Mourning Wood

by Heather M. Orgeron

  Gretta’s face scrunches with uncertainty. “Are you sure? No offense,” she says, glancing toward me, “but most grown men can’t even handle it without getting weak.”

  I choke on a laugh. My grandmother gave us the same speech in the car this morning during the drive to the hospital—cited all the reasons her favorite granddaughter ought to hang out with her and Marie in the waiting room. It’s actually quite funny, the way she insists on treating her like a delicate flower, knowing damn well that kid is tough as nails. Mimi can’t get enough of that little girl, Whitney either. The woman calls her more than me now. I’m sure that will only increase with the birth of the new baby.

  “Listen, I drain and embalm bodies for a living,” Prissy sasses, whipping her head so her ponytail swishes side to side. “I think I can handle watching a baby come outta a vagina.” She tugs the lapels of her leather jacket, sucking her tongue to her teeth like a total badass.

  Whitney shakes her head, grinding her molars, while I have to turn away to keep from laughing. I find myself doing that a lot. “We own a funeral home,” she explains, pinching the bridge of her nose. “She doesn’t actually embalm the bodies, but she’s assisted countless times and will be just fine.” She dips her head back toward me. “He’s the one you should be concerned about.”

  I nod, not even pretending otherwise. “It’s true.”

  With a laugh, the middle-aged woman makes for the door. “Sounds like y’all have this all figured out. Be back in a jiff,” she says before rushing down the hall.

  “This is it,” I say, beginning to pack up Prissy’s snacks. “Time to meet my son!”

  “Daughter,” Prissy challenges.

  “What’re you doing?” my wife asks, eying me curiously. “You aren’t going anywhere.”

  “Putting her food in the bags so it doesn’t get splashed on.”

  “What the hell do you think’s about to happen in here?” she guffaws. “If blood splatters into that back corner, we’re in big trouble.”

  “Just seemed like the right thing to do.”

  “The right thing to do would be to get your sexy hiney over here and give me a kiss.”

  “Ugh,” our child groans. “Not again…”

  I’ve barely slipped my tongue between her parted lips when a team of medical people storm into the room.

  “Gonna need you to back away for a minute, sir.”

  I move to stand by Prissy, watching with rapt fascination as huge spotlights descend from the ceiling and her bed is broken into pieces. Whitney’s legs are placed into stirrups and a tray with all sorts of tools is wheeled in. There are people in scrubs fluttering around the room, setting up the baby warmer and some tarp contraption under Whit’s bottom.

  “Ooooh!” Prissy squeals, squeezing my biceps as the room begins to look a little more like the stuff she watches on ER. “This is gonna be so frickin’ cool!”

  “Just what I was thinking.” Not at all what I was thinking.

  “Dad?” a nurse I haven’t met yet calls, waving me over. “You can come stand on this side. You’re gonna help hold her leg back like this,” she says, bringing Whitney’s knee to her chest. “She’s numb from the epidural, so she won’t be able to do it on her own.”

  I nod, feeling self-important. “I think I can manage that.”

  “Perfect.” She smiles at me while walking around to the other side of the bed. “I’ll just be over here.”

  “Cool deal.” I’ve so got this. Best delivery coach ever, comin’ atcha!

  “Oh, and see that mirror?” she points between Whitney’s legs. “That’s so you can watch what’s happening without actually being down there. “If you start to feel sick, just don’t look.”

  “Got it.” My skin starts to tingle. It feels like little pin pricks all over my body, and my breathing becomes shallow as I rub my wife’s arm, trying to comfort her wondering who the hell’s gonna comfort me. Now that we’re so close I feel like I’m starting to hyperventilate.

  “Where do I go?” Prissy asks, pacing like a lost puppy.

  “You can stand by your dad,” Gretta offers, forcing a smile. She’s obviously still not too keen on the idea of her remaining in the room. “If it’s too much, just go sit back in your chair, okay, honey?”

  “Hear that, Dad?” Prissy taunts. “If it gets too much, just go sit in that chair.”

  Whitney snorts. “Behave, Priscilla Louise.”

  “Yes ma’am.” She glues herself to my side, curiously taking in everything going on around us.

  “On the next contraction, we’re going to start pushing,” Gretta announces, rolling herself on the little stool to between Whit’s legs. “Once we get the baby to crown, Doc’ll come in to deliver.”

  “Okay,” my girl says, squeezing my hand with nervous excitement, while the nurses’ heads all whip in the direction of the machine that measures the contractions. “You ready?” Whitney’s eyes meet with mine. She’s glowing with excitement.

  I nod. “This is it,” I say, with a knot lodged right in the center of my throat. “We’re really about to have a baby.” I take a deep breath and twist my head side to side, cracking my neck, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze before I too focus on the monitor—my heartrate climbing with the mounting contractions. I swear it’s like the thing is directly connected to my pulse.

  “Did y’all know…” Oh, shit. My stomach drops. “Approximately seven hundred women die every year in the US alone from pregnancy and delivery complications?”

  Gretta and the leg-holding nurse both gape at our child in stunned disbelief.

  “You’ve really gotta stay off the damn YouTube,” Whitney says, laughing nervously. She reaches to scruff Prissy’s head. “It’s gonna be okay, baby.”

  “Just don’t be a statistic, Momma.” The worry in her little voice is gut-wrenching. And that’s what her ill-timed comment comes down to—She’s scared. It’s what all her morbid death knowledge stems from.

  “No plans to, baby.” My girls share a tearful embrace before the chaos begins.

  “Here it comes,” Gretta announces, as everyone scurries into position. “Let’s see if we can get this baby to come down.”

  On her command, Whitney bears down, apparently that means to curl into a sit up and clench every muscle in her body, including the ones in her fingers that are damn near cutting off my circulation. It’s okay, though. I’ll deal. Losing a few digits is a small price to pay to ease her discomfort.

  “You’re doing so good, love,” I croon. She’s been pushing for a solid forty minutes and is running out of steam.

  “I can’t do this,” my beautiful wife cries, falling back onto the pillow.

  “You’re doing so well,” the leg nurse, whom I’ve just learned is named Harloe, encourages. “Won’t be long now.” She places an oxygen mask over her face. “Just breathe.”

  “Baby’s right there,” Gretta announces, sliding over for Dr. Andrews to take her place.

  “You’re doing great, Whitney,” the doctor praises. “We’re going to push real hard through the next few contractions. No breaks. Push to ten. One big breath, and immediately go into the next one.”

  “I can’t,” she wails. She’s dripping in sweat and the whites of her eyes are red from straining so hard.

  “Can’t is just a state of mind, Momma,” Prissy argues. “Now, you just bear down and push my sister out!”

  That little pep talk seems to light a fire in her ass. “Okay,” Whit sighs, drying her eyes and sucking air from the mask.

  The next few pushes are so intense I’m tempted to borrow the oxygen for myself. This is some hard work, and I’m not even doing anything.

  “Look at her hair!” Prissy screams. “My sister has hair.”

  “Brother,” I grunt, while petting my wife’s damp hair off her face.

  “The head is out,” Dr. Andrews exclaims. When I glance up to the mirror all I see is her shoving a snot bulb down the baby’s throat, suctioning fluid out. “Give m
e one more push. On three…”

  Before she’s gotten to two, the baby slithers out right into the doctor’s waiting arms, and Prissy folds over, gagging.

  “Really, Priss?” Whitney collapses into the bed, heaving for breath, while craning her neck to try to see the baby. “It’s just blood.”

  “Nuh-uhn,” my daughter grumbles, still retching. “You—”

  I clamp a hand over her mouth, giving her a very severe look that thankfully Whitney doesn’t notice, as she’s become too focused with what’s going on at the foot of the bed.

  “Congratulations, you have a beautiful baby boy!”

  “A boy.” I press a kiss to my wife’s forehead. “Whit, we have a son.” Tears fall unchecked between us while I kiss her cheeks, her forehead, her lips. “You were amazing,” I say, meaning it with every beat of my heart.

  When we break apart, Prissy is just standing there, arms crossed, glaring at me. Lord, that girl hates to be wrong.

  The very petty side of me wants to stick out my tongue and gloat. Of course, I don’t. I want her to love him, not see him as a bet she lost. “Look at him, Priss.” I wrap my arm around her shoulders, leading her to where to doctor is waiting for me to cut the cord. “You wanna do it?” I ask in a split-second decision, hoping it’ll help her bond to her new brother.

  “Really?”

  I nod. “Go for it…I’ll get the next one.”

  I feel my wife’s glare before her words meet my ears. “Over my dead body.”

  Curious about the fateful night on Bourbon Street that started it all? Click here to download a special bonus scene, THE DUMPSTER.

  PREVIEW OF TAKE TWO

  Nya

  Déjà vu

  A beam of light streams in through the window, stabbing me right in my barely opened eye. Jackhammers pound inside my head as I squint, peering around the room to take in my surroundings: a king-sized bed with plush white linens, gaudy chandelier, a wall of windows with thick, gold damask drapes pulled back on each end.

  What the hell am I doing at a hotel?

  A loud snore sounds, nearly scaring me right out of my tingling skin. To my left is a hard body, enveloped in billion-thread-count sheets, facing away from the offending window. That back—those sinewy shoulders and sculpted muscles—I’d recognize anywhere.

  “Liam?” I whisper, forcing myself not to run a hand through his tapered hair, to touch my finger to the little mole right at the edge of his hairline. It was once my favorite spot to kiss.

  What. The. Fuck? This can’t be happening. Not again.

  Groggy and disoriented, I attempt to roll off the bed to relieve my screaming bladder and rid myself of the dragon breath that only comes after a night of hard partying. One I can’t seem to remember. But I can’t move. Reaching beneath the comforter to investigate what’s weighing me down, I come up with my hands filled with layer upon layer of satin and tulle. What the hell?

  “A wedding dress?” I screech, panic welling in my throat as my heart damn near leaps from my chest. No way.

  Suddenly the mound of man muscle shifts my direction. With a dreamy smile, his large hand creeps across the bed, reaching for mine. The smell of last night’s cologne wafts into the air, threatening to weaken my resolve. Holding my breath, refusing to be distracted, I scoot to the edge of the bed. Has he lost his damn mind? Has this idiot forgotten that we’ve been over since our now-preteen daughter was barely walking?

  Well, mostly over. There was that one time…but that was a mistake we swore to never speak of again. At any rate, we’ve proven that me, alcohol, and my ex-husband are not a good mix. The situation is one I try to avoid at all costs.

  “’Morning, wife!” Liam stretches his arms above his head, winking a sleepy blue eye my way. His caramel-colored hair is sticking up in all directions, only serving to make the insufferable man more irresistible. He looks…well…well fucked.

  Wife. That curse has me scrambling to my feet, lugging fifty pounds of dress to the full-length mirror that’s attached to the closet door. Adding to my horror, it’s a dress that only my very extra—and now former—best friend would pick out.

  How could she do this to me?

  “Where is she?” I growl, turning to the side and running my hands along the fitted silhouette. Jesus, I’m thirty-three, not twenty. I look like I’m going to the damn prom.

  “Who?” Liam glances around the room, seemingly confused by my reaction. Most likely by why I’m not already threatening to castrate him.

  “Hannah! Who else? Are there pictures? I swear to God, if there are pictures of me in this thing, I’ll kill you both, and no one will ever find your bodies.”

  My ex-husband snorts. “You wouldn’t do that to Ellie.”

  Our daughter. Ugh. I want to slap that smug look off his too-handsome face.

  “How did this happen?” Please, for the love of God, he’d better tell me we went to a freaking costume party or something, but the sense of déjà vu is just too strong. This room all too familiar. The bustling city, haunting me through floor to ceiling windows, bringing back memories of the biggest mistake of my life. My college boyfriend. An impulse trip to Vegas. A little white chapel. No. No. “No.” I shake my head, moving to the window to stare down at Sin City.

  “Give me six months,” the asshole rasps, sneaking up behind me wearing nothing but a thin pair of cotton boxer shorts. He glides his warm hands around my waist, pulling me flush with his chest. As if he has any right. I gulp hard, swallowing down a lump of regret, because something tells me I gave him that right last night. Liam’s eyes connect with mine in the glass, and I’m finding it hard to breathe. “We owe it to our little girl.”

  Jesus, now he’s using our kid as a weapon. I should move out of his embrace, but I’ve always been putty in his arms. “Does she… does she know?”

  He spins me around to face him, my resolve weakening with every moment spent wrapped in his embrace. “You don’t remember anything, do you?” Liam brushes away the strands of hair blocking his line of sight and studies my eyes.

  Heat blooms in my chest. The smell of alcohol on his breath is oddly arousing. It’s not even fair that he’s been blessed with sexy morning breath, of all things. He’s not at all deserving of such sex appeal. “Please tell me this is a nightmare.” My voice cracks as the enormity of this situation creeps in. “And that I’m going to wake up to Ellie begging for me to make her scrambled eggs or to take her to the skating rink with her friends. Liam, tell me this isn’t happening.”

  “Poker?” he asks, swiping a tear from beneath my right eye with the pad of his thumb. “Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots,” he sings in his best Lil Jon impression. A hopeful smirk curls his lip as he does a little shimmy to the beat. I try like hell not to let him see me ogling his erect penis flopping side to side with his movement.

  Damn him and that appendage, which reduces me to nothing but a puddle of hormones.

  “Oh, dear God, did we?” Nausea pools in my stomach as the face of my boyfriend, Ryder, flashes in my mind.

  “Not yet.” His chiseled brows bounce.

  “This isn’t funny, Liam!” I shove at his chest weakly. “I have a boyfriend.”

  The exasperating man barks out a laugh. “’Fraid to tell ya…but husband trumps boyfriend.”

  How can he be so blasé about this? “There’s no way.”

  “No way, what?” he asks, lifting my hand to rest on his chest. The glint of a familiar diamond shimmers in the light of the morning sun. I’m momentarily distracted by the realization that he kept my ring all these years. My heart wants to soften to him, but the anger at this impossible situation swiftly overpowers the foolish organ.

  “There’s no way I married the same mistake…twice!” I shout, breaking away from him to pace the enormous room.

  “Six months, darlin’,” he repeats, casually dropping the endearment he hasn’t used with me in years, his blue eyes ablaze with hope. “You promised me six months.”

  “Fo
r what?” I ask, panting. “To prove what idiotas we are?”

  A dimple pops out on his left cheek, and I brace myself for his retort. “Nya—” Fuck the way his saying my name makes my vagina twitch and my chest ache! “Babe, I only need about ten minutes to prove what idiots we were…you never did last long.”

  He ducks, just as I send the Bible from the side table flying in his direction. “Fuck you.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping for.”

  Great. I cross my arms on my chest. “You married me for sex?”

  “Now, we both know I didn’t have to marry you for that.”

  Liam

  “Honey, I’m home.”

  “That’s the last of it, man.” My roommate Chance claps me on the back with a shake of his head as I roll down the trailer door. “You sure about this?”

  The adrenaline vibrating through my veins is all the answer I need. “Yep.”

  “Okay, well… good luck.” He eyes me with a shit grin. “Pretty sure you’re gonna need lots of it. I’d come to help unload, but—”

  “Nope. I’m good,” I interrupt, hopping into the driver’s seat, slamming the heavy door behind me. “I got this.” I hang a fist out the window, giving him the old thumbs up, willing myself to feel the confidence I’m trying to display. “Thanks for everything, man.”

  Chance is not only one of my best buds, but also a very sore subject when it comes to Nya. It could have a little something to do with my investing the inheritance I received from my grandfather to go in with him to open a club on the Vegas strip.

  Don’t look at me like that. It seemed like a great idea at the time, to a fresh out of college finance major with tens of thousands of dollars suddenly burning a hole in his bank account. But apparently, those are not the types of decisions a man makes without consulting his new wife. Believe me, I see the error of my ways, hindsight being twenty-twenty and all, but I still lost my girls. I’ve been paying for that stupidity for nearly ten years.