Page 109 of Castings & Curses

Paisley

Three and a half months later.

My knees were in my face and the obnoxious Dr. Booth was telling me to push. What the hell did he think I had been doing? Eric held one knee up with one arm, and I had a grip on his other hand.

“You’re doing so good, Paise.”

He did the silly breathing exercises with me. Pant, pant, pant, pant, hold, push, let it all out. I couldn’t be mad at him. He wasn’t the one that did this to me.

I groaned and that turned into a scream.

“Well done,” Dr. Booth said. “Try not to push for a bit. I need to adjust the baby.”

“Her head is out Paise. You are doing such a good job.”

“This doesn’t feel like a good job,” I whimpered. “Can I be done now?”

It felt like forever before Dr. Booth said I could push again.

“Okay, let's see if we can get this little girl out.” He rested his hand on the side of my stomach, it felt like needles sinking into my skin. “Here comes the contraction, big push.”

I gave it everything I could, and then Eric was letting my leg down and the doctor placed my baby girl on my stomach.

I started crying.

“She’s perfect, Paisley, absolutely perfect,” Eric said. He kissed me, and I just kept crying.

My new baby girl had hair thick and black like Eric. Not like anyone in my family, and certainly not like her biological father.

After that, I was kind of zoney and potentially delusional. A nurse helped to wipe the hours of sweat from my body, and Eric followed the newborn to the nursery for all the infant check-up things.

I drifted in and out of sleep. I woke up when I heard Eric’s mother come in and argue with him about getting a paternity test.

“Mother, I don't need a paternity test. Drop it.”

“Are you at least going to let me see my new grandchild then?” The way she said grandchild was clear that she didn’t mean it.

When we first met, right before the wedding in Las Vegas, she had been perfectly sweet to me and Liv. But when she asked who the father of my baby was and Eric said it was him, she bristled. She treated me like I was after her son’s money, like I was trapping him.

“You don’t have to tell her that. Eric, it’s okay that some people know the truth. I love that you want this baby to be ours. I would love that as well, but can we at least let your mother know a sperm donor was involved?” I stopped referring to Dylan as anything other than what he was to me, the provider of the sperm that fertilized my eggs.

“She’s mine.” Eric’s demon voice snuck out during times of high emotion.

I knew he would raise her to be his and never treat her differently than he did Sarina, or even Liv.

This of course meant that his mother always gave me a questioning side eye. And that is why I didn’t want either of them to know I was awake.

“Let me hold her. When are you planning on letting the girls come meet their new sister?”

I watched as she swayed gently with the baby, but she didn’t look at the baby at all.

“It’s late. They’ll be here in the morning.”

Suddenly, his mother stopped moving. “Oh, Eric,” she gasped.

I stopped breathing.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t…”

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