LITMIR.BIZ

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in the least. It was just about doing the job of getting her baby born. Getting through it with both her and the baby safe and well.

       He’d washed his hands thoroughly. And more than once, too.

       He had two stacks of towels ready and another of clean, ironed receiving blankets from the baby’s room. And ice chips. Between contractions, he’d bolted downstairs to the kitchen and gotten them for her, like the book said, so she could keep hydrated.

       Every contraction had been timed and recorded—just in case a miracle happened and Brett showed up before the actual delivery and wanted the numbers on how far her labor had progressed. The contractions kept getting longer and closer together. And while they were happening, Bowie spoke soothingly to her, just like the book said. He comforted her and reassured her, per the instructions.

       She continued to swear a blue streak and scream like it was the end of the world. She also clutched his hand so hard that she almost cut off the circulation to his fingers.

       Now and then, when she wasn’t screaming, when things settled down for a minute or two and Glory closed her eyes and seemed to be dozing, he thought of how he should have been there like this for her and for Johnny, when Johnny came. He thought about how much he’d missed, how many ways he’d gotten it all wrong.

       And then he thought about Wily Dunn. He’d lost Wily only two months ago. The old man had died nice and peaceful in his sleep on the day after Thanksgiving. But if Wily was still around, Bowie knew what he would say about now. That is water under a very big bridge. Let it flow on by, son. ’Cause there sure ain’t no bucket big enough to catch it.

       “Bowie?” Glory squeezed his hand. “Another one. Starting now…”

       He checked the watch on his wrist and then she was screaming and he stopped thinking about all that he’d done wrong—stopped thinking altogether. He said soft, soothing things and told her to take quick, shallow breaths and to go with it. Just go with it and keep on breathing.

       An hour and fifteen minutes after he’d gotten her upstairs, she was all the way down at the end of the bed, her head and shoulders supported by a pile of pillows, her feet on two chairs, knees wide. Bowie knelt on the floor between them. It was the last place he’d ever expected to be on the day he returned to New Bethlehem Flat.

       The top of the baby’s head appeared. Bowie said what the book had told him to say. “Pant, don’t push. Easy, easy…” Glory moaned and panted. She seemed pretty focused now, and she wasn’t even screaming. She did mutter a string of bad words, though, as she blew out quick, short breaths and moaned and swung her head to get the sweaty hair out of her eyes.

       He used his hands—washed again a few minutes before—to apply gentle pressure as the head emerged. The goal, the book said, was to keep the head from popping out suddenly. The faster, the better, Bowie thought. But, hey. He followed the instructions and told himself to be grateful that so far, everything was going pretty much the way the book said, which he took to mean that everything was going okay.

       The head slid free. It was all scrunched up and covered in sticky white stuff. The tiny, distorted mouth opened. But no sound came.

       He reassured Glory. “Good, good,” he said. “Really good.”

       “What does that mean?” she demanded furiously. “Good, good. Hello? That could mean anything.”

       He glanced up into her sweat-shiny face. “It means that so far, we’re doing fine.” And then he was back to business again. Gently, he stroked the sides of the tiny nose and downward toward the neck. And then he went the other way, upward from under the chin, to expel mucus and amniotic fluid from the nose and the mouth. It worked. Slimy, gooey stuff came out.

       “What’s happening?” Glory moaned, straining to see. “Is the baby…”

       “Fine. It’s fine. Shh, now. Shh…”

       “Don’t you shush me, Bowie Bravo.”

       “Shh…” Next, as gently as he could, he took the baby’s sticky head in his two hands. “Okay, Glory. Now. Push!” She stopped griping at him and started grunting and bearing down and he pressed the baby’s head very carefully downward at the same time.

       And it happened. Just like in the book. One shoulder slid out.

       After that, it was all so quick that he didn’t have time to do what the book said. Nature did it for him. The other shoulder slid out. And then the rest of the tiny body came sliding fast in a rush of fluid, so fast he barely had time to catch it, let alone have the receiving blanket ready.

       Glory cried, “My baby, my baby…”

       And he said, “It’s a girl,” and then the tiny little thing opened her mouth and let out a big yelp followed by a long, angry cry. He smiled. Just like her mother, the dark haired little scrap of a thing didn’t hesitate to make her feelings known.

       “Is she…”

       “She’s perfect, Glory. Just perfect, I swear it.” He got a blanket and put the baby on it, still with the cord connected. The book had said not to cut it, to wait for the professionals.

       Bowie was just fine with that. There was also something called the placenta that might or might not be popping out before help came. He sincerely hoped that he might get lucky and not have to deal with that.

       Glory was crying. “Serafina Teodora,” she sobbed. “After Matteo’s mom. Sera. She’s Sera.…” Glory held out her arms. And Bowie put another blanket around the tiny, red, sticky little body, to make sure she stayed warm. And then he lifted her up to give her to Glory.

       But right then, as he levered up on his knees, carefully raising her to put her in Glory’s arms, trying to hand her over without pulling on the cord that still connected her to Glory, he looked down and saw that the baby was staring up at him.

       The little thing was quiet now. Calm. Her eyes watched him so seriously from that tiny, red, old-person face. Her mouth was a round O.

       It was like…she knew him. That little baby knew him.

       And she accepted him, absolutely. Instantly. Unconditionally, unlike her mother and most everyone else in his hometown where he’d never managed to do anything right.

       He, Bowie Bravo, was okay with Sera Rossi, no questions asked.

       And inside him there was a rising feeling, all warm and good. Right then, for that too-brief moment, looking into that baby’s eyes, he could almost believe that everything would come out right.

      Chapter Three

      Glory was crying, the tears sliding along her temples into her already-sweat-soaked hair. “Come on,” she said softly now, still holding out her arms. “Come on, give her to me.”

       Bowie handed Sera over.

       He got up and washed his hands. Returning to the bedroom, he went to the bay window. It was quiet out there, the sky a gray blanket, the street covered in white. The wind had died down and he could see across the river now. Smoke spiraled from the chimneys of the houses over there and people were already outside, shoveling walks, scraping off windshields. “The snow’s stopped,” he said.

       “Ah,” Glory replied, kind of absentmindedly. He looked over and saw she had the baby at her breast and she was stroking the little one’s matted dark hair, smiling a tender, secret, mother’s smile.

       Bowie checked the phone to see if they had a dial tone yet.

       Nothing. Dead air.

       So he went to work mopping up the floor with the towels he had ready. He cleaned up as best he could without making a lot of noise and disturbing the exhausted mom and the tiny girl in her arms.

       Glory asked for some apple juice. “In the fridge, downstairs,” she added softly.

       He went down to get it. The doorbell rang as he was starting

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