Mel had to climb over the thick trunk of the tree, heavy with branches, which was a challenge, belly and all. She had her medical bag, the collar of her coat pulled up high. It was necessary to lean into the wind, bending a bit as she pushed forward. She hadn’t gone far when another contraction seized her. Whoa, she thought—the last one wasn’t long ago. But—first baby—there was lots of time. She was no doubt going to labor for hours, then have to push for more than an hour. Don’t panic—there’s plenty of time. But she hated the thought of trying to get back to a vehicle over that tree trunk. Well, she thought, he’ll just have to carry me. Good that I picked me a big, strong man!
On the porch of her cabin, it happened again. Another contraction. She counted—it was nice and long. Little doubt—this was it.
When she got inside, she went immediately to the phone before taking off her boots or coat. She lifted the cordless and punched some numbers, then listened. No ring went through. She disconnected and listened. No dial tone. Oh, crap, she thought.
Now it would be okay to cry, she told herself. She started to snivel a little bit, trying to calculate in her mind where she might be in her labor in a few hours, when it finally occurred to Jack to hitch a ride home. She flicked the light switch. Nothing. Okay, it was definitely okay to cry, she thought. No electricity, no phone, no doctor, only one idiot midwife on the premises. And baby coming. Coming.
Mel sat down at her kitchen table, her hand on her abdomen, and tried to collect herself. She took several deep, calming breaths. There was nothing to do but get ready, in case the baby came at home. She was dripping wet from the rain. She’d attempt to check her dilation, which could be a challenge, given the big bulge in the way. But first, she’d find a way to protect her mattress, gather some towels and blankets, basin or pan, medical bag by the bed. She’d take a quick shower—if she could get her boots off. That always proved harder than she thought, and before she had the second one off, the next contraction came.
She found a couple of plastic trash bags. She stripped off the bottom sheet on the bed and spread them across the mattress. Over the plastic, she smoothed out a couple of towels, then replaced the fitted sheet. A couple more towels on top of the sheet. She pulled extra pillows out of the closet to prop herself up. She gathered up the candles from the kitchen, living room, bedroom and set them up on her dresser and bedside table. Oh, she hoped she didn’t have to deliver herself by candlelight. In the middle of all this, she was hit again—big one. She had to sit on the edge of the bed for a few moments to get through it. Then she got the baby blankets and more towels and put them by the bed.
Finally set up, she headed for the shower. She started the water so it would get hot, stripped off her wet clothes, kicking them aside, washed her hands thoroughly and waited rather impatiently for another contraction to come and go. When it had, she squatted, legs apart. She held on to the bathroom sink with one hand to keep balance. Slipping one hand under her belly, she slid her fingers into her birth canal, reaching. This was the best she could do. She pushed gently, reaching. This was a damn difficult maneuver. One, two, three fingers and some room—God. Already seven-plus—she was cooked. She knew at that moment, she wasn’t going anywhere.
She pulled out her hand and with it came a gush of amniotic fluid, spilling between her legs onto the floor.
Okay. No shower.
She tossed some towels onto the floor to sop up the spill, then tried to dry herself off. If she were attending someone else in birth, she’d have the mother walking, squatting, rocking her hips side to side, using gravity to assist that baby downward and out—but this was a different ball game. She wanted some company—at least Jack, and preferably John Stone or Doc.
Her flannel granny gown would be a poor choice for a labor garment, so she chose one of Jack’s oversize T-shirts. She pulled the shirt up around her breasts, got into bed atop a couple of thick, soft terry towels, covered her belly with the sheet and hoped to keep back the labor for a while. Long enough for someone to see that truck up against the tree; long enough for someone to try phoning her and discover the lines were down.
She pulled the fetoscope out of her bag and listened, very gratefully, to the baby’s strong and regular heartbeat.
Thank God Jack was a worry wart. It might come in handy for once. She felt another contraction and looked at her watch. Two minutes long. She waited—less than three minutes later, another, and with every one, more amniotic fluid was being pushed out. Another couple of minutes—oh, Jesus, this boy was going to come barreling out of her.
Jack tried to call Mel, just to be sure she made it back to the cabin without incident, because the storm had really picked up right after she left. But there was no answer. Maybe it took her a little longer—given the rain. He tried again ten minutes later, but there was still no answer.
“She pick up yet?” Rick asked.
“Not yet. She said she wanted to go home and take a shower, get into bed. She’s probably in the shower.”
It was nearing the dinner hour and there were a couple of people in the bar. Jack brought them drinks, then went back to the phone. No answer.
“Could she have turned the phone off?” Preacher asked him.
“Probably. To keep me from calling her every ten minutes to ask her how she’s doing.”
Paige was getting rolls ready to put in the oven. She laughed at him. “Jack, she’d call you if she needed you.”
“I know,” he said. But he dialed. Nothing.
A little while later he was pacing. “You think she could be sleeping through the phone ringing?” Preacher asked.
“I’d be surprised if she actually slept,” Jack said. “Her back is killing her.”
“I hope she isn’t having back labor,” Paige said rather absently. “I had a lot of that with Christopher. It’s awful.”
“She’d know if she was in labor,” Jack said.
“Yeah, I suppose. But I didn’t,” Paige said. “Not until it moved around to the front, and by then I was pretty far dilated.”
Jack threw a look at Preacher, at Rick—a stricken look. How long ago had she left? A half hour? Hour?
“Okay, we’re outta here,” Jack said. “Come on, Rick, let’s do it.”
“It’ll be okay, Jack,” Paige said.
“I know,” he said, but as he said it, he was rushing for his coat and flying out the back door, Rick on his heels. Jack went to the driver’s side of Rick’s little truck, because he couldn’t ride. He was too wound up, too worried. Rick went along with this, knowing better than to argue with the guy now. He tossed him the keys and Jack started the truck, threw it into gear and tore out of town before Rick’s door was closed.
It was a long ten minutes to the cabin, and through it all Rick kept trying to talk him down. “She knows what she’s doing,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about Mel—she’d call.” Jack said nothing. He flew down the road, taking those sharp turns real tight and fast. Rick felt his own panic rising, after what he’d just been through. He tried not to let it show. “You know everything is going to be—”
Rick was cut off midsentence as Jack screeched to a stop behind his own truck, the left front of which was rammed into a fallen tree. “God,” he said, jumping out of Rick’s little truck and running to his own. “Mel!” he yelled, opening the driver’s door. Finding the cab empty, he looked for blood, for her bag. Neither was evident, so he took off at a dead run, bounding over the huge tree and racing toward the cabin.
He blew into the house and slipped on the wood floor, nearly falling on his ass, his boots and clothes dripping wet from the rain and muck. “Mel!” he called.
“Jack,” she called back, her voice small and strained.
He saw a soft glow coming from the bedroom and went toward it. She was propped against the pillows in the bed, sheet drawn over her.
“It’s happening,” she said.
He rushed to her side and knelt. “I’ll take you now. Take you to the hospital.”
“Too late,” she said. “I can’t take the ride now—I’m too far into this. But you can get John, see if he can come….” She grunted against a contraction, grabbing Jack’s hand. “Phone’s out,” she said. “Go back to town, call John, tell him my water broke and I’m at eight. Can you remember that?”
“Got it.” He ran back to Rick and repeated the message, and then the boy was gone. Jack ran back to Mel and took her hand. “Tell me what to do,” he said.
The contraction passed and she let out her breath. “Okay. Okay, listen to me. Mop up your mess before you kill yourself slipping in a puddle, get some dry clothes on, see if you can get a little more light in here and then we’ll see where we are. It’s going to be a while. Maybe John will make it. Whew,” she said, leaning back. “I don’t know when I’ve ever been happier to see you.”
Her face took on a look of pain and she began to breathe, short and shallow, panting, while he stood looking down at her, helpless. When she recovered, she said, “Jack, do what I told you to do.”
“Yeah,” he said. “Right.”
He started by going for a towel in the bathroom to wipe up the puddles he’d dragged in and there he found her clothes, hastily discarded, panties a little bloody, and wet towels left in a pile on the floor. He kicked everything aside, clearing a path in the bathroom. He opted for the kitchen mop, cleaning up the trail of water that went from the front door to the bedroom. He left his boots by the front door. Hurrying, he pulled off his jeans and shirt, adding them to the pile of wet towels and clothes, put on fresh, dry clothes and socks, and went again to her bedside.
“Do we have any more candles?” she asked him.
“Not that I know about.”
“How about flashlights?”
“Yeah, I have a couple of those.”
“Get the strongest one. If he starts to come before John gets here, I might be able to hold the light for you.”
“For…Me?”
“Jack, there are only two of us here. One of us is going to push him out, one of us is going to catch him. Which job do you want?”
“Oh,” he said, going for the flashlight. He took it back to her and demonstrated its strength by shining it right in her eyes. She winced and he turned it off.
She rubbed her eyes. “Oh, brother. Maybe you should push him out. I’m calmer. Yeah, I vote for you,” she said.
He knelt with one knee on the floor beside her bed. “Melinda, how can you be sarcastic right now?”
“You know, you own a bar and you don’t keep alcohol at home,” she said, breathless. “I could have had a shot—it sometimes slows labor.”
“We’ll have some on hand for the next one.”
“You keep talking like that’s gonna happen,” she said. “How ridiculous.”
“I think my record speaks for itself. But, Mel, I just want to make them, not deliver them.”
“I hear ya, buddy,” she said, and then was gripped by another contraction. She tried to pant through it, but they were getting tougher—longer and closer together. She looked at her watch. “Oh, man,” she said, breathless. “This is going to turn me into a much more sympathetic midwife. Yii.”
“What should I do?” he asked.
“Pull up a chair…Or something. All we do now is labor.”
Jack went to the nursery and got the rocker, bringing it to her bedside and sitting up on the edge, leaning toward her. “Did you hit the tree?” he asked her, picking up a towel from the bed and wiping it gently across her sweating brow.
“A little bit. I had a contraction, the first really good one, and it distracted me, and there it was, right in the road.”
“So that didn’t make you go into labor?”
“No. I suspect I’ve been in labor all day and didn’t realize—it was all in my back. Killing me!”
“That’s why I’m here. That’s what Paige said happened to her.”
“God bless her, huh? Uh,” she said, grabbing her middle and going with another one. It seemed to go on forever. Finally, she relaxed against the pillows again, closed her eyes and caught her breath. “Oh, man, this is harder than it looks. At least he’s off my back.”
“God, I wish I could do this for you.”
“That makes two of us.” She closed her eyes for a moment. Two minutes later she was seized by another one. She panted through it. Jack went to the bathroom and wet a washcloth, going back to her to wipe her brow and neck. “That’s nice,” she said.
“You have to wait for John,” he said.
“I’m doing the best I can, Jack.”
He held her hand and wiped her brow through several more contractions, murmuring, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay….”
And then she snapped, “I know it’s okay! Stop saying that!”
Oh, he had heard about this—when you’re doing whatever you can, but she hates you, anyway.
“Sorry,” she said. “That’s transition talking.”
“Transition?” he repeated.
“It’s getting closer.” When the next one passed she said, “Okay, something is a little different. I think he’s moving down. I feel like in a minute—” Before she could finish her sentence, she was nearly lifted off the bed by the urge to bear down. She seemed to catch herself, stop herself by panting. Two minutes is a long, long time when you’re going through that. When you’re watching someone go through that. When it passed, she collapsed back on the pillows and had trouble catching her breath.
“Jack,” she said breathlessly. “You’re going to have to take a look. Get the flashlight and shine it right on my pelvic floor. See if the birth canal is opening. Tell me if you see him coming.”
“How will I know what to look for?” he asked.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “It has hair,” she said in a very snotty tone.
“Okay, don’t get pissy, I don’t do this for a living.”
She lifted her knees and spread them while Jack held the flashlight on her. “Whoa,” he said. He looked over her knees at her face. He looked a little bit pale.
“Show me how much, like this,” she said, showing him a circle with her thumb and forefinger. He responded by showing her a circle, larger than hers. “Ho, boy,” she said.
He turned off the flashlight. “Melinda, I want you to wait for John….”
“I am sick to death of being told to wait for John!” she said meanly. “Jack, listen to me. I’m having this baby. Period. And you’re going to pay attention and help. Got that?”
“Aw, Melinda…”
She grabbed his wrist and dug her nails into him. “Do you think this is my first choice?”
He thought briefly about suggesting, again, that she try to hold off. But he knew he was not in the driver’s seat here, plus he was resisting the urge to look at his wrist to see if she’d drawn blood. It was going to be impossible to get her to listen to reason. He’d always been good at following orders—he’d do that again. “Gotcha,” he said.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Spread out a blanket at the foot of the bed, down there. A small blanket for the baby. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Okay, in my bag here, get out two clamps and a pair of scissors. The suction bulb. We’re going to need a basin for the placenta—a large bowl or saucepan will do. Then go into the bathroom, roll up your sleeves and scrub your hands up to the elbows with soap, lots of soap and the hottest water you can stand. Dry with a clean towel. When you get back, done with that, there’s going to be a bigger circle. Okay?”
“Okay.” He opened the bag. He had to hold up a couple of things before she confirmed he had a clamp. The suction bulb was a complete mystery. As this process was going on, she reared up again and with a loud and very primal grunt, was bearing down. She held on to her thighs and pushed until her face was red. He took the flashlight on instinct, shining it on her pelvic floor. Oh, Christ, he thought. That circle of hair that was his son’s head was indeed getting larger. He supposed there was no point in telling her to stop that. “How much time do we have?” he asked.
“Go. Wash. Don’t screw around.”
“Done,” he said. But it was awful, standing at the sink sudsing himself while she was in the bedroom, groaning and grunting and pushing his baby out of her. He wanted to yell at her to stop that, but he knew it would only piss her off. When he got back to the bed, he reached for the flashlight and she yelled, “No! Don’t touch that! Pick it up with a clean towel! Hand it to me!”
He looked around and upon locating the towels up by her pillow, he took one and passed the flashlight to her. She struggled to sit up a bit and held the flashlight, pointing it down. “Holy shit, Mel,” he said.
She thought she knew what that meant. She collapsed back on the pillows and looked at her watch. It had been almost an hour and a half since Rick lit out of here. Where the hell was John? “He’s coming, Jack,” she said weakly, collapsing against the pillows.
He took the flashlight from her with the towel and said, “Gimme that.” He propped it on a rolled-up towel so that it shone on the field of birth and said, “Okay, now you can think about one thing.”
“Giving birth?” she asked.
“Two things,” he amended. “Giving birth and telling me what to do.”
On the next contraction, she pulled herself up, grabbing her thighs, and the baby’s head, crowning, grew larger. “Holy shit,” Jack said again. Three more pushes and the baby’s whole head emerged. “Oh, my God,” he said.
“Jack, look for a cord around the baby’s neck. It’s purple and ropey. Ahhh,” she said, struggling against another contraction. “Use your index finger to see if you can feel anything around the baby’s neck. Ahhh!”
Right at that moment, the front door slammed open with a bang.
“John!” Jack yelled. “John, come on!”
John, soaked and coming into the bedroom at a pace far too leisurely for Jack’s tastes, appeared. Jack started to stand and John said, “Get back in there, man.” He peered into the field. “Good. You feel for a cord?”
“Yeah, but what the hell do I know?”
John let his coat fall off his shoulders. He grabbed the flashlight and brought it in closer. “Nice,” he said. “Jack, get your hands in there—she’s going to bring him out. Be ready.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Jack asked, really at the end of his tether with this business.
“You’re there, Jack. Now.” He looked over Mel’s raised knees. “Little push, Mel,” John said.
Mel gave a grunt and a shove and the baby came sliding out, neat as pie.
“Hold him face down, your hand on his chest, and rub his back,” John said. Before Jack had even accomplished that, the baby was crying. “Ah, good,” John said. John spread a blanket on Mel’s abdomen. “Good work. Put him down right here. Let’s get him dried off and wrapped nice and warm.”
Jack’s hands were shaking as he did so, wiping the muck of birth from his son’s little body. Mel was straining up to see him, her fingers reaching toward him to touch him. For a moment Jack was paralyzed. Transfixed. Before he could close the blanket around him, he stared at him in sheer wonder. His son. Brought right out of his wife’s body. Naked, covered with muck, squalling, and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. His little arms and legs were flailing, his mouth open in a wail. He was so tiny, Jack was thinking, when John said, “Jesus, Melinda, he’s big. Where were you keeping him?”
“Oh,” Mel said. “That feels so much better.”
John was finally in the ball game, gently massaging Mel’s uterus. “What a woman,” he said. “No stitches necessary.” He applied the clamps to the cord, handed Jack the scissors and told him where to cut. Jack, finally numbed by an event in which he’d felt entirely helpless, did as he was told, freeing the baby from his moorings.
“Good work,” John said. “Let Mel have her baby, Jack. I’ll wash and help with the cleanup.”
John disappeared into the bathroom while Jack lovingly lifted the baby. Mel was tugging at her T-shirt as Jack was handing her the baby. She held the baby’s cheek against her warm breast, running her fingers over his perfect head. The baby stopped crying and appeared to be looking around. Mel glanced up at Jack and gave him a little smile.
“Come on, little guy,” she cooed, serene, totally focused on her son. “Do your job here. Stanch the bleeding, bring out the placenta.” She pinched her nipple to fit the baby’s mouth, trying to entice him with it. Jack felt a river of emotion run through him. He didn’t know if he was about to burst into song or faint. He dropped to his knees to be closer and watched Mel tickle the baby’s mouth and cheek with her nipple and then the baby turned his head instinctively and clamped on, took hold, suckled. And Mel said, “Oh, my! You’re very good at this.” Then she looked at Jack, who knelt by the bed, dazed. She smiled weakly and said, “Thank you, darling.”
He leaned closer to her, his face next to his son’s head. “My God, Melinda,” he said in a breath. “What the hell did we just do?”
An hour later the lights came on and Preacher was on Jack’s front porch, looking for information. John had helped clean Mel up and washed the baby, helped Jack get clean sheets on the bed and was ready to leave them. “There’s no point in taking them out in this weather,” John said. “They’re in good shape. You need a sedative, man?” he asked Jack, laughing.
“I could use one, yeah. Got a good single malt in that bag there?”
“Wouldn’t that be convenient?” He slapped a hand on Jack’s back and said, “You did a good job, buddy. I’m proud of you.”
“Yeah? What choice did I have? It was all her.”
“Show Uncle Preach the baby. I’m going home. And I think you have like tons of laundry to do.”
“Tons.” Jack laughed.
Jack carried the baby to the living room and let Preacher have a peek. “You deliver him?” Preacher asked.
“It wasn’t my idea,” Jack said.
Preacher grinned hugely. “Looks like you did okay.”
“I’m not looking to do it again, however,” Jack said. But he smiled. Where’s Paige? Chris?”
“Rick’s standing guard,” Preacher said. “Wearing my sidearm. He’s a little too happy about it.”
“Yeah? Well, you better get back there. Disarm him.”
Jack put the baby back in the cradle next to Mel, whose face had resumed those soft, beautiful lines that had been there prior to her hard work. He went around the house collecting clothes, towels, sheets. He laundered, he cleaned, he set the house back in order. At nine o’clock there was a soft knock at the door and he opened it to find Preacher had returned. He lifted a bottle. “John said you might need a sedative,” he said.
“Yeah. Come on in. Be real quiet.”
Jack found a couple of glasses and Preacher tipped the bottle over them. Then he lifted his glass, Jack lifted his, and Preacher whispered, “Congratulations, Dad.”
Jack threw back the shot and when he brought back his head, his eyes were misting over. “My wife,” he said in a whisper. “You have no idea the strength that took. She was amazing. I watched her face—she went to a place of power I’ve never been. And then, when I handed her the baby, when she put my son against her breast…” He took another swallow. “When she nursed my son, she was in another place—there was such peace and love…. God,” he said.
“Yeah,” Preacher said. “That was God.” Preacher opened his arms and gave the man a huge hug, patting his back.
“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” Jack whispered.
Preacher clamped strong hands on Jack’s upper arms, giving him a little shake. “I’m real happy for you, man.” And then he left, Jack quietly closing the door behind him.
At midnight, Jack blew out most of the candles and sat in the rocker by her bed. By his bed. He lifted the baby to Mel at two in the morning and watched, mesmerized, as she nursed him for a few minutes on each side, burped him and handed him back to Jack with sleepy instructions to change him. Which he did.
At 5:00 a.m. he repeated the process of lifting his crying son to his mother’s arms, again watching as she breast-fed him. Again, changing him and cleaning him up. He held him and rocked him for an hour before putting him back in his cradle. At eight in the morning, it happened again, a feeding and changing, and Jack had not taken so much as a nap. He had watched every rise and fall of his son’s chest, each breath, frequently reaching out to gently touch his perfect little head.
At nine in the morning he heard the sound of saws and he went to the front porch. He couldn’t see that far down the road because of the fallen tree, but he knew what was happening—Preacher was having the road cleared.
At noon, Mel got out of bed. He was astonished by the fact that she sat up, put her feet on the floor, stood up and stretched. “Ah,” she said. “I think I’ll have a shower.”
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I feel so much better.” She put her hands in the small of her back. “My back doesn’t hurt anymore.” She walked into his arms, hugged him close and said, “Thank you, Jack. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“Yeah, I think you could have.” He looked down the length of her.
“What’s the matter?”
“After seeing what you did last night, I can’t believe you can stand.”
She laughed softly. “Amazing, isn’t it? The way a woman’s body can open up and deliver a child that size? You don’t realize it yet, but that was a very wonderful experience you had. Delivering your own child.”
He kissed her brow. “What makes you think I don’t realize it?”
She touched his face. “Have you slept?”
“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m still too wired.”
“Well, maybe you do realize it. I’m going to get cleaned up a little, then I have things for you to do.”
“What things?” he asked. “I did my laundry.”
She laughed at him. “Jack, we haven’t eaten anything. And you have phone calls to make. You have to go into town. I heard saws—you think your truck will be pulled out by now?”
“It’s sitting in front of the cabin.”
She shook her head. “This place. The way people just act on instinct, without being asked. Okay, I’m starving. I’m going to clean up.”
When she got out of the shower, he had a bowl of hot soup waiting for her. “You sure you’ll be all right here by yourself?” he asked her.
“I can take it from here, cowboy,” she said, diving into her soup.
Jack hurried through his phone calls while Paige and Preacher packed up a nice takeout for him—a scrumptious stew, bread, some sandwiches, fruit and pie. He quickly foraged for some groceries from the kitchen—eggs, cheese, milk, juice. Jack couldn’t be away from them for long—he hurried back to the cabin. He found Mel and the baby napping, so he stoked the fire and leaned back on the couch, his feet stretched out in front of him on the chest that served as a coffee table. A kind of mellowness had settled over him, almost like having had a tranquilizer. He thought he might be visiting heaven, it was so sweet.
A couple of hours later, he felt her fingers threading through his hair and he opened his eyes. She was sitting on the couch beside him, holding the baby. “Has he eaten?” Jack asked.
“And eaten and eaten and eaten.”
“Give him to me,” he said, reaching for his baby. He kissed his head. “God,” he said. “I still can’t believe it. You know how I feel? Like I’ve never been happy before in my life, because this is so…This is just so much bigger than the happiest I’ve ever been.” He touched her cheek. “No one’s ever done anything this great for me, Melinda.”
“That’s good to know, Jack,” she said with a laugh.
“Kiss me,” he said, leaning toward her. She obliged him, covering his lips in a deep and loving kiss.
“Did you make your phone calls?”
“Uh-huh. Joey’s coming, but I hope you don’t mind—I asked her to give us a few days. I want to be here with you, alone, for a little while.”
“That’s fine. Till you come down to earth. How about things at the bar? Aren’t you needed there for Paige?”
“Ron and Bruce are taking turns, hanging around. Am I going to come down to earth? It doesn’t feel like it’s going to happen.”
“It’s going to happen,” she said. “But I hope not right away. I really like you like this. All sweet and overwhelmed.”
“I like me like this, too.”
After school, Rick went to Mel’s cabin instead of to work. He tapped softly at the door and it was opened by Mel. She smiled sweetly. “You okay?” he asked.
“I’m wonderful,” she said in a whisper. She put a finger to her lips and reached for his hand, drawing him inside. “Be very quiet,” she whispered. “Come here.”
She led him into the living room. Jack was asleep on the couch, his feet up on the trunk. She gestured to the chair. “Give me your jacket and sit,” she said. He shrugged out of it, handing it to her, and did as he was told while Mel left the room. She was back in seconds, carrying the little bundle. She took the baby to Rick and put him in his arms. Then she went down on one knee, very nimbly for a woman in her condition, and put her arm around Rick’s shoulders, her face near his face.
Rick held the new life, Jack’s son, and admired the handsome round head, the little, pink, heart-shaped mouth. The baby squirmed a little in his arms, making precious little noises.
Jack opened his eyes but didn’t move. He looked the short distance across the small room and saw Rick holding the baby and Mel holding Rick. There was a slight glistening on Rick’s cheek.
“This is how it’s supposed to be,” Rick whispered.
“This is how it will be,” Mel whispered back. She pressed a soft kiss to Rick’s cheek. “All in good time.”
Then she went to the couch and curled up next to Jack. His arm lifted automatically to bring her close against him, and they remained like that, the four of them, for almost an hour.