“You don’t need to be.” I kissed her temple, tasting the salt of her sweat. “We’ve got you. All of us. Always.”
Her whole body tensed against mine, and the atmosphere in the room shifted to a strange, suspended moment of anticipation. Herheartbeat thundered against my chest, her body working with ancient knowledge.
“Almost there.” Cas positioned his hands to receive our child as Zane held her knees. “One more big push, Seri.”
My heart rate picked up. This wasreallyhappening. Right here, right now, on our bathroom floor in the middle of the night. Our child was coming into the world in typical Seri fashion: Unexpected, unstoppable, and perfect.
Everything became a blur of sensation and emotion. Her strength as she pushed. The trembling in Zane’s hands as he fought to stay conscious. Cas’ steady voice giving instructions. She drew a deep breath, then pushed with everything she had, rigid against me as her spine flexed like a drawn bow. For one suspended heartbeat, the world narrowed to the slick sound of life emerging…
Then our baby slipped into Cas’ waiting hands as smoothly as moonlight gliding across water.
I couldn’t speak. The lump in my throat was too large, the emotions too big. My heart expanded in my chest, making room for this new love that already threatened to overwhelm me.
#
Zane
I peeled my face off the rim of the bathtub, fighting the spinning sensation that threatened to send me into unconsciousness. No way was I missing this. I’d survived years of blood and violence, for night’s sake! I could handle watching my kid being born. Probably. Maybe. If I didn’t look directly at any of the really gross parts.
My stomach lurched again as I pushed myself upright, but I forced the nausea down with sheer willpower. While I’d been busy introducing my dinner to the bathtub, Cas had been managing everything, and now I steeled myself to take a peek.
Bat’s bones! There was a head! An actual tiny head coming out of Seri!
I’d seen some shit in my time, literal shit included, but nothing had prepared me for the reality of watching a person exit another person.
Tasting bile, I forced myself to swallow it. I was going to witness the birth of our baby if it killed me, which it very well might, judging by how rapidly the blood was draining from my head.
Seri—my brave, beautiful, ridiculous Seri—wasn’t screaming or cursing us for putting her through this. She was just breathing,pushing, and bringing our child into the world with the same quiet determination she brought to everything.
What happened next was a miracle. With one powerful push, a purplish, squishedthingzipped right out of her and into the towel Cas held ready.
Pure, unadulterated wonder. A little wrinkly squid, smaller than a loaf of bread, had been inside our wife all this time.
“A baby,” I rasped, my throat raw from vomiting. “You just squirted out a baby, darling! Like your vagina was a water slide!Whoosh!”
Not my most eloquent moment, but in my defense, I was operating on approximately zero functioning brain cells. The room was tilting at odd angles, and I had to drop my head against Cas’ shoulder to stay upright.
Seri’s laugh came out as a wheeze. Her hair stuck to her forehead in corkscrews, and she looked more like a battlefield survivor than a new mom, which, fair.
Then, “Girl,” Cas announced, his voice hushed with reverence. “It’s a girl.”
A girl.Iwas someone’sfather. The thought felt too enormous to process, like trying to swallow the ocean.
Cas was muttering Apgar scores under his breath as he got busy doing something to the little potato’s nostrils with a weird rubber bulb thingy, and I fully expected wailing to begin at any time. That’s what babies did in movies, right? Scream their displeasure at the world from the moment they arrived? But our little girl apparently hadn’t gotten that memo. She just lay there in Cas’ palm, blinking like she was trying to figure out where she’d landed and if she approved of the accommodations.
What kind of baby doesn’t scream when they’re forcibly evicted from their cozy womb apartment?
Mykind of baby, apparently.
I crouched to more closely inspect the fruit of our loins. She wasn’t beautiful in the way I’d expected. She was beautiful in a way I hadn’t knownexisted. Raw and new and impossibly fragile.
“Who’s a squishy purple tater?” I crooned. “You are! Yes, you are!”
Her tiny fingers curled, her eyes drifted shut, and her chest began rising and falling in a peaceful rhythm. Just like that. No drama, no fuss. She arrived in total serenity, like she rode in on the tide. A baby made of love, perfect and ours.
I was shocked at how tiny she was. In my imagination, babies had always been larger, more robust, but this little spud seemed impossibly delicate, like she might break if we breathed on her too hard.
“Is she okay?” Seri panted. “I don’t hear her. She’s three weeks early. Is she—”
