Fire and Glass

by Linda Seed

  Daniel hung up and just stood there for a minute, the phone in his hand and a big grin on his face.

  “I can’t believe that just happened,” Lacy said.

  “Me neither. But it did,” he said. And then the reality of it hit him, and he paled. “That could have gone really wrong. The cord. The baby could have—”

  “But she didn’t,” Lacy said. “Because of you, she didn’t.”

  She knew she was supposed to be angry with him. She was angry before all of this happened, so there was no reason she shouldn’t still be angry now. But somehow, all of that had evaporated from the moment Rose had begun to give birth. All of Lacy’s resentments and frustrations, the hurts she’d been clinging to, had vanished into the atmosphere in the presence of the bigger picture, the very balance between life and death.

  It was as though some magical game show wheel marked MIRACLE and TRAGEDY had been spun, and as the studio audience had waited with bated breath, it had come up MIRACLE. Lacy felt profoundly grateful and awed.

  And beyond that, she felt love. Love for Rose, love for the new baby, love for Will. Love for the children she would have one day, for the moment of discovery when they would one day be laid, wailing and new, onto her own chest.

  And she felt love, overwhelming, passionate love for Daniel. He had been magnificent.

  Lacy drove to the hospital with Daniel in the passenger seat. It had seemed like a good idea for her to take the wheel, because Daniel was still a little shaken up. He didn’t say much on the way there; he just sat there with a distant smile on his face, watching the passing landscape on the way to Templeton.

  When they arrived at the hospital, Will was in with Rose and the baby while the doctors checked them out. Over the next hour, people started arriving, most of them bearing flowers and baby gifts: Kate and Jackson, Gen and Ryan, Rose’s mother. Will’s parents would be coming in from Minnesota as soon as they could arrange it.

  Once Rose was settled into a room and was allowed to have visitors, Lacy and Daniel peeked in to find her sitting up in bed with the baby in her arms, looking pale and tired but glowing with happiness.

  Will was sitting in a plastic hospital chair next to Rose, while Rose’s mother bustled around the room, straightening blankets and rearranging the pink plastic pitcher and cup on the tray beside the bed.

  “Come in, come in!” Rose said when she saw the two of them hovering in the doorway. “Come and see her! She’s so beautiful.”

  The baby was swaddled in a cotton hospital blanket, a little knit cap on her head. She still looked a little red and pinched, to Daniel’s eye, but was doubtlessly relieved to be through with her difficult journey into the world. Her eyes were closed and her little lips were pursed, as though she were in deep thought.

  “Congratulations, you guys,” Daniel said. He felt flushed with pleasure, and with the feeling that, at this moment, all possible things were right with the world.

  Will, who looked as though he’d been crying, embraced Daniel and clapped him on the back, as men did.

  “Listen,” he said. “Thank you. Just … thank you. When I think of what could have happened …”

  “It was my privilege, man,” Daniel said. He felt a kind of high, as though he could accomplish anything, as though he’d been chosen by fate or by God—whoever He might be—to bring this new, special person into the world.

  When he and Will pulled apart, Rose’s mother was standing there beside them, looking at Daniel so sternly that he wondered if he were about to get scolded for having seen parts of Rose that he wasn’t intended to see.

  Instead, she reached out, took hold of him, and pulled him into her arms. She was a trim woman, and he could feel the delicate structure of her bones.

  “Daniel,” she said, crisply and in a businesslike tone as she clung to him. “Thank you for taking care of my daughter and my granddaughter. I’m so grateful. I don’t know how I can ever …”

  She broke off, and when she ended the embrace, she turned away and dabbed at her eyes.

  “Aw, come on, Mom,” Rose said. “We’re happy. We’re being happy right now. No crying allowed.”

  Pamela nodded and went back to straightening things that didn’t need straightening.

  “You’ll need help with the baby,” Pamela said to Rose as she bustled about the room. “I can pitch in, of course. I’ll have meals delivered. That little house of yours is not entirely adequate, but I guess it will do.” She clucked her tongue and shook her head. “Of course, this would all be better if you two were married, but—”

  “Oh, we are,” Rose said offhandedly.

  “A baby ought to have parents who are married, but I suppose—”

  “Mom. We are married,” Rose tried again.

  Pamela stopped in midfuss. “What?”

  “We did it a couple of months ago while we were in Vegas,” Will confirmed.

  “But …” Pamela sputtered. “You didn’t … Why didn’t …”

  “We didn’t tell anyone because you’d have been mad that you weren’t there,” Rose said. “But we figured if we waited to tell you until after the baby was born, you’d be so relieved that your grandchild wasn’t born out of wedlock that it would counteract the anger.”

  “Did it work?” Will asked tentatively, looking a little bit scared to hear the answer.

  “But …” Pamela said. “There’s no ring. If you’re married …”

  “Oh, I have one,” Rose said happily. “And it’s gorgeous. But it won’t fit on my finger right now. Bloating,” she explained. “It’s in a drawer at home.”

  “Oh, honey. Congratulations. Twice,” Lacy said, embracing both Rose and the baby at the same time.

  Daniel laughed and reached out to give Will a hearty handshake.

  Pamela’s face reflected a range of emotions before she arranged her features into a neutral expression and nodded once, crisply. “Well, I suppose it did work, then,” she said. “Welcome to the family, William.” She pulled Will into a hug. It was more hugging than she’d done in the past five years combined.

  Daniel and Lacy were about to leave the room to give the family their privacy when Rose said, “Wait. You can’t go yet. You haven’t heard the baby’s name.”

  “Poppy, right?” Lacy said. “I love it.”

  “Poppy Danielle,” Will clarified.

  Daniel froze, feeling gut-punched, but in a good way. “Danielle?”

  “Yup,” Rose confirmed, grinning widely.

  “It was the least we could do,” Will said. “The very least.”

  Everyone else was waiting outside in the hallway in an effort not to overwhelm Rose, Will, and the baby with too many visitors at once.

  Daniel exchanged a round of handshakes with Jackson and Ryan, and hugs with the women, as he and Lacy recounted the events on the side of Highway 46 for everyone’s benefit.

  Once everyone had been caught up and they’d all had a chance to see Rose and the baby, Daniel raked his hands through his hair and said, “Jesus, I need a beer.”

  “You deserve one,” Kate said. “Jackson, go take the man for a beer. We can hang out here.”

  Jackson turned to Ryan. “You coming?”

  Gen shooed him off, and the three of them went into Templeton to look for a bar. They couldn’t find one right away, so they ended up in a sandwich place that also sold beer. They settled into a booth with a pitcher between them, and they had the place pretty much to themselves, as the lunch rush had already passed.

  Daniel, who had missed lunch in all of the excitement, ordered a thick sub and dove into it with the enthusiasm of someone who had earned a good meal. Jackson and Ryan ordered a plate of nachos, and they scooped up chips loaded with beans, cheese, and jalapeños as they rehashed the events of the morning and early afternoon.

  “So, it seems like Lacy’s not mad at you anymore,” Ryan observed. He looked amused as he loaded up another chip with beans and cheese.

  “Man,” Jackson said. “If I’d known all
you had to do to make a woman forgive you is to deliver somebody’s baby, I’d have tried that a long time ago. Would have saved me some trouble.”

  “Ah, I don’t know,” Daniel said. He paused, sandwich in hand. “She’s not mad anymore for now, but I don’t know if it’s gonna stick.”

  Ryan looked at him thoughtfully. “So the problem is, what? Is this still about you not saying you loved her? Which you do, by the way. Obviously.”

  “Yeah, I do,” Daniel admitted. “But it’s more than that. It’s also that I believed all the rumors floating around about her and her ex. And that I wouldn’t talk to her about it.” He shrugged.

  “So why didn’t you talk to her about it, dumbass?” Jackson said with his usual subtle diplomacy. “That’s Woman 101. They like to ‘communicate’ about everything.” He made air quotes with his fingers around the word communicate.

  “Hell, I don’t know,” Daniel said. He was still ravenous, and he took a big bite of his sandwich.

  “I do,” Ryan said.

  He left it at that, until Daniel raised his eyebrows and said, “You wanna let me in on it, then, genius?”

  Ryan leveled his dark brown eyes at Daniel and pointed one finger for emphasis. “You didn’t talk to her about it because of the baggage.”

  “Baggage,” Daniel repeated.

  “Yeah, baggage. Everybody who knows Lacy knows that her dream is to have about a thousand kids. The whole big-family domestic bit. You’re scared shitless, but you can’t admit that, because it would threaten your manhood. So instead, you seize on the first problem that comes along and use that as an excuse to nix the whole thing.”

  “Classic,” Jackson said. “I pulled that maneuver at least two times myself. In my younger days,” he clarified.

  “Well … shit. That makes me sound like a dick,” Daniel said.

  “Makes you sound like a guy who’s going to be single and lonely for a long damn time, with only your dog and your memories to keep you company,” Ryan said.

  Daniel grunted, put down his sandwich, and drank some beer. At the moment, he really needed the beer.

  “What about you guys?” he said. “I mean, you’re both on that path. Marriage. Family. The idea of kids has got to freak you out, right?”

  “Aw, hell no,” Ryan said. “I’d love to have kids. As soon as Gen’s ready, I’m good to go.”

  “Yeah?” Daniel said skeptically.

  “Oh, yeah. I’m a Delaney. We’re all about family. Got to pass on the bloodline and all that. Besides, kids are a hell of a lot of fun. I can’t wait.”

  “And what about you?” Daniel tipped his chin toward Jackson.

  “Well …” Jackson rubbed at the stubble on the side of his face. “Kate and I aren’t there yet. But, yeah, I can see it. I can see us in a few years, married with a couple of kids running around. It sounds good. Really good.”

  Daniel thought about Rose and Will, and how they’d fairly glowed with happiness in the hospital room, a little family unit with nothing but love and possibility in their futures.

  He thought of Lacy, the touch of her hand on his skin, the way she smelled, the way she made him feel every time they were together. The way he felt whole and healed, just being in her presence.

  “I dunno. God.” He shook his head. “It seems like not being with her isn’t an option.”

  “Well, there you go,” Ryan said, as though that settled everything.

  And maybe it actually did.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  While the guys were deconstructing Daniel’s love life over beer and nachos, the women grabbed some coffee at the hospital cafeteria. They sat at a round table in the corner with mediocre coffee that they’d doctored up with sugar and creamer, watching as a steady flow of doctors, nurses, and visitors wandered through with trays of food.

  “You should have seen him,” Lacy said. “He was amazing. He was so calm, like he delivers babies on the side of the road every day.” She shook her head in amazement. “God. I almost fainted when I saw the baby crowning. I literally almost fainted. But Daniel … jeez. I wish you had seen him.”

  Kate looked at Lacy with amusement. “It seems like we’re not mad anymore.”

  Lacy’s shoulders fell. “I kind of still want to be mad. But after that …” She shrugged.

  “Okay, so we’re not mad anymore,” Gen said. “So, what comes next?”

  “I don’t know.” Lacy looked into her coffee cup, avoiding their eyes. “But … he’s the man I want to spend my life with. He didn’t say he loved me, and he didn’t trust me, and he shut me out when he should have talked to me. All of that is still true. But … he’s what I want. I can’t help it. And I guess … I guess he can shut me out or not love me or whatever. I love him, and I’m not going to stop loving him. And he’s who I want. I don’t want anyone else.”

  Lacy felt hot tears come to her eyes, and she swiped them away with her fingertips.

  “Oh, honey.” Kate put her hand on Lacy’s arm. “He’s not where you are yet. But that doesn’t mean he won’t get there.”

  “He’s a man,” Gen said. “Sometimes men are slower with emotional stuff than women are. But that doesn’t mean anything. He may feel all of the same things you do. He might just not be able to say it or understand it yet.”

  “You haven’t been seeing each other all that long,” Kate added. “You know your mind and your heart. For you, it was, This is what I want, and I’m ready to go after it. But Daniel might need a little time to catch up.”

  Suddenly, listening to her friends, Lacy felt a little bit ashamed. Had she been pushing Daniel for too much too soon? Was she expecting more than he could reasonably give so early in the relationship?

  “I never said I wanted to get married and start having kids tomorrow,” she said, defending herself. “I only said that I loved him.”

  “And then felt hurt when he wasn’t ready to say it back, even though you’d only been seeing each other a couple of months,” Gen added.

  Shit. Kate and Gen were right. She was pushing him too hard, too fast. Even as she told herself she wasn’t.

  “So, what do I do now?”

  “Tell him he was magnificent today,” Kate suggested. “Tell him you’re not mad anymore. Then ease off a little and see what he does.”

  “What if he doesn’t do anything?” Lacy tossed her hands skyward in despair. “What if he’s already decided he’s done?”

  “Oh, sweetie, he’s not done. He’s in love,” Gen said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Lacy.” Kate looked at her with meaning. “I know Daniel is in love. Gen knows it. All of the guys know it. The only one who doesn’t know it is Daniel.”

  “And he’ll figure it out,” Gen added. “You just need to sit back and let him.”

  Lacy reflected that it was so much easier with Zzyzx. All she’d had to do was lure him with some Funyuns. If only men were so uncomplicated.

  Lacy went to Daniel’s house that night intending to talk. But as it turned out, they didn’t do much talking.

  He opened the door and saw her, and he pulled her into his arms. They made love once in his bedroom, and then, because the night was unseasonably mild, on a blanket spread out over plush, green grass, beneath a canopy of sparkling stars.

  Afterward, when she was tucked up against him under a quilt in the cool night air, feeling his heartbeat beneath her cheek, he said, “I love you, too. I did before, I just didn’t know how to say it.”

  The sounds of the words sent a warm calm through her, a sense of everything being just as it should be.

  “I’m just not sure I’m ready for … everything,” he said.

  “I can wait,” she told him, her arms wrapped around him, his body warm against hers. “For you, I can wait. As long as it takes.”

  A light breeze rippled through the trees above them.

  “I won’t make you wait too long,” he said.

  The way it happened was unexpected, at least for Daniel.<
br />
  He was visiting Rose, Will, and the baby about a week after the birth. He didn’t want to be a burdensome guest, given all that Rose and Will had on their hands, so he’d brought a takeout dinner from Neptune that Jackson had put together for the new parents. Daniel’s plan was to drop off the food, see the baby, and go.

  He’d arrived at just the wrong moment—or maybe it was the right one.

  The baby was screaming, and the house was in chaos. Dirty laundry, unwashed dishes, and random baby things cluttered every surface of the little cottage. Rose looked exhausted and harried. Dark circles under her eyes indicated that she hadn’t been getting much sleep, and her clothes appeared to be stained with spitup and something that might have been baby poop.

  Will was up to his elbows in soapy dishwater, finally addressing what looked to be several meals’ worth of dishes, as Rose bounced the baby on her shoulder, trying to get Poppy to settle down.

  They greeted him quickly and distractedly, and he stood there watching the scene with all of the predictable feelings: horror, shock, sympathy, and a nagging sense of stress that couldn’t be more than a fraction of what Rose and Will were experiencing.

  But along with that, he also had a thought that was much less predictable.

  He thought, I can do this.

  Somehow, standing there amid the noise and the mess and Rose and Will’s almost tangible exhaustion, he was hit by the quiet certainty that he could handle this, and more.

  He had delivered a baby on the side of the road. He had dealt with the complication of the umbilical cord, he had faced down the responsibility of having two other people’s lives in his hands.

  If he could do that, he could do this.

  What he couldn’t do was live without Lacy, now that he’d found her.

  He put down the food he’d brought, went to Rose, and said, “Can I try?”

  She handed the screaming baby to him with gratitude. “Good luck,” she said over the baby’s wails. “She’s been fed, she’s been changed. I don’t know what her issue is.”

  Daniel took the baby into his hands and looked at her face, all red and distorted with a level of anger that was unfathomable to the adults in the room.