Epilogue
My head hurts. I think my horns are coming in.
—Iris to Magnolia
MAGNOLIA
“This. Fucking. Hurts!”
Beau kept hold of my hand, unfazed by the yelling, screaming, and blood.
At this point in our relationship, I wasn’t sure that anything really affected him.
He was a rock.
Hell, when Iris had to have her head stitched shut, I’d been woozy and ready to pass out while he’d held her hand while blood dropped on his shoulder since she wouldn’t move away from him long enough to get the stitches.
I may be a nurse, but there was just something about seeing your child dripping their blood that threw me for a loop…
He hadn’t flinched when I’d broken my arm in the last game of the regular season, and it’d been bent like an L halfway between my forearm.
But childbirth? That seemed to rock him.
He was a little green as he held my hand and talked me through contraction after contraction.
Merrill was also in the room, watching with fear in her eyes.
Mostly because in six months, she and Lysander would also be welcoming a child into the world.
Our child, however, hadn’t really come as a surprise.
We’d known what would happen if we kept having unprotected sex.
Though, we hadn’t found out that we were expecting until four months before our baby boy was due.
It came as a shock, but we were both excited.
Now, the look of fear on Beau’s face didn’t make him look as excited as he’d been on the way into the hospital.
Another contraction hit, and I could no longer look at Beau’s beautiful face.
I screamed and went back into child’s pose, my heart in my throat.
I heard something hard hit the floor as the doctor said, “Head’s out!”
I looked to the side and found Beau’s belly blocking my view.
“What was that?” I panted.
Beau’s voice was amused as he said, “You just saved the student doctor from choosing the wrong career.”
“What?” I moaned, feeling the next contraction start to ramp up again.
He stepped aside, and the med student who’d been so damn cocky earlier about “knowing what to do” was lying on the ground with not a single soul helping him.
I would’ve laughed had I not been in so much pain.
Stupid fucking epidurals.
I really wanted one.
I’d planned this all out. I’d go into labor, and I’d go into the hospital demanding that I get an epidural stat.
Only, the hospital had been short-staffed because, well, one of their main anesthetists—me—had called in to work that day.
Imagine that.
So I’d had to labor without an epidural because for some fucking reason, the labor ward was booming. It wasn’t even a full moon!
“Whoa,” Merrill said. “Do you feel that?”
“I feel fucking everything.” I groaned as what felt like a bowling ball finally slipped free of me.
“He’s out,” Beau murmured, his hand smoothing down my ass.
Long moments later, everyone was flipping me back to my back, and I had a squirmy, screaming, covered-in-vernix baby placed on my chest.
Iris would’ve shit a brick, which had me laughing.
“What?” Beau asked as he smoothed my hair out of my face.
How it’d slipped the braid, I didn’t know. But the last few hours had been a torturous whirlwind that I hoped that I never remembered.
I wanted more kids, and I needed to forget this birth before I considered having anymore.
“Just thinking of Iris, and what she would say to this ‘gross, screaming baby.’”
His lips curved up at the edges. “She’ll love him, baby.”
I knew she would.
Even if she had to wear headphones around him to get away from the crying.
She’d adore him, no matter what she had to put up with.
Long moments later, after our baby boy was weighed and cleaned up, he was back in my arms.
Beau went to the waiting room to deliver the news to our friends and family.
Meanwhile, Merrill stayed behind.
“He’s so beautiful,” Merrill cooed as she looked into our boy’s slightly upturned eyes.
He had parts of me—his eyes and lips as well as his skin color—but the rest was all Beau.
His beautiful brown hair and pale-amber eyes. The shape of his face, and his long fingers and toes.
Merrill and Lysander finally got their heads out of their asses where the other was concerned. Two months ago, Merrill had moved into Lysander’s place. They’d had a weird but exciting relationship that had them both deeply, madly in love. Oh, and no longer working together per company policy.
They’d spent one too many long nights together in the back of the hospital, which had resulted in their relationship starting the hard way.
Beau appeared with Lysander and his mom, and I happily gave my bundle over so that I could pull my husband into my arms. “How’d it go?”
He pulled back with a shrug. “I don’t know.”
It just so happened that I went into labor on the day that Able McDuff was to be sentenced for the crimes that he’d committed against me.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to be there. But I’d recorded my testimony for the prosecutor to play to the jurors.
“I do,” Lysander said. “Sentenced fully on all counts. He’ll be in for at least twelve years.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Good.”
Tiny booted footsteps sounded, and then we were all turning toward the door to find Iris making her way inside, a stuffed plane in her hands.
She walked up to me, Nettie waving from the doorway to let us know that she was leaving.
Iris stopped at the side of the bed and stared at her new baby brother in Lysander’s arms.
She frowned. “Mine.”
Lysander grinned. “Yours?”
She gestured to the bed. “Put him down, I want to see him.”
Lysander complied with a grin on his face.
Iris placed the stuffed plane next to his head and said, “This is for you. Don’t lose it. It’s going to be important when you learn to fly.”
I felt like my grin was about to split my face.
“Now, let’s talk about the decibels of your screams.”
Turns out, Iris loved her baby brother.
Screams and all.