20. Louella
— ? —
Louella
The baby shower invaded my beach house like a pastel tsunami.
“This is excessive,” I said, watching Camille direct the caterers with the precision of a military commander.
“This is appropriate.” She consulted her tablet. “You deserve a celebration, and by god, you’re getting one.”
The house transformed around us. Flowers on every surface, peonies and roses and an architectural bloom I didn’t recognize.
A cake in the shape of a seashell because Camille had decided the theme was “beach chic” and was committing fully.
Champagne chilling in silver buckets, with sparkling cider for me and anyone else abstaining.
“The guest list is manageable,” she continued. “Thirty people, intimate but not claustrophobic. Dana’s coming from the city, Sylvie’s bringing some gallery clients who insisted, and…”
“And me.” Margot appeared in the doorway, a gift-wrapped box in her arms. “Don’t look so surprised. I was invited.”
“I’m not surprised.” I was, actually. Our relationship had improved, but beach house baby showers seemed like advanced territory.
“Mother sends her regrets.” Margot’s tone suggested the regrets were neither sincere nor welcome. “She’s still ‘recovering’ at the lake house.”
“How unfortunate.”
“Isn’t it though.” She set the gift on the table with the others. “I come bearing peace offerings and a genuine desire to celebrate my future niece. Also, Father threatened to cut off my trust fund if I didn’t start making real efforts with you.”
“At least you’re honest.”
“It’s a new policy.” She surveyed the decorations with an appraising eye. “Though I have to say, Camille, this is impressive work. Very… abundant.”
“I prefer ‘appropriate for the occasion.’” Camille’s smile had edges. “Some of us understand that celebrations should actually celebrate.”
They sized each other up, old money versus new determination, decades of social positioning meeting ruthless efficiency. Then Margot laughed.
“I like her,” she told me. “She has teeth.”
“She has lots of things.” I left them to their détente and went to check on Hector.
He was in the kitchen, arranging appetizers with excessive concentration.
“How’s it going?”
“I’m terrified.” He didn’t look up from the canapés. “Your sister keeps looking at me like she’s deciding where to bury my body.”
“Dana’s a lawyer. She’s judging everyone.”
“She pulled me aside earlier and said, and I quote, ‘If you hurt her again, I know people who know people.’”
“That sounds like Dana.”
“Is she serious?”
“Probably not.” I stole a canapé. “Fifty percent not.”
He exhaled slowly. “I deserve that.”
“You deserve a lot of things.” I touched his arm. “Mostly good ones, at this point.”
“I’ve prepared a toast.” He gestured at a folded paper on the counter. “Is that appropriate? Camille suggested I say a few words, but I don’t want to center myself in your celebration.”
“Say your words.” I kissed his cheek. “Then make yourself useful with the dishes.”
“I can do that.”
***
The guests arrived in waves.
Dana came first, hugging me fiercely and ignoring Hector with pointed determination.
Sylvie followed with two women from the gallery who’d become unexpected friends during my months of independence.
Then the committee members from the charity event, the neighbors who’d welcomed me when I first moved here, the loose network of people who’d helped me rebuild.
“This is a lot of humans in one room,” I told Camille during a brief kitchen retreat.
“This is your community.” She pressed a glass of cider into my hand. “Accepting their affection is part of healing.”
“You’ve been reading self-help books again.”
“I’ve been watching you bloom.” She clinked her glass against mine. “Let people love you, Louella. You’ve earned it.”
***
The toast happened after the games.
(Camille had insisted on games. Baby bingo. Guess the belly circumference. A diaper contest I refused to think too hard about.)
Hector stood at the front of the living room, the folded paper in his hands. The room quieted, everyone curious about what the prodigal husband would say.
“I want to start by thanking Camille for organizing this.” He nodded at her. “And for tolerating my attempts to help, which I’m told were mostly in the way.”
Scattered laughter.
“But mostly, I want to talk about Louella.”
He found me in the crowd. Held my gaze.
“When I met her, I thought I understood what I was getting. A brilliant, beautiful woman who made every room better just by entering it. Someone who could stand beside me at events and make me look like a better person than I was.”
His voice caught slightly.
“I was wrong about almost everything. Not about the brilliant and beautiful parts, those were accurate. But I missed everything that actually mattered. Her strength. Her resilience. The way she holds space for other people’s pain even when she’s drowning in her own.”
He looked down at the paper. Back up at me.
“I hurt her. Badly. In ways I’m still learning to understand, and probably always will be. She had every right to never let me back into her life.”
A hush settled over the room.
“But she did. Because that’s who she is. Someone who can hold both things at once, the hurt and the hope. Someone who believes in second chances even when they haven’t been earned.”
He set the paper down. He didn’t need it anymore.
“So here’s my promise, in front of everyone who loves her. I will spend whatever time I’m given trying to deserve the grace she’s shown me. I will be present. I will be patient. I will learn to hold space the way she taught me.” He raised his glass. “To Louella. The bravest person I’ve ever known.”
“To Louella,” the room echoed.
I was crying. Laughing too, that hysterical combination pregnancy hormones made inevitable, but mostly crying, the happy kind, the release kind.
“That was embarrassing,” I told him when he reached my side.
“Good embarrassing or bad embarrassing?”
“Both.” I pulled him down for a kiss. “Thank you.”
***
Three weeks later, I went into labor at the worst possible moment.
“This cannot be happening right now,” I said, gripping the edge of the gallery table.
“What cannot be…” Sylvie stopped mid-sentence, eyes going wide. “Is that…”
“My water just broke. During the installation review.”
“But the show opens in two days!”
“I’m aware of the timing, Sylvie.”
The next hour was chaos. Hector arriving at the gallery so fast he’d clearly broken multiple traffic laws. Sylvie alternating between genuine concern and visible distress about the exhibition timeline. Me breathing through contractions in the back office while signing last-minute paperwork.
“This is insane,” Hector said, helping me to the car. “The paperwork can wait.”
“The artists need approval for…” Another contraction stole my breath.
“The artists can wait too.” He opened the passenger door. “Get in. Now.”
He drove like a maniac. Weaving through traffic, running yellow lights, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.
“Slow down,” I managed. “Crashing won’t help.”
“You’re in labor.”
“I’m in early labor. We have time.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’ve done research.”
“Research isn’t the same as…” He cut off another car, earning an angry honk. “I’m not missing this, Lou. I’m not missing anything else.”
***
Eighteen hours.
The number would become family legend eventually, the story of how Elise made her entrance, taking her time, refusing to be rushed.
But in the moment, it was just pain.
Wave after wave, building and receding, building higher. Hector held my hand through all of it. Through the waiting, the walking, the failed attempts at sleep. Through the transition that felt like being torn apart from the inside.
“I can’t do this,” I gasped at hour fifteen.
“You can.” He pressed his forehead to mine. “You’re the strongest person I know.”
“I’m not…”
“You are. You’ve survived things that would have broken anyone else. This is just one more thing you’re going to survive.”
“This is not…” Another contraction. “…the same…”
“Breathe with me. Come on. In and out.”
I breathed. He counted. The hours crawled.
And then, finally, the pushing.
“One more,” the doctor said. “One more big one.”
“I can’t…”
“You can.” Hector’s voice was fierce. “Look at me. You can do this. You’re almost there.”
I pushed.
And then crying, not mine, smaller, keener, the sound of new life filling the room.
“She’s here.” Hector’s voice broke completely. “Louella, she’s here.”
I looked down. Saw the doctor place her, our daughter, our impossible miracle, into Hector’s waiting hands. Watched him hold her with a tenderness I’d never seen, tears streaming down his face.
“She’s perfect,” he managed. “Lou, she’s…”
“Give her to me.”
He placed her on my chest. This tiny, squalling, red-faced creature who’d made us wait so long to meet her. She quieted against my heartbeat, the sound apparently familiar from all those months of hearing it from the inside.
“Hi,” I whispered. “Hi, sweet girl.”
***
We named her Elise.
“It means ‘pledged to God’ in French,” Hector said later, when we were alone in the recovery room.
“I know what it means.”
“I’ve been thinking about it as ‘second chance.’” He stroked her tiny fingers where they curled around his thumb. “Is that too much?”
“It’s perfect.”
We stayed like that for hours. Her sleeping, us watching her sleep, the world outside irrelevant.
“I didn’t know it would feel like this,” he said quietly. “This… overwhelming. I thought I’d love her because she was ours. I didn’t know I’d love her like my chest might crack open from the size of it.”
“That’s how it’s supposed to feel.”
“You knew?”
“I suspected.” I touched his face, the tears still drying on his cheeks. “Welcome to parenthood.”
***
The text came at three in the morning.
I was half-asleep, Elise nestled in her bassinet, Hector curled beside me in the narrow hospital bed. My phone buzzed once, soft enough that only I noticed.
Genevieve: I would like to meet my grandchild.
I stared at the screen. The words glowing in the dark.
Hector stirred. “What is it?”
“My mother.” I showed him the message.
He read it. His expression didn’t change.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
He looked at Elise. At our daughter, sleeping with her fists curled against her cheeks, completely unaware of the family drama she’d been born into.
“Whatever you decide,” he said quietly. “You’re the center of this family now. Not her.”
I thought about Genevieve. About the lies, the manipulation, the cold calculation that had nearly destroyed everything. About whether Elise deserved to know her grandmother, and whether that grandmother deserved to know her.
I deleted the message.
“For now,” I said, “that’s enough.”
Hector pulled me closer. Kissed my hair.
And we slept.