Ellie felt her heart flip inside her chest. “You are?”
He nodded, his eyes a little shiny. “Eleanor Coraline Landry,” he said. We’re going to call her Ella, so as not to get confused with the one and only Ellie.”
Ellie felt wetness on her cheek and she lifted a hand. Well dammit, she was crying. That didn’t happen very often. Her family touched her and delighted her and worried her and pissed her off and made her happier than anyone in the world had a right to be. But she wasn’t much of a crier.
But this? Yeah, this was tear worthy.
“Well, holy shit,” Josh said with a little smile. “Owen’s going to win twenty bucks off Sawyer.”
Ellie laughed and swatted his arm. “You told your brother and cousin about the name?”
“Yeah, it kind of slipped out. Owen said it would make you cry. Sawyer said if it did, you wouldn’t show it.”
“Well, you know, Sawyer is going to cry the hardest at my funeral,” Ellie said, wiping her cheeks dry and sniffing.
Josh snorted. “You think?”
“Oh yeah, he is my oldest. He’s the one that first made me a grandma. And we had two years when it was just us, you know. He might not remember those two years consciously, but he remembers them in his heart. And those tears are gonna flow. Mark my words. And I’m gonna be sitting with my angel wings up in the front of that church watching it all and loving every minute.”
Josh shook his head, but was grinning widely. “You’re gonna come your own funeral? You won’t have anything better to do?”
“Well, of course I’m going to come to my own funeral. You all are gonna play my favorite songs and have my favorite flowers there and talk about how wonderful I was. I can’t think of anywhere else I’d wanna be just then. Besides,” she added. “I have to see who all shows up. And I’ve got to see if Elizabeth and Renee win or if your mama and Callie win.”
“Win?” Josh asked. “Win what?”
Ellie chuckled. She loved all three of her daughters-in-law and her own daughter, Callie, dearly. But they were different personalities, for sure.
“Oh, you know, Elizabeth and Renee are gonna want to put me in a dress. Callie and your mama better make sure I’m in jeans and a t-shirt in that casket. If I go out to those pearly gates in a dress, Saint Peter won’t know who I am and might not let me in.”
“You think that’s why he might not let you in?”
“Well, I gotta take as many reasons away as possible,” she told him with a grin.
“I’m bettin’ you already have the t-shirt picked out, don’t you?” Josh asked.
Ellie had a huge collection of t-shirts. Mostly sent to her from tourists who came through Autre for a swamp boat tour and stopped into the bar for a pre or post-ride hurricane. They never left a stranger and often sent her t-shirts from their state when they got back home.
“I do.”
“What’s it say?”
“Told you that you could have my bread pudding recipe over my dead body.”
Josh groaned. “And then?”
“The recipe will be on the back of the t-shirt.”
“No one’s gonna roll you over to get that recipe.”
“Exactly.”
Josh laughed. “You are one of a kind.”
She grinned. “Well, you’ll all be wearin’ t-shirts too.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yep. With my smiling face huge on the front and Ellie’s favorite on the back. Like a team jersey.”
“We’re all going to have shirts that say we’re Ellie’s favorite?”
“Yep. Then you can all fight about which one is true at the after party.”
Josh shook his head. “How did we get to talkin’ about your funeral when we started talkin’ about it bein’ my daughter’s birthday?”
Ellie leaned over and patted his cheek. “Because it all goes together, Josh. It’s all life and family.”
Josh looked choked up again. “Well, you can’t go anywhere, for long time. I’ve got at least five more daughters that need to know you.”
“I like how that number keeps growing the longer we talk.”
“Will it keep you around longer?”
“For sure.”
He smiled and actually looked relieved. That, of course, made Ellie feel pretty good about her influence.
“Hey, Josh?”
Tori’s voice rose above the rest of the noise in the bar.
Ellie and Josh looked over.
“Yeah?”
“Michael and I think maybe we should go over to Ellie’s,” Tori said. She pushed herself up from her chair.
Michael also rose and put a hand on her elbow.
Josh took a step forward. “Okay. If you’re not feeling well, maybe we should go home.”
Or to the hospital, Ellie could practically hear him thinking.
“Actually, I’m feeling good. I’m feeling like our daughter is probably going to be born in Ellie’s living room.”
Ellie straightened away from the bar.
Josh froze.
The entire room went silent except for the country music playing over the speakers. It was a Jason Young song called “Beautiful Day”. Fitting.
Ellie reached across the bar and nudged Josh. “Go on. Ella’s on her way.”
He shook himself and crossed to Tori.
“Should we head to New Orleans?” Josh asked, sliding an arm around her on her other side while Michael continued to hold onto her elbow.
“My water broke and the contractors are coming really fast suddenly.”
“Let’s just go get things checked out,” Michael said. “I can take her to the city in the ambulance.”
They started for the door.
“Wait a second!” Kennedy called. “You’re having the baby now?”
“Yes, they’re having a baby now.” Ellie came around the corner of the bar. “Owen, go get the mop and clean that up,” she said, pointing to where Tori’s water had broken. “Paige, would you call Tori’s mother, please?” Her family was in Iowa and would need to be updated and Paige was from a town near Tori’s hometown and knew Tori’s family personally. “Chase darlin’?” Ellie said to the man sitting at the end of the table. “Why don’t you come with us?”
“I knew you were going to say that,” Chase said with a sigh.
“Well, you are the doctor.”
“I’m still in medical school.”
“Well, you’re more of a doctor than the rest of us,” Ellie told him, grabbing his sleeve and pulling them out of his chair with the help of his fiancée Bailey, who was pushing from the other side.
“Honestly, Michael knows more about this than I do,” Chase said of the fire chief and paramedic.
“But Michael’s gonna have to go get the ambulance so he has all of the equipment and supplies,” Bailey said. “You can be there to get things started.”
“Yeah, okay.”
Ellie rubbed her hand up and down his arm. She knew it wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to help as that it was Tori and Josh that he was helping. Knowing the people involved made things a lot more personal and put a lot more pressure on a situation like this.