RAJI was calm, of course. She was a doctor and a surgeon at that, not to mention a cold-blooded lizard person.
Parturition at the end of pregnancy was just another biological process.
It was just a lot easier to keep calm about biological processes when they were happening to other people.
Raji’s guts knotted, twisting her with pain. She held her breath until it went away.
Peyton said, “We’re almost to the hospital.”
She gritted her teeth. “I know. I work there every day.”
Another contraction grabbed her. Raji groaned as she got through it.
When it was done, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”
“According to what I’ve seen, I’m the one who’s supposed to be apologizing about now.”
“You wanted to get married before we went to the hospital.”
“We’ll see what we can do, but the most important thing is that you’re all right, you and the baby.”
She leaned back in the passenger seat, breathing and trying not to think about the fact that another one of those contractions was coming in four minutes. “This must be a shock to you. One day you were a rock star on sabbatical, lying on the beach in Mallorca, and then next day you’re about to be a father and trying to find a priest to do a hurry-up, quickie wedding.”
“It’s not a shock. I thought about you every day, imagining what would have been happening to your body as our child grew, if you hadn’t taken care of it. I lived in a little dreamland for a few minutes every day, wondering what our lives would have been like if you’d said yes.”
“That’s kind of sweet.”
“Yes, it wasn’t creepy at all, looking back at it. Speaking of being a creepy creeper, you knew I was on Mallorca, huh?”
“Just happened to see those pictures of you suntanning at the hotel.”
“And the search terms you were using—”
Raji sighed. “Peyton Cabot Killer Valentine shirtless. You’d be surprised how many returns that gets. There are a lot of half-naked pictures of you out there.”
Peyton laughed. “People take pictures of the tattoos. There’s a pinterest board called ‘Peyton Cabot Tattoo Watch’ where they hunt to see if I’ve gotten any new ones.”
“You’ve been working out.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to go to the gym, what with being on sabbatical and all.”
Raji’s belly cramped again. She leaned forward, the seatbelt pulling back on her shoulder as Peyton whipped them through traffic.
He reached over and held her hand.
Fitting, really, that their relationship had begun at a wedding and during a wild car ride to the airport, and now it was ending with a wild ride to the hospital and, at some point, a wedding.
When they arrived at the hospital, Raji pointed Peyton around to the staff entrance. He screeched the brakes, stopping the car.
Raji was bent almost in half, hanging onto the car’s dashboard, and she whispered, “I’m having some trouble here. Would you mind maybe going inside and getting me a wheelchair?”
But Peyton had already run around to her side of the car, opened her door, and gathered her up in his arms. He carried her into the hospital, and the automatic doors jumped out of his way to let them inside. The Christmas wreaths hanging on the doors swung like ringing bells.
Raji clung to Peyton’s neck as he strode through the corridors, his long legs traveling quickly over the tile. He seemed to be following the signs to the maternity ward, so she just leaned her head against his shoulder and watched while the orderlies and nursing assistants dodged the Christmas trees, chasing them with a wheelchair.
At the maternity ward, a nurse whom Raji really should know but couldn’t quite concentrate enough to remember her name at the moment waved her over to a gurney.
Peyton laid her on it, saying, “Contractions are less than five minutes apart and strong.”
“Splendid. I need to speak to Ms. Kannan privately.”
“Doctor Kannan,” both Raji and Peyton said at the same time.
Yep, because Peyton had her back.
The nurse said, “Privately.”
“Okay. I’ll be out in the hallway. Yell if you want me.” Peyton wandered out into the hallway, looking at something on his phone.
The nurse shoved a clipboard in front of Raji’s face. The paper on it had one question: Are you afraid of the person who brought you here, are you in any danger, or should we call a domestic violence specialist?
Raji screamed at her, “I’m in active labor, you bleedin’ idiot! I’m having a baby!”
At Raji’s shout, Peyton started to walk over. He was still wearing that stupid Santa hat.
The nurse said, “Sir, this is a private consultation.”
Raji said, “Peyton, I need to tell off this nurse, and you should back up for a second or else I might shatter your impression of me as a delicate fucking flower!”
Peyton retreated, hands raised.
Raji turned back to the nurse. “No! Of course not! Now get that fucking clipboard out of my face before I shove it up—Ah!” Another contraction seized Raji and twisted her guts.
When Raji recovered, panting, the nurse told her, “It’s standard protocol. You of all people should know that, Dr. Kannan.”
“Fuck you and get Peyton over here!”
Peyton trotted back to her side, “Yes, my sweet, delicate flower?”
“Give me your goddamn belt!”
His sea-green eyes expanded a little. “Why?”
“So I can beat you with it for doing this to me. Why do you think? So I can bite on it, so I don’t shatter my damn teeth!”
Peyton whipped the belt out of the belt loops of his pants and offered it to her, gingerly.
Raji crammed the leather in her mouth and mumbled around it, “Tell Joshua Williams to quit being a lazy dick and get his pencil-necked ass down here!”
After an epidural and Peyton stroking her hand for a few minutes, Raji stopped threatening to assault people. She was still panting through contractions, but they didn’t feel like a giant was twisting her in half anymore.
Peyton checked his phone. “I’ll ask you one more time: will you marry me?”
“I said yes,” Raji said, holding onto the rails and dreading the next contraction.
“I mean, will you marry me right now? A Unitarian minister was attending one of her choir members down in oncology. She can marry us right here, right now, if you want.”
“My mother is on her way,” Raji said. “She can’t see us getting married because then she’ll know that we weren’t married a year ago.”
Peyton frowned at his phone. “Maybe traffic will be bad. After all, this is Los Angeles, and it is rush hour.”
“It’s Christmas Eve,” Raji said. “There’s no rush hour today. That’s how we got here so fast.”
“Damn.” He texted something, just as a statuesque woman wearing what looked to Raji like academic robes walked into the room. She was wiping her bloodshot eyes.
The woman surveyed the delivery room and Raji, who was lying in the bed, sweating and probably looking like death. “I’m Reverend Yaa Idowu. You can call me Reverend Yaa. I heard you needed a quickie wedding? You have a marriage license?” Her voice sounded like she would sing in a creamy alto range.
“Yes and yes,” Peyton said, fumbling and handing her a piece of paper.
She glanced at it, holding it in her scarlet-tipped ebony fingers. “Within the dates, good. All right.”
Another contraction squeezed Raji. The pain leaked through the epidural, drilling through her.
After a moment, she panted, “We’d better do this soon.”
Reverend Yaa asked, “Would you like music?”
A dozen people wearing pale blue choir robes peeked around the doorway into Raji’s delivery room.
“I beg your pardon?” Raji grated out.
More faces popped through the doorway.
Reverend Yaa explained, quietly, “One of our choir members concluded a long battle with brain cancer this evening, and the choir was here to sing her out. When they heard I might be performing a marriage ceremony for a couple who were bringing a baby into the world, they wondered if you would like some music to celebrate. They’ve had a hard day. I think they would love to contribute and witness you two starting your lives together.”
Peyton asked, “Raji?”
“Are they going to freak out that I’m in labor?” she asked the minister.
“Oh, no. They’re Unitarian-Universalists. They’ll be fine.”
“They’d better get in here quick,” Raji said, “and then they’d better get out of here quick or else they’re going to witness something they might not have bargained for.”
Reverend Yaa brought the choir in and ushered them over to stand behind Raji’s head so they wouldn’t be looking directly into her yoni while they were singing. While the choir sang softly behind her—and Raji had to admit that their voices were soothing as she fought her way through another contraction—the minister began saying something about the importance of marriage and the beauty of (she consulted the marriage license) Raji Kannan and Peyton Cabot declaring their love to each other and before these witnesses.
One of the choir members stopped singing and asked, “Peyton Cabot? Of Killer Valentine?”
“Alisha!” Reverend Yaa snapped. “Sanctity of marriage and the beauty of new life. Focus!”
“Sorry.”
The choir sang a lovely, wordless song, a happy harmony of voices.
Another contraction ripped through Raji, and she clutched Peyton’s hands, grunting and trying not to cry in front of the several dozen people in her delivery room.
When it ended, Peyton said to her, “All right, my delicate flower. We’re going to have you hold onto my forearms here,” he moved her hands up, “instead of my fingers. Musicians are funny about their hands. Now, you just squeeze there as hard as you want to.”
Reverend Yaa started preaching again and was just saying that she would ask the bride and groom to recite their vows, when another woman wearing blue scrubs bustled into the room.
“Hello, Dr. Kannan,” Dr. Tashi Nyima, whom Raji knew from seminars and such, sat at the foot of the exam table and took a quick glance at the circus surrounding Raji. “Let’s see where you are. Up in the stirrups, please.”
Reverend Yaa asked, “Do you want us to leave?”
“Just hurry up!” Raji told her. “Ask us the vows!”
Reverend Yaa asked Raji, “Do you, Raji Kannan, take this person, Peyton Cabot, as your lawfully wedded spouse—”
Dr. Nyima told Raji, “You’re at ten centimeters, full dilation. You can push any time you want to. Do you feel the need to push?”
“—to have and hold, to love and cherish, in sickness and in health, as long as you both reside on this Earthly plane of existance?”
Raji nodded. Another contraction swept over her, and she gripped Peyton’s forearm as her muscles spasmed.
Reverend Yaa asked, “Raji, do you take Peyton as your spouse?”
“Yes!” Raji screamed.
Darkness took over her.
The contraction receded, and Raji panted.
The minister asked, “—as long as you both reside on the this Earthly plane of existance?”
Peyton said, “I do. Raji, could you pry your fingernails out of my arm, please? Yes, Reverend. I do.”
Reverend Yaa said, “By the power vested in me by the Unitarian-Universalist Greater Los Angeles Rainbow Congregation and Reformed Coven and the State of California—”
The choir’s voices swelled in song, reaching a crescendo for the wedding ceremony.
Dr. Nyima said, “Okay, Raji. Push with this one. Here it comes!”
The choir behind Raji sang a full-throated Hallelujah! refrain.
“—I now pronounce you married as husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
“Push! You can do it!” Dr. Nyima called.
“Hallelujah!”
Peyton’s lips touched Raji’s forehead. “I love you, my wife.” He gripped her hands while the pain swept over her, drowning her. He fiddled with her left hand and slipped her wedding ring down next to the ornate engagement ring. “I love you.”
A tiny, soprano cry joined the Hallelujah chorus.
Dr. Nyima said, “It’s a girl!”