“We’ll talk later, Sean. Buh-bye,” Louisa said and then hung up. “Phew. That boy is a mess for you.”
I let out the barest chuckle and did my best to breathe deep and go back to my zen place. They had offered me an epidural, but being the wife of an acupuncturist, I tended to lean toward the natural route, so I had settled in for the long haul.
Sean called back an hour later, much calmer than he’d been before. He had chartered a private jet for the first time in his career. I was glad we could speak freely without strangers overhearing him. I was happy to have him on the phone, but my labor had progressed to the point where I didn’t want to talk, even between contractions, so I asked him to play for me. He picked songs and melodies that were calm and slow and sweet. But only half an hour into the flight, I went into transition and the music no longer helped.
I screamed as another contraction roared to life, this one stronger than any of the rest.
“What’s happening? What’s happening?” Sean’s panicked voice asked.
“I’m having a baby, Sean!” I yelled once the worst of it had eased up. “If you can’t handle it, then hang up!”
“Don’t worry, Sean,” Louisa called out, taking pity on him. “If something bad is happening, you’ll hear me panicking. Any screaming or yelling from Libby is normal. It just means she’s getting close.”
He swore again. He’d been doing that a lot tonight. It was strangely comforting, hearing him say all the things I was thinking. “I’m not going to make it. It’s still at least an hour and a half before I can get there.”
“Yes you are! You have to!” I called out as another contraction came right on the heels of the one before.
“You’re amazing, Libby.” The emotional strain in his voice almost distracted me from the pain for a moment. Almost.
Sean was right. He didn’t make it. But he was there on the phone with me the whole time. As I gasped for breath. As I listened to my own screaming, pushed through the ring of fire, and reached halfway to heaven to get my baby into this world.
“Oh,” I whimpered as they placed my squirming little girl on my chest. “Oh, baby girl,” I wept in joy, wrapping one hand over her back and using the other to cradle her tiny naked bum. “Hi, love. I got you,” I said as she let out a squawk of protest. “I got you. Sean?” I called out, realizing I hadn’t heard him in a while.
“I’m here.” His voice was almost faint, like he was out of breath.
“I have a baby,” I said, as tears streamed down my face.
“I can hear her.” Awe dripped from his words.
“She’s so perfect. Louisa, look how perfect she is.”
Louisa stood close by, her hands clasped together in front of her mouth, her face wet. Her expression was so much of what I felt. Joy and wonder and love, mixed inescapably with grief for the father who should have been here. I reached out my hand, drawing her in until her hand joined mine on my baby’s back and she leaned down to touch her forehead to mine.
Sometime later, I asked Louisa to switch our phone call to video and I got to introduce Joan Liberty Caster to the man whom I hoped she would grow up to call Dad. Sean just stared at her, his hand over his mouth, tears streaking his cheeks as he sat hunched over the phone in a private jet.
♪♫♪
I woke to the sound of Sean singing. Not one of his songs, but a lullaby. I blinked my eyes open. Sean sat in a rocking chair, holding my newborn baby daughter, staring down at her with stars in his eyes. My heart puddled in my chest.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move. The moment was too sacred to disturb, too precious to interrupt. His song hushed to an end and he started talking instead. “So what do you think of this big world, baby girl?”
She gave a tiny grunt and stretched in response.
“Yes, I can imagine there’s much more room to move around.” His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled down at her. “I have to say, I didn’t think I’d ever find anyone who I’d be able to love as much as I love your mother, but”—he swallowed and blinked—“you’ve gone and proven me wrong, haven’t you?”
My heart seemed to swell so much that it nearly escaped the confines of my chest. I was lost, over the moon, completely devoted to this man. It was…miraculous. He was a miracle. We were a miracle.
I must have made some sort of noise of pure joy, because he turned to look at me, and despite the fact that his eyes had been overflowing with love for my daughter, somehow, when he looked at me, it became more.
I just smiled, basking in the radiant light of his love.
He stood and crossed to me, adjusting the baby to nestle in the crook of his left arm. Then he sat carefully on the edge of the bed and brushed his knuckles across my cheek before leaning down to kiss me.
“Hi, love,” he said as he drew back.
“Hi.”
“There I was, off being a star, and you had to show me up by bringing an entire human into the world.”
I gave a little shrug. “I’m fancy like that.”
He ran his thumb along my jaw. “How are you feeling?”
I smiled. “Not great.” I chuckled. “But everything feels about how I’d expect under the circumstances. No scary pains. Plus—” I reached over to rub Joanie’s velvet cheek. “I got a pretty good prize out of the deal.”
♪♫♪
I don’t know how, but there weren’t cameras waiting for us when we left the hospital. Somehow, someway, my labor and delivery had slipped under the radar of the paparazzi and we made it home without incident. The only Google alerts for Sean’s name had to do with his concert. Some noted that he had left immediately after, but no one speculated far enough about why to come up with the reason.
Miraculous. That’s what it was.
Walking back into my house with Sean and Joanie was a relief and a joy. This was my home. This was my baby. This was my man. Life was treating me pretty well at the moment.
I sank into my bed with Joanie lying beside me and tried to nap like the nurses had advised. Instead I stared over at her tiny face, marveling at the squeaky noises she made, caressing her slender fingers.
Sean came to check on us, sneaking in to avoid waking me. He stopped sneaking when he realized there was no need, slipping his hands into his pockets as he looked down at me. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
I just grinned and directed my tired eyes back to my baby. “I know. But I can’t look away.”
“I know the feeling.” He stretched out on the other side of her and we admired together.
I ended up drifting off just a few minutes later.
♪♫♪
Our miraculous reprieve from journalists lasted all of one day. When the alerts popped up, Sean and I read through a couple of the articles that claimed to know something about the birth of our love child. I’d heard the assumption so many times that the claim was almost funny. Almost. We rolled our eyes and shut off the computer.
At least we were safely in our own house, able to ignore it if we avoided large swaths of the internet. I was doubly grateful that Sean had convinced me to move. I missed the home I had made with Jonas, but I was safe here, Joanie was safe here, and that’s what mattered.