Chapter 29
Roisin's cry jet-propelled Maureen, Bronagh, Aisling and Moira up the stairs where, crowding into the bathroom, they found Roisin on all fours. She was gripping the side of the bath, her knuckles white as she let out another howl. Panicked looks passed between the three O'Mara women and Bronagh.
'She can't be having the baby. Her waters haven't even broken,' Moira said, the colour draining from her face because they all knew the pains gripping Roisin weren't Braxton Hicks contractions.
'Tell that to the baby!' Roisin gasped.
'It's alright, Rosi, we're here.' Aisling snapped into action, getting down on the floor alongside her sister to rub her back. 'I've got snacks if you need them.'
Roisin's reply was indecipherable, but they all got the gist of what she'd said.
Moira did the same, so they were flanking her, and smoothed Roisin's hair back from her sweaty face. 'We've got you. You're grand. Then, Ash, I might need a snack.'
'Ring Shay,' Roisin panted between the pains, which were coming alarmingly rapidly. 'Tell him what's happening. Mammy—' She twisted her head around. 'I'm scared. This isn't how it's supposed to be.'
'I'm right here, Rosi. I'm not leaving you. None of us are, and you don't need to be scared. Sure, you're a warrior woman, so you are. That's what your friend Becca said, and she was right. You can do this. We can do this. You're from a family of warrior women.'
'And one entrepreneurial arse,' Aisling said, referencing Patrick.
Roisin managed something akin to a giggle before another contraction took hold.
Maureen took a deep breath and pushed up her sleeves, kneeling behind Roisin.
She was terrified, but she also knew she had a job to do.
You had to lead by example when it came to your children, and she needed them all—Rosi especially—not to panic.
What would Donal say to her if he were here?
Hearing his voice telling her to breathe deeply, keep calm and guide Roisin through this because she was her mammy, she set about doing exactly that.
'I'll let Shay know.' Moira reluctantly got to her feet, not wanting to leave Roisin's side for a second, but she didn't want Roisin to hear the alarm in her voice when she spoke to Shay either.
Bronagh was already on the landing, clutching her phone, and she held it up. 'I've rung for an ambulance. It's on its way.'
Nodding, Moira dug her phone out of her jeans pocket. 'I'm to let Shay know what's happening.' Her hand was shaking so badly she nearly dropped her mobile.
Bronagh put a protective arm around her and squeezed her shoulder. 'She and the baby are going to be alright, Moira. We've to stay strong for Rosi, right?'
Moira leaned briefly against Bronagh. 'Right.'
Jeremy came charging up the stairs two at a time, appearing breathlessly at the top. 'What's going on? I heard shouting.'
'Roisin's baby's on their way. So make yourself useful, lad, and go fetch some hot water and towels,' Bronagh ordered, giving him a gentle push back towards the stairs. She'd no idea why they needed hot water and towels, but that was what people always did in the films.
Moira had turned her back on them, mobile pressed to her ear while she blocked her other ear with a finger so she could hear over Roisin's cries.
She heaved a relieved sigh when Shay answered and somehow managed to relay what was happening without sending him into a blind panic.
'What's the address, Bronagh?' she asked, drawing a complete blank beyond Ranelagh.
'16 Cullingford Drive.'
Moira repeated it, then made Shay repeat it back to her. 'And don't be driving like a maniac to get here either,' she ordered. 'Roisin and the baby are going to need you.'
'What about Noah?' Bronagh asked once Moira had ended the call.
'I hadn't thought about him.' Moira frowned. 'I'll ring the school. Rosi's friend Becca will take him home with her if they let her know what's happening.'
'I'll do it. You get back in there. Your sister needs you,' Bronagh instructed.
Then she realised she didn't know the school's number.
Think. The phone book. The house might be empty, but people never took the White Pages with them.
Glad to have something useful to do, she hurried downstairs and found the White Pages in the cupboard beneath the telephone table in the entrance hall.
Flicking through the pages until she reached the schools section, Roisin's cries reverberated through the house.
Bronagh winced before running her finger down the listings until she reached the right one.
The school secretary was a kindred spirit—a true professional, Bronagh thought—as she took the news that one of their pupils' mums was giving birth in the bathroom of a house Bronagh had come to view entirely in her stride.
She ended the call reassured that Noah would go home with Becca or, if Mrs Vickers was unable to get hold of her, she would personally stay with him at the school until someone arrived to collect him.
Bronagh padded back upstairs and began pacing the landing like an expectant father, her hands steepled against her mouth as she prayed Roisin and the baby would be alright.
Her senses were on high alert, listening for the ambulance because every second, every minute, felt like an hour.
At last she heard the wail of a siren in the distance.
'The ambulance's nearly here,' she said, poking her head around the bathroom door.
Then, looking to where Maureen was crouching, she heard her say, 'That's it, Rosi. I can see the babby's head. One big push now. You can do it.'
'Come on, Rosi, you've got this. You're nearly there,' Bronagh half urged, half cheered her on, joining her sisters as Roisin gave it everything she had.
'Oh, my goodness!' Bronagh exhaled as a lusty cry filled the cavernous bathroom.
'You've a boy, Roisin. A beautiful babby boy.' Maureen's voice was thick with emotion. 'Hello, little one. I'm your nana.'
Bronagh looked to Roisin, Moira and Aisling, then finally to Maureen, who was cradling a wriggling, squalling little babby. She was laughing through her tears.
They all were.
Aisling and Moira helped Roisin gently manoeuvre herself around until she was sitting with her back against the bath. A reverent silence fell for a split second as Maureen placed Roisin's newborn son into her arms for the first time. Then the smiles broke through the tears again.
'It's a miracle,' Bronagh whispered.
'Erm, here we go.'
Jeremy appeared on the landing clutching a stack of towels and a bowl, his eyes enormous with the drama unfolding before him. 'The hot water's still on, but I had to go next door for the towels and bowl.'
Bronagh smiled as she took the stack from him, passing the towels to Maureen, who promptly wrapped one around the baby nestled on his mam's chest before carefully lifting him again because Roisin announced she needed to push once more.
'Oh, my goodness. Twins?' Moira exclaimed.
'The placenta, you eejit,' Aisling said, taking the swaddled bundle from his mammy while she got on with the important job of admiring him.
Jeremy skedaddled.
It didn't take long. With Bronagh, Moira and Aisling all cooing over their new nephew—and the little boy Bronagh knew she'd have a special affinity with forever—the placenta was delivered and he was soon back in his mammy's arms.
'Shay and I decided if we had a boy we'd call him Luke.' Roisin rested her head against the edge of the bath, utterly spent.
Bronagh busied herself filling the bowl in the sink with steaming water before carefully setting it beside Maureen.
'Luke.' They all tried the name on for size, nodding with approval.
'It's a grand name. A strong name. And I can't tell you how relieved I am that you didn't decide to go one better than your brother and call him Paddock Field or, or—'
'Pasture Fodder,' Moira supplied with a smirk.
'Prairie Grassland,' Aisling grinned.
'Actually, Ash, I quite like Prairie,' Roisin said, dragging her eyes away from her son just long enough to meet her sister's gaze.
It turned out Roisin was very good at keeping a poker face because nobody could tell whether she was joking or not.
Maureen nudged her middle daughter with the toe of her boot. 'Well, that was very clever, putting ideas in her head like that, Aisling.'
'You started it, Mammy,' Aisling protested.
Footsteps thundered up the stairs, nipping that conversation in the bud as a man and woman clad in dark green paramedic uniforms appeared in quick succession, asking the women to give them some room while they took stock of the situation.
Bronagh led the charge from the bathroom onto the landing, where they stood about feeling useless. The adrenaline that had coursed through their veins during Roisin's incredibly quick labour was beginning to ebb away.
'We need a sugar hit.' Aisling dug around in her bag and passed around her aforementioned snacks.
Nobody argued, and the crinkle of wrappers filled the landing, ensuring that when one of the paramedics, a young woman with her hair pulled back into a ponytail, ducked out to update them, their mouths were all chock-full of Jacob's Club bars.
'Mam and baby are both doing well. You've all done an amazing job, especially Nana from what I hear.'
'Roisin did all the work,' Maureen mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate.
'We're going to take Roisin and baby Luke downstairs in a carry chair now and bring them into the hospital so a doctor can check them both over.'
'Well, mind you're careful on the stairs. That's precious cargo you'll be carrying,' Maureen said, having finally managed to swallow.
The paramedic was already disappearing back into the bathroom.
'Mammy, don't be telling her how to do her job,' Aisling said, brushing chocolate flakes from her chest.
'I'm with you, Mo.' Bronagh linked arms with Maureen, still struggling to believe what had unfolded.
Roisin, with a blanket draped over her, and Luke was wheeled out onto the landing, and they all fell silent.
'Did you let Shay know?' Roisin asked.
'He's on his way, Rosi,' Moira reassured her.
Giving the paramedics a wide berth to do their job, they watched as the ponytailed woman took hold of the chair's lower handles and, on the count of three, lifted her end to begin their careful descent.
Maureen followed in their wake with the others behind her, and when they emerged into the daylight, Shay was pulling up in a screech of burning rubber.
He threw open the car door, not even bothering to close it as he ran to Roisin's side. 'Rosi! Oh, thank God. Are you okay?'
'Luke and I are grand.'
'Luke?'
'Our babby boy.'
Shay clapped a hand over his mouth as Roisin was lifted into the ambulance. Then he clambered in after her.
'I'll drive your car to the hospital, Shay. Congratulations, Daddy!' Aisling called just before the ambulance doors were closed.
'And I'll drive us in Rosi's,' Moira said.
'God help us all,' Maureen muttered, digging her mobile out to phone Donal.
Aisling was already shouting the news down her phone to Quinn.
Bronagh, meanwhile, lingered as the three women disappeared back inside the house.
They'd clean the bathroom before heading to the hospital.
She'd ring Freya to let her know she wouldn't be back today and share the good news.
Right now, though, she needed a word with Jeremy.
Because somewhere between baby Luke's arrival and standing here on this swathe of gravel by the entrance, she'd made up her mind.
Sixteen Cullingford Drive was meant to be hers and Lenny's new home.
Myrna's too, if she'd come, but that was up to her mam.
What she'd witnessed that afternoon wasn't just a sign, it was a miracle.
Life itself was a miracle, and she was determined to wring every bit of happiness from hers that she could.
'Jeremy,' she called as he emerged from next door. 'I'd like to make an unconditional, one-off offer.'