She leans over the bed,and I put my hand on her lower back. She shoves it away.
“You’re not going to make it out of this hospital alive, Chastain.” Oh, boy. I bite my bottom lip to stifle my amusement. Another contraction hits and she cries out in pain. I rub her lower back and whisper soothing words in her ear. “You’re dead. Dead Chastain walking. How dare you do this to me, and you stand there in all your male glory while I endure this pain. Before I kill you, I’m going to rip your balls off so you can feel just a fraction of the pain I’m feeling.”
The nurse lets out a chuckle, and I offer no words in my defense. The contractions started two hours ago, and she was already eight centimeters dilated when we arrived, making it too late for an epidural.
“Let’s get you in bed, Mrs. Chastain. The doctor is going to see if you’re ready to push.” Her eyes go wide as if the very idea is ridiculous. She grabs my collar.
“No. Don’t let them do this to me, Colt. I’ll let you live if you make them go away. I can’t do this. I can’t. I’ll just walk around with this baby inside of me until he’s old enough to go to college.” She blows a breath upward. “Why did your sperm have to go rogue? This is all your fault, and I’m going to make you pay. My uterus was on ice!” She looks around the room like a crazed lunatic.
I remove her hands from my collar and take one in mine. I bring it to my lips and kiss it.
“The baby’s coming, Queen. I’ll be with you the entire time. You can do this.” She shoves me away.
“You do it, then. You push it out. I have nothing left in me.” She spouts more nonsense while I help the nurse get her into bed.
“All our family is out there waiting on you to give them another child to spoil. You can do this, Queen Vee.” She’s in the bed, looking around wildly. Dr. Jenkins steps in, smiling as if Victoria’s reaction is nothing new. She covers her legs, puts on her gloves, and checks her cervix.
“Time to push, Vickie. This baby is ready for the world. Colt, take her hand.”
“I’m not ready, Dr. Jenkins. I need another week or two. A month at the most.”
“You have about fifteen minutes until you meet your baby. On the count of three, push.”
Ten minutes later, our baby boy comes out screaming louder than the beautiful woman who pushed him out.
* * *
“Why doeshe look just like you?” Vickie asks from the bed. Our son, John Philip Taylor Chastain, came out weighing exactly nine pounds. He’s currently being cradled by Grandma Alicia, who snatched him from Grandma Cheryl. Everyone is playing musical baby with our son, and I’ve barely gotten to hold him. Mama already says she’s next, even though she held him for about an hour earlier.
“Because he’s my boy,” I say with pride.
“I did all the work. And he peed on me earlier when I changed his diaper. He should look more like me.”
“He has your nose.” He doesn’t. He’s my spitting image, but I tell my wife that to appease her. “And your lungs.” She swats my chest. “I’ve never heard a baby wail so loud before in my life.”
“You’re lucky I let you live.”
“I am always at the mercy of my queen,” I say.
The baby starts to fuss in Alicia’s arms.
“Can I hold him next, Mom? The grandmas have been hogging him,” Evan says. Each time he calls her mom, I want to cry. We brought up the idea of Vickie adopting him after we got back from Boston. We both wanted to give him time to adjust—not just to her, but to having a sibling. We were so nervous about his reaction. Vickie was expecting him to say no, or to ask more questions, but the conversation didn’t go as we thought it would.
* * *
He looksfrom me to Vicki after she tells him she wants to adopt him.
“It doesn’t mean you have to forget your mother. In fact, we’ll make sure that you don’t. We will talk about her whenever you want, and you know you can always call your other grandma too. She loves you as much as we do.” Isabel is the only one who has a problem with Vickie adopting Evan. She hung up the phone on me when I told her and has refused to speak of it again.
Evan stays quiet, and I can tell Vickie is bracing herself for his rejection.
“Can I call you mom?” I look at her, and she’s just as surprised as I am by his response.
“Of course, you can. I’ll be your mother.”
“You’ll be my mom just like you’ll be the baby’s mom?” He’s excited about having a sibling and has been since we told him.
“Just like that,” Vickie says. “You’ll both be my kids.”
