“I will. Now go and please drive carefully. Call when you make stops and when you get there.” He gave me his ‘I’m not joking’ serious look. I nodded, stole one final kiss, and bolted out of the kitchen at top speed.
I had already packed a bag for the upcoming trip and had decided to drive as I could be there in a little under five hours, whereas flying would tack on a few hours due to layovers in Detroit. Normally, I don’t mind a long layover, but when my sister was pushing out a baby, I needed to get there yesterday.
The drive home may have seen a few speed limits broken, but I knew the sheriff. If I got pulled over, which was unlikely, I’d explain that Nora was having a baby and Ken would let me go with a warning and a good luck wish for my sister. Skidding into the driveway, I ran inside, grabbed the bag sitting inside the bedroom door, my phone charger, and a bottle of red energy drink. I’d stop along the way to fill up, piss, and grab some coffee once I was across the border. Tim Hortons was calling. Patting myself down for the wallet and passport check, I jogged out to check on the geese. Fred shot up to his feet from where he was napping just outside the coop door. Wilma looked at me with one sleepy eye. I stood still, listening, but heard nothing in the way of tiny peeps.
“Okay, so I have to go. Nora is having her baby. I’m not asking you two not to have yours as well because you can’t stuff them back into the eggs. What I am asking is that you be nice to Kenan, okay? He’s a great guy and really likes you a lot.” That last part was a fib, but they didn’t need to know that. It wasn’t that my boyfrienddislikedthem, he was just leery, and that was understandable. “He’s going to be taking care of you while I’mgone. Be nice. Do not pinch his butt, that’s mine to pinch, and please let him take pictures. Okay?” Fred hissed. Wilma blinked and then went back to sleep. “Cool! Right, I’m off.”
Giving my little place a long look, I ran back the way I came, relocking the doors behind me and diving into my Nissan. I pulled up my maps app, slid my seatbelt around me, and found a playlist to listen to. I sent Kenan a text updating him on my departure and the lack of visible goslings before I backed out of my drive and hit the open road. He sent me a selfie of him washing dishes with #cinderfella, which I found to be quite funny.
That jovial mood started to fall apart the closer I got to Ottawa. The baby updates were sparse, not much to report per Mom. Nora was in a room. Antoine was there, so was our mother, and the one nurse looked like a prince, according to my mother.
One that wears a crown or one that wears purple eyeliner? ~ B
She typed back that she had no clue if the prince wore eyeliner, but she thought that his wife did. Snickering to myself, I let it go. The time seemed to slow, and when I hit the rush hour traffic in Ottawa, I was close to pulling out my hair. Seemed things were progressing rapidly, and Nora was now being moved from a labor room to a delivery room.
I laid on the horn and yelled at the backup of cars. To no avail, of course, but it made me feel better. After what seemed like years, I managed to wiggle out of the crush and fly to the birthing center. Parking was excruciating. I had to park ten miles away, or so it seemed, and then jog to the main doors. I was texting Kenan as I found the signs pointing me to labor and delivery.
Made it. Nerves are jangling. Should have only stopped at one Tim Hortons and not three. I’m so weak. Love you. ~ B
Hey, give her my love. Lay off the coffee. No signs of goslings yet. Love you. ~ K
Thanks to a very kind nurse—who did not look like a prince—I was briskly led to the delivery suite at breakneck speed.
“This is her first baby. I thought those took days,” I said to the nurse midwife who was now escorting me to my sister. Guess she must have alerted the entire staff that her birthing brother was on his way.
“Not always.”
Ah cool. Shows what I know. “What am I supposed to do when I get in there?”
She gave me a kind smile. “Hold her hand, tell her she’s strong, and show brotherly support just like you normally do.”
I gave her a thumbs up and entered the pretty lilac and yellow room. Mom and Antoine looked haggard but not nearly as wiped out as the tiny woman in the bed. Nora glanced at me, grunted, and started crying.
“Oh hey, no tears,” I said as I hurried to her side, keeping my eyes firmly above the waist.
“I thought…you would…miss it,” she ground out through gritted teeth as she grabbed my left hand in a death grip.
“No way would I miss it. Have I ever missed an important day in your life?” I asked and got a shaky little snort. Antoine wiped the sweat from her brow as Mom freshened up the bouquet of flowers on the windowsill.
“Never,” she panted, face red from strain.
“That’s right. Even when you were in ballet recitals. Who always showed up even when he could have been playing basketball or hanging out with Ken under the bleachers smoking dope while we fondled each other’s—”
“Brann, for heaven’s sake. This is not the time or place to be discussing your high school hookups with Kenneth while you two were high as kites.” Mom plucked a petal off a daisy that needed no plucking at all that I could see. “And isn’t Ken a sheriff now?”
Nora was snickering madly. I gave her a wink as Mom went off about my hoodlum ways back in high school.
“I love that you’re…here and letting her rag…on you. Best…brother ever.”
Yeah, I was that for sure.
***
And four hours later, after a lot of sweat, bad language, and having my fingers crushed, I was officially the best uncle ever as well. My new nephew, Mathias Thèo, surely thought so as he slept peacefully in my arms. An army of people had arrived just as the baby was being born, Antoine’s family as well as my father. I’d been there at Nora’s side, me on her left and Antoine on her right, throughout it all. Now that it was dark and late, Nora and Antoine were dozing and it was just me and Matty. He was a huge baby, close to ten pounds, with a shock of dark hair and the tiniest little fingers I had ever seen. Mom and Dad had gone back to Nora’s place to get some sleep after we were assured that even though Matty was a week early, he was fine, healthy, and could go home tomorrow. He was a strapping young man who was just in a hurry to see his uncle. Who could blame him?
I yawned widely as we rocked back and forth. The room was muted with soft little lights while night enveloped the city. A nurse arrived. The one that Mom said looked like a prince. He was a cute guy with red hair, so she meant a royal sort of prince and not a rock legend sort of prince.
“Do you want to go home now?” he asked, and I nodded. I was done in. I handed Matty off to the ginger and then rose. My back popped as did my neck and one elbow. “We’ll leave him sleep here with his parents.” He carried the baby over to a little bassinet.
