He’d shown up to that one of course, with his mother and brothers, and left before she could tell him to do just that. She hadn’t brought the boys, though, thinking he might show and they’d flip out. Her fury had sustained her then. But now all she had was bone-deep exhaustion, an eye-burning headache, and a barely functional existence that she was starting to question.
“Don’t try to out-stubborn him,” her father would probably have said to her.
“I’m not,” she’d reply. “I’m right. He’s wrong.”
She blinked, realizing that Kieran was no longer clinging to her skirt. Her vision was getting fuzzy around the edges, and a thirst the likes of which she’d never experienced gripped her, making her lick her lips and look around for a water fountain, all the while knowing there weren’t any in the vestibule or sanctuary. The whooshing noise increased. Her skin prickled, and she broke out in a cold sweat. People kept coming at her, moving their mouths and saying words she couldn’t hear.
A small tickle of fear hit her brain. Was she dying? Having a stroke? Going into early labor?
As if hearing her own wildly churning thoughts, her stomach tightened, making her gasp and bend over on reflex. Someone grabbed her arm while someone else was yelling, but she kept her eyes on the floor, concentrating hard on not dying at her father’s funeral in front of her children.
“Lord, help me. Please, please, please, oh, Jesus God, that hurts!” She yelled the last words.
Out of the corner of her eye, while her vision went nearly all dark, she spotted him.
“Anton,” she gasped, holding out her free arm. “Ow … ow … Oh … no …” She looked down and saw the dark stain between her feet, then glanced up and saw him, her husband, his face thinner, lined, and gray with panic.
“We called an ambulance,” somebody said.
“Out of my way,” Anton insisted when people tried to help her to a chair. But all she wanted to do then was drop to her knees in the spreading pool of blood. So she did. But then she was lifted up. She put her arms around Anton’s neck and tried not to hear the panicky sounds of her sons calling for her, crying, and, in the case of Antony, yelling to be “put down! Mama is sick!”
“Shhh, honey, it’s all right. I’ve got you. Move!” Anton’s deep, gravelly voice made her want to cry, but she hurt too much, all over, head to toe. And she was so thirsty she didn’t believe she could produce any tears.
“It hurts. There’s b-b-b-blood.”
“I know. I’m taking you to the hospital myself.”
That was the last thing she heard for a while.
She woke in a near-dark, stuffy room, pinned in place by IV lines in each arm. Her throat felt shredded. When she tried to move her legs and sit up, the pain nearly made her pass out. Alarms sounded. Her door opened and a cadre of nurses piled into the room. Lindsay hated hospitals. She’d checked herself out as quickly as possible after each of her boys were born.
She froze, terror gripping her from head to toe when she felt for the distinctly non-existent lump of her pregnant stomach. That thing she’d been hauling around, resenting it and everything it represented had become so much a part of her, she burst into tears at its absence, knowing it could only mean one thing.
“Hush now, honey, it’s all right.” A nurse patted her arm while she lifted the cover over her lower half and made an adjustment.
“Ow!” Lindsay flinched.
“It’s just the catheter. Doctor says we have to leave it in a few more hours, but I sure don’t know why. You’ve recovered so well.” She patted Lindsay’s leg. “Try to relax and lie still. You gave everybody a real scare.”
“B-b-b-baby?” Tears blinded her. “I lost it?”
“No, quite the contrary. We almost lost you.”
Lindsay blinked and put one of her needle-speared hands on her flatter stomach. “But it’s too early.”
“Well, he’s in the NIC-U for now, but only because it’s protocol. He was already over six pounds, and with a great set of lungs on him if his caterwauling is any indication.”
“He’s … crying …” she said, feeling idiotic and slow, but unable to process that the “it” she’d been harboring had materialized into a living, breathing baby. “Him?”
“Oh, yes, without a doubt.” The nurse winked at her. “But you were touch and go. They took the baby by C-section. Your husband was there, and he got to hold his boy for a minute before they had to take him to isolation. Poor old thing. He’s not been happy since.”
“The baby?” She stared up at the blank white ceiling when the nurse said she needed to check her stitches.
“Well, him, too.”
“Where is he?” She didn’t even know which he she meant at that point. “And can I get a cheeseburger?”
The nurse chuckled. “The doctor will be glad to know you asked. You are way too thin, dehydrated, and borderline diabetic, but we’ve fixed that up. Time to eat so you can feed that fine young man screaming his fool head off in the nursery.” She covered her with the thin blanket. “I’ll get them both for you, honey. The nurses will be glad to have the boy with his Mama, I’m thinking.”
Chapter Fifteen
Life, as it was wont to do, eased into a familiar, post-baby rhythm. Lindsay considered herself a semi-expert now. Less inclined to freak out at every sniffle and cry. More relaxed, which she hoped would translate to a relaxed newborn.
But Dominic Sean Love was the sort of baby who nursed so often he seemed permanently attached to her boob, and who, when he wasn’t eating or shitting, was crying.
Anton had apologized, tears streaming down his face as she held her third son for the first time and put him to her breast.
He’d brushed her hair off her face, kissed her forehead, nose, cheeks and lips while Dom latched on so hard she winced. But she accepted it, and did her own apologizing for being so stubborn. They sat together, watching Dominic nurse, his tiny fists covering his face or pressing against her skin as if to force more milk out of her.
Once home, Anton had been in full charge of Antony and Kieran for a couple of weeks while she regained her strength and tried to keep Dominic satisfied. By the end of the first month, he was still nursing five or six times a day, but had caught up, nutritionally speaking, to the point where he would actually sleep a few hours at a stretch.
Antony mostly ignored him. But Kieran was fascinated by the tiny baby, and would stand by her chair while she nursed, touching his face, his hands, his feet. He also loved to sit on the bed, watching him sleep in the bassinette she kept on her side for ease of nightly duties.
It took almost three months before he settled into something resembling a routine and became more than simply a screaming, eating, pooping machine.
He would gaze up at her, his Love-brown eyes shining, giving her almost more guilt than she could bear over how badly she’d behaved by refusing to take care of herself—and him—while carrying him.
Perhaps, because of the guilt, she allowed herself to enjoy him more than she ever had the other two.
By his sixth month, Dominic had formulated a flirty personality. He’d charm the pants off total strangers in the grocery or at church with his huge grin and grabby hands. His newborn tufts of dark hair had fallen out and been replaced by light, golden-blond strands. But he was volatile, and she still couldn’t predict when he’d start screaming for no apparent reason—too early to be hungry, diaper dry, nothing poking him.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, nursing him and thumbing through the newspaper one early summer morning, when Anton appeared, surprising her. They had not been sleeping in the same room since Dom’s birth. She insisted that he get a full night’s rest so he could manage the other boys. He’d been taking Antony with him to the brewery for the past few weeks, a few hours each day, hoping to redirect the recent destructive, temper-tantrum streak he’d been on.