissed him. “I don’t say this very often, but right now, the fact that you’re so cute is working in your favor. Because your brain cells are not.”

He continued to sit and look at her in complete confusion.

“She’s in labor, Reese. You remember we were talking about this a while back? Shoving a football through the cardboard of a toilet paper roll…”

As it seemed to dawn on him, he blushed slightly. “I just….”

“Her men are there. Dr. Alberton is there. She has the whole L & D nursing staff. She’ll be fine.”

“I nearly lost you.” He said it softly and his fears were practically screamed with the soft-spoken words. “We nearly lost Jolene.”

“But we did not,” she reminded him as she cupped his face with her hands. “I love you, Reese, but you have to quit worrying so much about Dean. Let her men take care of her.”

“How did you do it with your older kids?”

Smirking, she asked, “How did you do it with Cheryl?”

He sighed and shook his head slightly in her hands. “Honestly, I did not. I’m just better at hiding it.”

Leaning in, she gave him a quick kiss. straightening back up, she caressed his cheeks with her thumbs. “Same.”

Smiling, he wrapped his arms around her thighs and lifted her up as he stood. Automatically, she wrapped her arms around his neck and returned the smile.

“How did I end up so lucky to have a wife like you?”

“I lost my job and was replaced by a touch screen kiosk.”

He shook his head as he chuckled. “Give me a kiss, Mrs. Reese.”

“Gladly, Mr. Reese,” Helen said as she pressed her lips to his.

Placing her back on her feet, he ended the kiss and stood up straight. “Let’s go meet the latest member of our growing family.”

“That sounds good, grandpa.” She took a step back and ran her hands down his chest.

He was now approaching fifty-six and still had a body that could have been cut from marble. Once again, she was reminded how unfair being middle aged was. Women got menopause and men got a sports car.

“Oh!” she said as her eyes went wide. “We should tell Gigi.”

“I did,” he admitted as they went back into their bedroom. “Very wisely our nanny talked me out of calling the princess club.”

Helen grabbed her phone and small clutch off the bedside table as he grabbed his phone and wallet from the opposite table, “Good for her. Dean and the guys should decide who they want to know and when.”

Taking her hand in his, he guided her out of their room and towards the front door. Reese opened the passenger door and helped her to slide in and put her seatbelt on. One he was certain that Helen was settled, he moved around the hood of the car and slid in behind the steering wheel of his classic Impala.

“So, since I’m acting more nonchalant and less worried,” he grinned as he started the engine and pulled out of the driveway, “should we stop for coffee?”

“You can still be excited,” she laughed. “And I don’t think that any of the coffee shops between here and there are open this early.”

“There’s the twenty-four-hour place over on O’Neill.”

“Just to be clear, you want to add another fifteen minutes to the already twenty-minute trip to the hospital?”

Reaching over, he grabbed her hand and lifted it to press a kiss on her fingers. “Maybe not.”

The rest of the ride to the hospital was spent with easy conversation as they only had to stop at one red light. Quietly, they walked down the hall to the room where JD opened the door and motioned them inside. Dean lay asleep in the bed and Cooper held their son.

Placing the newborn in Reese’s arms, Cooper grinned, “This is your grandpa.”