Chicken Soup for the Soul: Fishing for Rainbow Trout

From Chicken Soup for the Soul: A Book of Miracles

By Brittany Newell

We live in a rainbow of chaos.
~Paul Cézanne


Okay, so maybe it was a little irresponsible for my dad to embark on a fishing trip and leave his pregnant wife alone at home. My mother was seven months swollen with twins. Other, more rational couples might've promised to stay side-by-side, but we babies weren't due until August, and this fishing trip was a graduation present for my brother. Before the little girl duo was to come into the world, the two males of the family needed to bond in the manliest way they knew -- fishing for rainbow trout.


So my dad bade goodbye to my very pregnant mother and set off for Oregon with my older brother. Perhaps Dad was oblivious to the foreshadowing of sudden rain and hot whistling winds, finding satisfaction in the masculine angst of raging seething rivers. Either way, it must have come as a shock to return to his lodge one evening and receive ten frantic messages left by my mother. It's hard to guess exactly what she babbled, for a hysterical woman in labor is not usually known for her eloquence, but my dad knew instantly he had to get home. He and my brother leapt into the car and rocketed down the road, racing off in less than five minutes for the fifteen-hour car ride to San Francisco.


Meanwhile, my mother felt her babies' impatience and rushed to her car. She was so enormous she couldn't even buckle her seatbelt and her stomach constantly set off the horn. Our neighbor had agreed to drive my mother to the hospital in case my dad was unavailable but Mom chose not to trouble her backup chauffeur and instead drove herself.


Meanwhile, my father and brother sped down the highway. Despite all efforts to surpass the speed limits as quietly and cautiously as possible, Dad was pulled over by a cop just as my mother teetered into the hospital. My parents' despair was mutual as Dad pleaded with an unsympathetic policeman and my mother hid in the elevator, embarrassed by her frazzled state.


At last, speeding ticket begrudgingly accepted, my dad was on the road again just as my mother leaned over and grasped the nurse's desk, mumbling, "I think something's wrong."


The nurse was a warm and no-nonsense woman. If her husband had asked to go on a fishing trip seven months into her pregnancy, she would have said, "You think some darn fish are more important than staying home and rubbing my feet? I don't have cravings for trout; I need chocolate ice cream!" The nurse told my mother to remove her pants and with one mighty sniff declared, "Honey, this ain't no false alarm. Your water broke!"
At the same time, massive rain clouds broke over Northern California, and a sudden downpour impaired my dad's speeding. This was enough to discourage anyone, for despite the near-slapstick calamity of our impromptu births, this premature labor was serious. There'd been another of us, my unknown brother, but our trio was reduced by a miscarriage before he even had a name.


As Dad's car flew through the rain, however, we decided we'd been patient long enough. My mother begged for painkillers. My father must have sensed her despair and agony. He sensed that he would never get to San Francisco in time for our births. Though the rain slowly let up, he knew he could never drive fast enough to make it... assuming we made it too. He was frightened and discouraged and tired. Just as his weary mind considered the worst possible scenario, he looked out the window and saw a glimmer on the horizon.


Across the sky stretched a double rainbow. Not one, but two radiant arcs, one on top of the other. My father stared long and hard at this double rainbow, two for his double dose of Gemini girls. He knew just by looking at that pair of rainbows that everything would be all right. This was a sign, and with hope restored he continued down the road, slowing his frantic speed to gaze at those rainbows a little longer.


He arrived at the hospital seven hours after we were born. Two months premature, I weighed three pounds, fifteen ounces; McKenzie was four pounds, three ounces. Though the double rainbow calmed my father, he was still terribly on edge until he saw us, our tiny wrinkled bodies warming under the orange glow of incubator lights. When Dad arrived, Mom awoke to hold us, and we smiled, brown eyes all around, except for my mother's glistening wet violet ones.


Dad's fishing trip had been cut short but he didn't mind. All he needed at that moment was the tenderness only two baby girls could give.


After that day, Dad never saw another double rainbow.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2010/09/Fishing-for-Rainbow-Trout.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER&nlsource=49&ppc=&utm_campaign=DIBSoup&utm_source=NL&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_term=mail.ru