Loud, guttural yelling.
There was cursing.
There was praying.
Moaning.
Groaning.
Crying.
There was blood, and fluids, and all sorts of other things I didn’t want to look at too closely or identify.
And then, in a final gush of mystery and miracle, there was life, held aloft in the doctor’s hands like victory claimed after a sweet and violent clash. I held Birdie’s hand and openly wept as the nurses placed the slick, squalling baby on my wife’s breast, and her shaking fingers touched a tiny cheek. Then I wept some more when the doctor handed me the shears and instructed me in cutting our son’s cord.
Our son.
It hit me when the nurses carried him to the scale to clean and take his vitals that we had a son, instead of a daughter. I was torn between staying at Birdie’s side or following to stare, in open-mouthed awe, at the human we had created. He was red, and squalling, and entirely too large to have come from Birdie’s body. He had a cap of fuzzy black hair and eyes that were currently narrowed in infant rage.
“Eight pounds, seven ounces,” the nurse announced. “Twenty-two and a quarter inches. Healthy set of lungs.”
Behind me, Birdie groaned. “Way too big, Big. I don’t forgive you.”
“Birdie. We have a boy.”
“What? No. Check again.”
“Pretty sure he’s a dude, babe.”
“But the nursery’s pink!”
“You want to send him back?”
A nurse snorted.
While I’d been admiring the baby, the remaining nurses had been dealing with the placenta and getting Birdie taken care of. She was tucked tidily into her bed again, looking exhausted and so fucking beautiful it made my heart ache.
I bent and placed my forehead against hers. “I love you, baby. So much. He’s incredible.” My voice cracked and I had to stop. She closed her eyes and lifted a hand, pressing it against my cheek before letting it flop back to the bed.
“I love you, too. But you’re not touching me for a year, at a minimum.”
By mid-afternoon they had moved us into a mother-baby room. Birdie fell into a doze, the baby’s clear plastic crib rolled up alongside her bed so she could see and hear the faintest cry. I sat in the rocking chair beside the bed and rocked, strangely wired even with the lack of sleep.
I was a father. I had a son. My heart swelled within my chest at the thought of teaching him how to throw a baseball. Getting him his first puppy. Taking him fishing. All things I would have done with a girl just as readily, of course. I just wouldn’t have taught her how to pee standing up.
As my family and Birdie’s mother crowded into the room that evening, and we exchanged hugs and happy tears…as my mother told stories on me and the others…as Birdie looked on from her bedside throne, the littlest Ellison tucked securely into the stronghold of her arms…I was struck by a fierce sense of rightness. Of the complete and utter brilliance of the choices that had brought us here.
Meeting Birdie’s eyes, I spoke the words silently. Thank you. Thank you for choosing me. Forgiving me. Loving me. Marrying me.
Remembering me.
Her brow wrinkled, a sign that she didn’t understand. It was okay. I had a lifetime to make sure she did.
The End
Loved Remember Me? Be on the lookout for Remi and Levi’s story, coming in 2021. In the meantime, dive into the Reclaiming Heaven duet, starting with Say You Love Me. Turn the page for a small sample.
RECLAIMING HEAVEN DUET
Say You Love Me
Say You’ll Be Mine
Say You Love Me (excerpt)
Book 1 of Reclaiming Heaven Duet
THEN.
I FLOP BACK ON THE GRASS, already wet with dew this early in the pre-dawn night, and look up at the sky. “There’re stars,” I whisper to my ride-or-die, Cotton. Turning my head, I see her pale platinum hair gleaming like a straight satin ribbon in the moonlight. Pretty. I laugh silently to myself, thinking if her mother had known that she would have hair as pale and white as cotton, she never would have named her Emery. Her nickname suits her much better. With a giggle, I reach out to touch her hair and end up hugging her.
“Girl, you’re plastered,” she says, shoving me away.
“Am not! Never been drunk… day in my life.” I hold up a finger in front of me in an I’ll-have-you-know gesture. I’m mostly teasing. I’ve got a good buzz on, and it would be a simple matter to lay right back on this manicured lawn and sleep it off, but I’m not drunk. “Shiloh Brookings does not do drunk.” I side-eye Cotton. “Disorderly, maybe. Drunk would be unseemly.”
“Unseemly.” Cotton snorts out a laugh. “That’s us, babe. Those unseemly girls…” She glances behind us as the glass sliding doors open and noise from the party spills out. We came out to the backyard for the cool fall breeze and respite from the crush of bodies and pounding bass, so it’s with reserve that I turn when she says, “Oh, lookie. Company. Hey, boys.” Cotton’s greeting holds none of my restraint. She’s always been the extrovert to my introvert, the bright butterfly to my moth.
It’s part of the reason we meshed so well when I moved here several years ago. I was a hormonal thirteen-year-old, hurting and angry at my father and uncertain about a mother and a younger brother I hadn’t seen since I was little. I didn’t know how to make friends and hadn’t wanted to put myself out there, as my mom kept urging me to do.
Fortunately for me, Cotton didn’t need me to put myself out there. She just needed someone to pay attention to her. Her own parents were “country club” people, as she called it. Concerned with looks and status, they didn’t pay much attention to Cotton beyond making sure she dressed appropriately and was in attendance at events that mattered.
Cotton just needed a friend.
“What the hell are y’all sitting out here for? Party’s in there and your asses are getting wet!” Shane, a football player who’s been getting on my last nerve for a while, grabs me under the arms and hauls me up to my feet. “Here, let me help you with that, babe.” He brushes at my ass, his hands lingering too long for my comfort.
“Stop it, Shane!” I am so over his grabby hands. Every time I turn around, he’s lurking by my locker to beg for a date — just one, Shiloh, that’s all I need — and making me late to class. Most recently he had come straight from a supply closet hook-up with Krystal, our head cheerleader and resident mean girl. I guess he didn’t realize people told me stuff. It was getting ridiculous. It was obvious I was no more than a challenge he needed to overcome.
“Not until y’all do truth or dare with us. Come on, let’s party.”
“Y’all are obnoxious. And I love you for it. Come on, Shiloh.” Cotton loops her arm around my neck and starts pulling me inside. “You know I can’t turn down truth or dare.”
I roll my eyes and allow Cotton to lead me inside. We are out in the boonies at some freshman kid’s house — or maybe he’s an eighth grader? I don’t know. Our school has eighth grade to twelfth, and it’s hard to tell these days. They all look the same.