Chapter 18 #2
"Aye, but I took verra good notes. Early labor is warm-up drills. Active labor is the first half. Transition is extra time."
"If you translate one more stage of labor into football, your balls are going to change formation right into the parking lot."
I shut up.
We move through partner poses. Some are fine. Some are humiliating. Agnes has given up all pretense, reaching into her purse for—is that a pack of cigarettes? Marie rushes over and hisses in her ear, and Agnes's mouth goes flat as the two spar.
My money's on Marie.
Then the rebozos come out. Long woven shawls, meant for gentle belly support.
"These are sacred!" Marie announces, handing them out.
"Try not to end up in a toilet," Amy whispers to me.
I try to wrap it under her belly the way Marie shows. I genuinely try. The rebozo slips. It whips across my face. Full slap.
I yelp.
"Finally, something worth the fee," Agnes mutters. Corrine cackles.
Amy laughs so hard, she snorts. It's the best sound I've heard all week, other than her lovely moans when she orgasms.
No. Think about contracts. Sewage. Anything but getting a cockstand in my mother-in-law's yoga class.
"Now!" Marie announces. "Heart pose!"
"We usually save that for experienced couples," Hemlock warns, but Marie waves her off.
"Everyone here is experienced in love."
Corrine shoots Agnes an endearing look and gets elderly laser beams in return.
"I'm experienced in regret," Declan mutters.
Heart pose is back to back, arms linked, leaning outward to form a heart shape. Amy and I position ourselves. Her back presses to mine, arms linking. I can feel her breathing.
"I hate your mother," Amy whispers.
"Ma mother? Mum is back in Scotland, no doubt trying baby kilts on the neighbor's dog."
"Your mother. My mom. She's yours now, too. Community property."
We lean. At first, it works, but then my brace protests with a sharp, high squeak.
Every head turns. Hemlock winces.
The brace squeaks again, louder, as if it's laughing at me. We wobble. The wobble becomes a slow-motion topple, arms intertwined, going down in a tangled heap of limbs, mats, and dignity. My brace squeaks again on impact.
"That's the most effort I've seen a man put into romance since 1968!" Corrine shouts.
"Get up, you're crushing my aura," Agnes grouses.
"This is so beautiful," Amanda says, laughing through tears.
"You said that last night about a car insurance commercial," Andrew mutters.
"Because it was!" She sniffs, and Andrew shoots me a look like a cornered animal.
Amy and I right ourselves, and Marie claps the class to a close.
"Beautiful work, everyone! Namaste! Please hydrate and stay for tea!"
As people roll up mats, Hemlock moves between couples with final adjustments and breathing tips. Marie catches my eye and beckons me and Amy toward the hallway, vibrating with purpose.
"I have someone for you to meet," she says, keeping her voice low. "She came at the end of class specifically for this. Her name is Coyote Sundial."
Amy closes her eyes slowly and breathes with great intention through her nose.
"Mom. Did you tell her I wanted this?"
Marie's desperation is immediate. "I—well—she's here! The baby is breech! I did what I thought was best!"
Coyote appears in the hallway. She looks shockingly down to earth. Stretchy golf pants and a tan half-zip. Closely cropped hair, nearly shaven. A tattoo under her left earlobe. No makeup. Big blue eyes and a long, sloped nose.
"Hi, Amy." She offers her hand. "Marie told me about your baby being breech. I can't make any promises, but I'd love to help. Have you heard of the Arvigo technique? Mayan abdominal massage?"
She assesses Amy the way my physical therapist, Brandi, does. Those of us who use our bodies for work have a certain kind of eye, and this woman has it, too.
"No," Amy says. "Mom didn't mention this."
"It's a surprise!" Marie chirps.
Coyote turns to Marie, brows lowered. "You told me Amy asked for me."
"I did not," Amy says.
"I'm the baby's grandmother! I did what I thought was best!"
Coyote looks back at Amy. "It's your call. You're the mom, not her."
Amy swallows, and tears fill the bottom of her eyes. Something shifts in her face, the armor cracking.
"I want to feel better. Please help me."
Shannon catches my eye from the hallway.
Amy asking for help is as unthinkable as Marie admitting she talks too much about her sex life.
My sister-in-law and I marvel at it silently as Coyote and Amy walk toward the back room.
Coyote motions for me to follow. Amy sits on the edge of a small massage table, round belly resting on her thighs, her face more relaxed than I've seen it in a while.
Coyote talks to her in a calm, soothing tone.
"I can help you release tension, Amy, specifically tension in your uterus and abdominal organs, and get blood, lymph, and energy flowing. By aligning the pelvis and the sacrum, we can restore blood flow and hopefully get your baby turned head down. Is this what you want?"
"Of course." Amy nods, eyes glistening.
"Then I need express consent. Nothing I do needs to be invasive, but I need to know you want this, because if your body hesitates, it will make this less likely to work. You know your baby and your body better than anyone else. What does your body say?"
Tears pool, fat and full, rolling off Amy's bottom lashes.
"Amy," I murmur, going to her, hand on her shoulder. "Dinna cry, pet. It'll all be fine."
"Go ahead and cry," Coyote corrects me, eyes on Amy, but the way she blinks is for me. "Let your body do what it knows to do when you feel what you feel."
Her words are right, and I feel worse for being so wrong.
"Cry all ye want, Amy. I'm so sorry. I'm a numpty, and I didna mean ta hurt ye."
Amy chuckles through tears. Coyote smiles.
"I want my baby to come into the world head first, with her dad in the room, holding her, cutting the cord, being there to kiss me as we meet her. Not breech in an OR, with a sheet blocking me from seeing her and my organs laid out like a buffet."
"That's a very specific image. May I?" Coyote places her hands on Amy's belly, and I swear I can hear a supernatural hum fill the air.
While I may be a numpty about many things, I definitely know what physical prowess looks like, and Coyote possesses it.
It's an honor to watch people at peak performance, whether in sports, music, art, or this.
She's not just touching Amy to find the status of my daughter in her mother's womb.
Each slide of her palms is a survey, mapping the terrain inside.
All of the ways her splayed hands find connection with Amy's uterus, the fluid, the baby—the whole of my wife as a mother—turns this Arvigo maneuver into something nearly holy.
For the next several minutes, Coyote has Amy move into new positions and stretches her, hands guiding. Each movement makes Coyote reassess and adjust, an inner rubric determining what comes next.
Amy's breathing changes. Not dramatic, but something almost imperceptible quiets. The rhythm of her inhale slows, steadies, and her exhale comes out long and thin, like thread being pulled from a spool.
I know that shift. On the pitch, there's a moment when a player stops fighting the play and starts feeling it. The muscles loosen, the jaw unclenches. The body stops bracing for what might happen and starts moving with what is happening. It's surrender, but not the weak kind.
It's the kind that wins matches.
Amy's shoulders drop half an inch. Then a full inch. Her hands, which were gripping the edge of the table, open and go flat.
Coyote works with her palms spread wide, fingers splayed, applying slow, rhythmic pressure.
She starts at the top of Amy's abdomen, just beneath the ribs where our daughter's head is lodged, and her hands move in long, sweeping arcs down and outward, following the curve of Amy's belly with a manual precision Vince would respect.
"Breathe into the space I'm creating," Coyote murmurs. "Don't direct the breath. Just notice where it goes."
She uses the heels of her palms to press firmly on either side of Amy's lower belly, then her fingertips trace the outline of the uterus itself, guiding it, not forcing.
Her thumbs find the crease where Amy's hip meets her abdomen and she holds steady pressure there, both thumbs sinking in while her fingers cup the sides of Amy's pelvis.
"I'm working the uterine ligaments," she explains. "When they're tight or torqued, the uterus can't move freely. Neither can baby. If I release the tension here, we can create space."
She shifts Amy onto her left side, one pillow between her knees, another under her belly. She works the sacrum now, firm circles with the heel of her hand on Amy's lower back, and I see a ripple travel across Amy's belly.
The baby moves.
Not a kick. A slow, rolling shift, something heavy turning underwater.
Coyote's hands follow it, steady and unhurried, palms tracking the movement with an athlete's reflexes, adjusting, recalibrating, never losing contact.
"That's it," Coyote murmurs. "Good girl. Take your time."
I don't know if she's talking to Amy or the baby, and it doesn't matter.
Joy hits me. Not the manufactured kind I've been performing for cameras and family. Real joy. I have not felt this in a very long time.
Somewhere between the blown knee, the contract negotiations, and the midnight worries about being a da, I stopped radiating happiness and started performing it. I've been doing a very good impression of a happy man.
And the real thing left me, quiet as a cat.
I didn't notice until right now, watching my wife go boneless under the hands of a stranger while my chest cracks open.
Coyote works for another few minutes, hands slower now, gentler. Amy breathes. I breathe. The baby moves again, another long, slow, unmistakable roll.
"Fear is renewable," Coyote says after a moment. "There is an unlimited supply. The world manufactures it around the clock. You will never run out of things to be afraid of."
Amy huffs out a laugh, wet and wobbly.
"So the question isn't whether you'll have fear again.
You will. Tonight. Tomorrow. During labor.
When the baby is two and climbs on the kitchen counter.
Fear will find you." Her hand moves in one slow circle.
"But right now, you can give yourself a gift.
Let go of the fear you're holding. Not forever, just for now. "
She turns to me. "And you're not allowed to pick it up, either, no matter how much you pretend to be strong enough to absorb it all."
I laugh, sharp and sudden.
Coyote presses gently, fingertips finding something. She moves her hands lower, to a spot just above Amy's pubic bone, and holds.
Her eyebrows lift by a fraction.
"What?" Amy asks.
"Head down."
"What?"
"Your baby is head down. She turned."
Amy's face does three things quickly. Shock bleaches it white, but color floods back. Then her chin trembles and the tears come, making her chest heave.
I gather her hands and press my forehead to her belly. I can feel the difference, the baby lower, in the right place.
Aligned.
"Oh, God," Amy chokes. "Oh, my God."
"Don't tell anyone out there yet," Coyote says seriously. "This is your moment. Yours and Amy's and the baby's. Tell them on your own terms."
Amy nods, tears streaming, and reaches for Coyote's hand.
"Thank you. 'Thank you' is too small for what I feel."
I'm fumbling for my wallet. "How much? Name it. Double it. Triple. Ye just—" My voice catches. "Ye just gave us everything."
"I'll bill you." Coyote waves my wallet off. "I know who you are, Hamish. I watched you play Sunderland in 2019. The second-half hat trick after you were down two-nil. My wife screamed so loud, the dog ran into the glass door."
"Ye watched that match?"
"I watch every match. I played in college. Goalkeeper. Middlebury." She shrugs. "Now I do this instead. Different kind of goal."
A goalkeeper. Of course. Those hands.
"Take care of yourself," she tells Amy. "Drink water. Rest tonight. Do the exercises Dr. Biswas gave you."
She walks out casually with a wave, as if she hasn't just performed a miracle.
Amy presses both palms to her belly. I wrap my arms around her, careful, firm, my chin on her head, and she shakes against me.
"She's head down," Amy whispers. "Hamish. She turned."
"Aye, pet. She did."
A knock on the door. Marie's face appears, bright and utterly unable to read a room.
"Well? Did it work? Did the baby turn? I knew Coyote could do it! I told you—"
"Amy's tired, Marie," I say, steady and truthful. "I'm takin' her home ta rest."
"But—"
"She needs rest," I repeat, gentle and final. "We'll call ye tomorrow."
Marie stands in the doorway, vibrating with questions, and to her credit, nods once.
"Take care of my baby," she says, voice small.
"Always," I tell her.
Amy slides off the table and I keep my arm around her as we walk down the hallway, past the yoga room where Shannon and Declan are collecting their things, past Andrew and Amanda whispering near the cubbies, past Agnes asleep in a chair and Corrine poking her shoulder, past the fairy lights and the words LIVE LAUGH LOOSEN on the wall.
Nobody stops us.
The outdoor air hits us, warm enough to project a force greater than us all. Amy turns to me and puts both hands on my face, palms on my jaw.
"I'm happy," she says.
Two words. No checklist or contingency plan.
Just happy.
Something clicks back into place, something I lost on the pitch when my knee gave way and took my old life with it. It's not the same as before. It's not the happiness of a man who doesn't know any better.
It's the happiness of a man who does.
"Aye, pet. So am I."
She kisses me in the parking lot, slow and sure, her belly pressed between us, our daughter now head down and ready. When Amy pulls back, her eyes are bright and fierce and mine.
"Take me home," she says.
"Wi' pleasure," I answer, opening her door. We pull out of the lot into a May evening that is gorgeous and green and full of whatever comes next.
Head first.