Chapter 280

I pant a little, feeling the next contraction coming on – shit, are they supposed to move this fast? – and I grope for Gio’s hands even as I keep my eyes trained on Janeen.

“Fay, you have to pay attention –“ Gio commands, his face stern.

I send him a quick glancing glare. “Shut up, Gio,” I growl –

And to my shock, he does, clenching my hands in his but falling silent.

I turn my eyes back to my sister as my mother’s black hood is removed, as her eyes dart around to take in everyone in the room –

My husband and his boyfriend on either side of her, holding her fast.

The father of my child, the man she thought she was negotiating with for the past half-hour, looking at her sternly without an ounce of pity in his eyes.

Her daughter, panting and pale on the couch, clearly in labor with her first child, a stranger holding her hands.

Until finally, my mother’s eyes move to the beautiful young woman standing in front of her, her purple hair spilling around her shoulders.

I watch Janeen closely, my heart breaking for her too.

Because…I mean, at one point, this woman was her mother as well. Or at least, she pretended to be.

“Do you know who I am?” Janeen asks quietly.

My mother stares at her for a long moment before she slowly nods, just once.

Janeen studies her, her face blank.

And then, quick as a snake, Janeen’s hand flies through the air, her palm slapping hard across my mother’s cheek with a loud smack.

I can hear my mother groan as her head snaps to the side.

“Fuck you,” Janeen growls, her voice shaking with her vehemence. “Fuck you for what you did to that girl,” she continues, pointing a finger towards me. “For abandoning her. She is perfect, and it was the biggest mistake of your life, choosing to live it away from her side.”

Janeen’s chin lifts now and tears spring to my eyes, because I know my sister – I can see it in the way her lips press to a thin line, the way she sets her shoulders, that she’s determined not to let my mother see her cry. “And fuck you for me too. And for dad – you abandoned us as well, when we loved you. And for that, you deserve whatever’s coming your way.”

Janeen steps back then, her shoulders shaking a little with the effort it takes to hold it together. My mother raises her head then, looking one last time at Janeen’s face, her eyes…unreadable.

“I’m done,” Janeen says, nodding to Daniel. “Do…whatever it is you were going to do. I am done.”

Janeen turns on her heel, stalking away, moving back towards Gio and I as Jerome puts the bag back over my mother’s head, Kent quickly ushering orders for which car to take and how to drive.

I hear Janeen asking Gio what she can do, Gio telling her again to go get towels, Janeen’s footsteps moving away. But even as the next contraction hits me with a wave of pain, all I can see is my mother’s red hair disappearing beneath the black bag –

Her slim shoulders, hunched now with fear, as Daniel and Jerome lead her towards the door –

The shape of her as she disappears through it –

Disappears from my life –

And I gasp in pain and…I don’t know. Horror? Shock? As I realize that this is absolutely the last time I’ll ever see my mother again.

Tears drip from my eyes as Gio turns me towards him, trying to coach me through some breathing as the pain steadily grows in my back, my sides, my abdomen, in my bones as the baby shifts, moving lower, getting ready –

But I can’t - I can’t concentrate –

Because…how do I feel about this? Should I be devastated, should I be clinging to this moment, remembering the way she looked as she’s lead away?

Or…am I just mourning her twice? Wasn’t she dead to me already? Am I just mourning a ghost? Because that woman…

God, was she even my mother?

Sobs break from me as the pain starts to subside, and suddenly I realize that Kent is on my other side, turning me so that I can lean against his chest. I rest my head against him, panting, dazed.

“Is she all right?” I hear him ask Gio, his voice frantic with worry as I blink, trying to focus my eyes.

“She’s exhausted, zio, emotionally and physically,” Gio murmurs, and as I lean against Kent I see him shaking his head, frustrated and worried. “Come on, Fay,” Gio murmurs, “we need to move you to the floor…”

I nod, scootching myself sideways off the couch and leaning against Kent, letting him take my weight as Gio takes my legs and together they lower me to the living room floor. Janeen’s already there, I realize, spreading out towels. The puppy jumps up against my knee, also worried, and I reach out a passive hand to pat him – wanting to comfort the poor thing even as my mind is elsewhere.

“Janeen,” I murmur, turning towards her.

“It’s fine, sister,” she says, reaching out and brushing my cheek with her fingers. We both turn our heads as we hear a siren on the road – close enough to be just outside the gate.

“Go and open it, Janeen,” Gio orders, his voice clipped. “And please take this dog – it will not leave Fay alone –“

I watch as Janeen nods, scooping the puppy up into her arms as she runs for the door, pressing the buttons that will open the gate and let the ambulance in.

I look up at Kent, worried, in a great deal of pain – not really understanding, anymore, in my physical and emotional exhaustion, what precisely is happening –

Kent shakes his head at me, worried as hell, fear written all over his face and flooding his eyes.

“Fay!” Gio says, snapping his fingers in front of my face and drawing my gaze forward to where he kneels between my knees. “You have to pay attention, now, all right? It is almost time to push.”

My eyes go wide.

What?

Are we – are we seriously there already?

Gio nods to me. “Your labor is proceeding very quickly, Fay,” he says, his voice steady. “It’s time now. You have to be strong.” Behind me, I hear Janeen opening the front door and a great deal of commotion as she directs whoever it is to the living room, where I’m leaning back against Kent, who kneels on the floor behind me.

Shakily, I nod, doing my very best to pull myself back together, to focus on this.

Because this – this is the last part –

Everything else is done, and now – if I can just get through this –

“Hey,” Kent snaps, and instinctually I turn my head up, looking up into his face. “You can do this, Fay,” he says, nodding to me, forcing his expression to change – now filled with warmth and determination and love. “You’re not going to fall apart on me now, right? Not after all of this.”

I stare at him for a long moment, honestly considering it, and then I nod, even as a team of paramedics come forward, murmuring questions to Gio in Italian. He begins to explain, but I ignore them all.

“Time for the baby, Kent,” I whisper, a tremulous little smile coming to my lips.

“This is the worst shit you’ve ever pulled,” he murmurs to me, a little smirk on his own face now as he presses a kiss to my hair, “lying to me about being in labor for twenty-four hours just to get your way?”

“Well, I knew you couldn’t be mad,” I sigh, “if I gave you a baby at the end of it all.”

Kent barks a harsh laugh and settles his body more completely behind mine, pulling me back a little. I let him take all of my weight behind me as a paramedic kneels next to me and apologizes quietly before pulling my dress up and wrapping some kind of medical strap around my belly – something to monitor the baby, I guess - but I don’t really have the energy to think about it.

Because then the next contraction hits.

Gio consults for a moment with a woman kneeling next to him, who nods. Then he turns to me.

“All right, Fay,” he says, his eyes steady and confident. “It’s time for you to push.”The pain is more intense than anything I’ve ever experienced to this point in my life – so much so that I’m barely able to focus on anything else. But somewhere, beyond it all, I hear and obey Gio’s steady commands to push, and feel Kent’s hands tight around mine.

I push and push when I’m told to, following Gio’s calm counts of ten with breaths in between. There are gaps, too, when the pain lessens, when I’m not contracting –

But they’re brief, and then the pain comes again, and I push.

But, like everything towards the end of this labor, everything happens very, very fast.

And quite suddenly, as I give a guttural yell alongside one final push…

There’s a sudden lessening of the pain and the stressed tension on my lower half –

And the sound of a little baby’s cry fills the air.