Ava Reynolds
Zahra and Saint had planned a home birth, so Reek took me to their home.
The second I got inside and heard the sounds coming from upstairs, I kicked my shoes off in the foyer and hurried up the stairs.
Inside their bedroom, the lights were low.
The smell of lavender was in the air. Towels were stacked everywhere.
Somebody had laid out waterproof pads and blankets on the bed.
The bathroom door was open, and the sound of running water mixed with Zahra’s agony came from inside.
When I stepped into the master bathroom, I saw Zahra in the huge soaking tub, naked and sweating, with her hair pulled up off her face and her whole body tense from the contraction rolling through her.
Saint was in the tub behind her in black basketball shorts, one arm wrapped across her chest and the other hand pressed low over her belly like he could hold her through the pain if he just loved her hard enough.
The doula stood beside the tub with a washcloth, coaching Zahra soothingly, and the midwife was down near the edge of the water, watching everything.
I climbed up on the wide counter by the sink because I wanted to be out the way but close enough to see. Zahra cried out through another contraction, gripping Saint’s forearm so hard I knew she had to be hurting him.
“I know, mama,” Saint said right into her ear. His voice was so loving, calm, and full of so much love it made my eyes sting instantly. “I know. Breathe with me.”
The doula nodded. “That’s right, Zahra. Long breaths. Give the pain somewhere to go.”
Zahra’s face scowled. “I’m trying to fucking breathe!”
“I know you are,” Saint told her, kissing the side of her head. “You’re doing perfect. You hear me? Perfect.”
The midwife checked her carefully, then looked up and said, “A few more like that, and we’re there.”
Saint looked down at Zahra like she was the bravest person he had ever seen. “You hear that? Our boy almost here.”
That made me break a little inside. This was how having a child was supposed to look. This was how your child’s father was supposed to love you; with his hands protecting you, with words that held you together when your body was coming apart to bring life into the world.
Zahra started crying. She sounded exhausted, stretched thin, and right at the edge of giving up. “I can’t do this,” she sobbed.
Saint tightened his hold on her immediately. “Yes, you can.”
“I’m tired, Saint.”
“I know, baby. I know.” He kissed her temple, then her cheek, then pressed his forehead against the side of her face. “But you can do this. You’re already doing it. You’re carrying our son into this world right now, and I’ve never been more proud of you.”
Tears rolled down my face as the doula handed Saint a cold rag. He wiped Zahra’s face so gently it made my throat burn.
“Look at me,” he told her.
Zahra turned her face just enough to look at him.
“This pain ain’t bigger than you,” he told her. “You’re bigger than all of this. You hear me? You’re strong as hell. You’re my wife. You’re the mother of my son. You were made for this.”
Zahra cried harder, and so did I.
When the next contraction hit, the doula started counting breaths. The midwife moved closer. Saint braced his feet in the tub and held Zahra tighter while she bore down.
“That’s it,” the midwife coached her. “Push into it…Good... Again.”
Zahra screamed this time so loud that it made me flinch. But Saint continued speaking into her ear like his words could carry her body through it. “Come on, Mama. Give him to me. Give me my son. You got this. One more. Push for me. Push for him.”
The midwife looked up, smiling now. “He’s right there. I see his head.”
Saint let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh and a cry mixed together. “You hear that, baby? Our son right there. Come on. One more. Let’s meet him.”
Zahra gritted her teeth and pushed again with everything she had as she let out a determined roar as Saint held her.
Zahra’s body bowed forward in the water.
She cried out and grabbed Saint’s arm with both hands, and he shifted behind her to hold her up better while the doula moved closer between her knees.
The midwife crouched beside the tub, watching everything carefully while the doula coached Zahra through each push.
Zahra screamed and bore down, face twisted, body shaking with all the effort she was using.
The water around her moved with her, splashing against the sides of the tub.
Saint kept one arm locked around her while his other hand slid over her wet stomach and down to her thigh, grounding her the whole time.
“I know, baby,” he kept saying into her ear. “I know it hurts. Come on. Push for me.”
Zahra let out this broken, tired cry that made my own eyes fill all over again. She looked like she had nothing left, but when the next contraction came, she dug down somewhere deeper and pushed again. I could see the top of the baby’s head then. It was slick and dark under the water.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
Saint looked down and his expression turned to putty. Then he kissed the side of Zahra’s face and said, “Come on, Mama. He right there. One more.”
The doula kept her hands ready in the water while the midwife told Zahra when to breathe and when to push again.
Zahra cried out and pushed with everything in her, and the baby’s head came out fully.
The doula guided one shoulder, then the other, and suddenly the rest of him slipped out into the water.
The doula scooped him up and lifted him into the air. Water streamed off his little body while he opened his mouth and let out his first cry.
The sound broke all of us. Zahra started sobbing instantly.
Saint let out a shaken breath as he stared at his son with tears in his eyes.
All that hard, dangerous, cocky shit he wore so naturally melted clean off him the second he looked at his son.
His eyes filled right there in front of everybody, as he let out this broken, happy sound that made fresh tears spill down my cheeks.
The doula laid the baby right onto Zahra’s chest while the midwife checked the baby, and Saint folded over both of them like he couldn’t believe what he was looking at.
“You did that.” He sounded so full of love and completely wrecked at the same time. “You just gave me my son. I love you so much.”
Zahra looked down at their son, crying and laughing at the same time, while Saint kissed the side of her face over and over.
I sat up on that counter with tears running down my face and watched them hold their son in the tub.
This was what it should be. This was what love should feel like when a baby came into the world. It should feel safe, wanted, celebrated, and wrapped in two parents who looked at each other and that child like nothing else mattered more.
Zahra and Saint named him Czar LaCross. Once the doula assured that Czar was healthy and Zahra got all cleaned up and in bed, the family took turns coming in to take a peek at him.
Their chef whipped up food for everybody.
We all ate and hung out in the den. The others rehashed how Zahra sounded, even from all the way upstairs, every time she got a contraction.
What I kept rehashing was the way Saint kept looking between his wife and his son like he had been handed the whole world at once and knew it. He couldn’t stop loving her out loud.
And after watching him hold her through every contraction, talk her through every push, praise her while she fell apart and brought their child into the world, I knew I just wanted to be happy.
Whatever that meant for me now that I was in this shit-uation, I wanted it.
I was tired of holding on to all the anger.
I was tired of sitting in my hurt so long that it started shaping everything about this pregnancy.
Watching Saint love my sister that hard, that openly, had reminded me that even if my story was messy, even if I didn’t get some pretty version of this, I still deserved to enjoy my pregnancy.
So, I decided right then to stop fighting Reek.
No matter his feelings, I was going to feel nothing but joy when it came to my child.
Having made that decision, I felt lighter and hungry. So, I quietly slipped out of the den and went straight to the kitchen.
The chef had left food out buffet-style on the island, so I started fixing a plate. I spooned greens onto one side, macaroni onto the other, added a piece of roasted chicken, then reached for the rolls.
That was when Reek walked in. For once, I didn’t feel that instant rush of anger. After witnessing that miracle of life and love upstairs, there was no way that I could feel any rage.
He stopped just inside the kitchen and looked at me. I went back to making my plate.
“I should’ve told you sooner,” I admitted. I kept my eyes on the food while I spoke. “I knew you wouldn’t want it. I knew it would be messy, and I still didn’t tell you when I should have. But I wasn’t getting rid of my baby just to avoid messiness. I need you to understand that.”
Reek just stayed quiet. So, I set the serving spoon down and finally looked at him. “You made me feel rejected at one of the most vulnerable moments of my life. That’s what hurt me the most.”
Still, he said nothing, and that was okay, because I didn’t want to argue and this conversation wasn’t for or about him. It was for me, so that I could say the last things I needed to say so that I could just move on without a chip on my shoulder.
“I had feelings for you before the pregnancy,” I admitted.
“I was attracted to you differently than I’d ever felt before.
But I knew you would never want what I wanted, so I avoided those feelings.
Still, I had feelings for you, and I thought we had some kind of connection that would make you handle me more carefully.
But you didn’t, and that hurt.” His eyes held mine as I told him, “But I’m going to let that hurt go because I want to feel as much joy as I can when it comes to this child.
I’m done fighting with you. So, you can do what you want.
You can be as active as you want. You can show up however much or however little you feel like you can handle. I just want to enjoy my pregnancy.”
I didn’t wait for him to answer. I turned away from him, picked my plate up, and was about to continue piling food onto it when the baby kicked so hard I almost dropped the plate.
My free hand went to my stomach on instinct.
Reek’s blank expression turned into concern. “You okay?”
I set the plate back down and walked toward him. Then I took his hand and placed it against my stomach.
“The baby is kicking.”
I didn’t do it because I thought he would care or that it would change how he felt about the baby. I did it because I felt like he should meet his child.
At first, he just stood there with his hand under mine, looking down. Then the baby moved again, and something softened in his face so fast it almost stole my breath. His eyes dropped lower and all that usual hardness eased into something open, startled, and a little scared too.
He lifted his other hand without saying a word and spread both palms over my stomach like he was trying to catch every movement. The baby kicked again. Then again. More than it ever had before, like he knew exactly who was touching them.
I looked up at Reek and saw the shift clear as day. He still didn’t say anything. But for the first time, his fear didn’t completely overpower him. I could feel that much.
Then Legend walked in.
He stopped when he saw us standing there like that.
I stepped back. “I need to eat. I’m starving.”
Neither of them stopped me.
I picked up my food and walked out of the kitchen before anything else could be said.
I didn’t look back, but I felt Reek’s stare on me the whole way out.