Zane nodded. “Yeah. There’s a lot of us, so the doctor said it would be best to do the visits in batches.” He pointed as he named us, “Bast, Brock, Bax, you guys first. It’s easiest to just go in order of age.”
Xavier slumped back into the chair. “Being the youngest fucking sucks.”
Zane jogged across the room and scooped Xavier into a playful headlock. “Xavier, buddy, you’ll get a turn,” he said, “I promise.”
Xavier wriggled out of the hold with unexpected ease. “I know, I know. But we always do this shit in order from oldest to youngest, which means whatever it is, I’m always last.”
Bast spoke up. “You go first, Xavier. I’ll wait.”
None of the others argued, so Brock, Xavier, and I followed Zane, who led us to the delivery room. Mara was in a chair, sniffling and crying what I assumed were happy tears, and Claire was on her feet, her arms curled around a blanket-swaddled bundle, bouncing her arms gently and rocking side to side. She glanced up as we entered, and she was crying too, which was almost as weird as Zane crying, because Claire was, in some ways, the toughest chick I knew.
Like a bunch of idiot kids, Brock and Xavier and I all crowded around Claire, jostling to get a look at our new nephew. Brock and I glanced at each other, an unspoken conversation passing between us, and we backed up a little to give Xavier space to be the first to hold him.
Claire, with the softest expression I’d ever seen on her face, smiled at Xavier. “Wanna hold him?” she glanced at Mara. “That okay?”
Mara was a goddamn disaster: her hair was a wild, greasy, sweaty mess, the makeup she’d put on the day before was smeared and running, and tears were dried on her face, but she’d never looked so…beautifully happy. I mean, you always hear about a new mother “glowing” which had always sounded stupid to me, but as I glanced at Mara, I finally understood it. She really was just…glowing. Not an actual literal glow, since she wasn’t, like, radioactive, thank god, but just…glowing from the inside out. There really wasn’t a better term for it, either. Just glowing.
“Of course,” Mara said, sounding utterly exhausted but happy.
It was kind of weird to see her belly flat again, after so many months of watching it steadily grow.
Claire gingerly handed the bundle of baby over, and Xavier gathered him into his arms with an ease I would never have expected.
“You’ve held a baby before,” Mara noted.
Xavier was bouncing much like Claire had been, and nodded, glancing up at Mara with a brilliant grin on his face. “Yeah. My buddy Hajj’s daughter had a baby last year. Hajj doesn’t have a driver’s license, so I drove him to the hospital, and I got to hold his granddaughter.” He cooed wordlessly at the baby, smiling goofily, making weird noises. “What’s his name?”
Mara smiled. “Jackson. We’ve been calling him Jax.”
“You’re a couple hours old and you’ve already got a nickname, kid,” Xavier said. “I’ve never had a nickname, since it’s kind of hard to abbreviate or foreshorten a name like Xavier.”
He looked up at Mara and then Zane.
“Hey, it looks like he’s got Mom’s eyes!” he exclaimed. “Another Badd with green eyes!”
“They could change over the next few months,” Mara explained, “but theydolook green to me too.” She smiled. “Of course, it wouldn’t bethatweird for him to have green eyes, since I have them and you guys have green eyes as a recessive gene from your mom.”
“That’s true. But still, it’s cool to see green eyes on another Badd.” Xavier leaned close and did something adorable and obnoxious with his nose to the baby, an Eskimo kiss or whatever it is you call it when you brush noses with someone. “Hey there, Jax. Welcome to life.”
Xavier stared at Jackson Badd for a few more moments, just blinking and smiling and bouncing, and then he spoke again, but in the tone of voice of someone reciting poetry:
“When you were born, beloved, was your soul
New made by God to match your body's flower,
And were they both at one same precious hour
Sent forth from heaven as a perfect whole?
Or had your soul since dim creation burned,
A star in some still region of the sky,
That leaping earthward, left its place on high
And to your little new-born body yearned?
No words can tell in what celestial hour
