Page 43 of Peacocks

“Fuck breathing,” she said in a strangled voice, grasping her giant belly with one hand and holding out the other to Lane. “Give me screaming. Give me cussing. Give me a fucking hand to squeeze, damn it!”

Mrs. Winchell, SaraCate and Pete’s mother, stood to the side, wringing her own hands. “I really think you should let them do the epidural, honey. Remember last time you wished you’d?—”

“I know what I’m doing, Mama,” she gritted out, shooting me a pleading look. We’d talked about how she might come to a point of needing family intervention on account of her “daddy’s delicate temperament.” Sure enough, Tony Winchell sat in a recliner in the corner, staring at his daughter on the bed as if she had aliens for arms and honeysuckle vines growing out of her ears. His eyes never blinked, and his lips appeared to be turning a little blue.

In high school, their daughter had learned accidentally she was pretty good at being pregnant. She’d also learned she was not at all interested in becoming a mother until “the sun set over… wherever the hell the sun never sets.”

“Alrighty,” I began, plastering on a big fake smile. “It seems like any minute now, Nurse Erin is going to pop her head up and force everyone out, so why don’t we all go ahead and say our goodbyes?”

Tony bolted up and dropped a kiss and a “good luck, darlin’” on SaraCate’s forehead before making a beeline for Kentucky. Or at least as far as he could get on his own two feet. Mrs. Winchell sighed and approached her daughter. “You’re going to do great, honey. Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”

I could see my husband’s hand turn white under the hard squeeze from SaraCate’s grip. “No, thanks, Mama. The boys are gonna help, and this is their show.”

Lane and I knew this was part of the script we’d agreed on earlier, but I still felt guilty. In actuality, she wanted to save her family from bonding with the baby right away and make sure the first time they met her, she was in our arms instead of SaraCate’s. We’d given her every opportunity to set her own terms, and she’d decided this was for the best.

It didn’t make it any easier.

Once everyone but Pete was gone, he walked over and brushed her hair back from her forehead before meeting her eyes. “You’re the strongest woman I know, and fuck you for doing this for them before you could do it for me.”

She huffed out a laugh. “You said you never wanted kids. In fact, you said hell would freeze first.”

He shrugged. “I don’t particularly… but what if I meet the man of my dreams and he does?”

“Peter?”

We all spun around at the sound of Dr. Nolan Burch’s deep voice as he froze in the doorway to the room.

Pete stared in shock at SaraCate’s ob-gyn. Then, without saying a word, he bolted past us, past Dr. Burch, and down the hall.

Lane murmured, “At the rate he’s going, he might just catch up to his dad.”

“How do you know my brother?” SaraCate asked breathlessly after coming off another contraction.

Dr. Burch frowned, glancing back over his shoulder before proceeding into the room to check his patient. “Peter’s your brother?”

SaraCate blew a hair out of her eyes. “Yeah. We have the same name. It’s not that common.”

“I, ah… I never knew his last name.”

Before any of us could ask him why he was being so strange about it, SaraCate screamed with another contraction. The doctor scrambled to check her progress, and within moments, she was pushing.

I quickly moved around the other side of the bed to give SaraCate another hand to break.

“You’re doing amazing,” Lane said, focusing on her face and encouraging her with a calm voice despite his nerves. “Deep, slow?—”

“Hee-hee-hoooooo.” She ignored his advice and panted shallowly. The doctor encouraged her to keep doing what she was doing. Meanwhile, I nearly fainted from trying to control everyone’s breathing by modeling good behavior.

My head spun, and my face heated. “Babe?” Lane asked, glancing over and catching sight of me.

“It’s okay,” I whispered, trying to believe it. “Gonna be okay.”

“One big push, SaraCate,” the doctor urged. “That’s it.”

Suddenly, SaraCate’s giant groan was followed by a long, drawn-out moment of silence that was pierced by a baby’s wail.

“She’s here,” Dr. Burch said with a smile, plopping the messy bundle of newborn on SaraCate’s chest. “You did great.”

SaraCate’s eyes filled with tears as she looked back and forth between us and the baby. Then she gave us a tremulous smile. “She’s here. Your daughter’s here. I did it. I kept her safe for you.”

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