“If I don’t make it,” he whispered to her, “name the baby after me”
noses gleefully pressed to the windowpane, awaiting Mommy’s return from the hospital with Daddy and baby. Grandma and Grandpa puttered in the background, readying the house for the arrival of their daughter and newborn grandson.
Suddenly, cries of distress distracted me from my window-side vigil, and I swiveled to the stairs to determine its source. It was Grandpa. He was sprawled on his back halfway down the stairs clutching at his stomach, his face contorted in the most fearsome expression of pain.
“Where’s Grandma?!” I heard someone shout. (Was it me?)
Grandma rushed to Grandpa’s side and kneeled beside him, her expression a mirror to his rising terror. “Someone call Jerry!” she commanded, and we hurried to summon my father’s close friend to assume the physician’s role in Daddy’s place.
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