Behold the Stars

by Fanetti, Susan

  He kissed the top of her head and held her close. “One: you hired a manager, who lives here. I’ll bet she’s not going anywhere tonight. Leave her in charge. Two: you’re baking my kid, so if you want to go home, I’m fuckin’ taking you home. Three: when we get home, I’ll rub that oil on your belly and back.”

  She laughed. “You trying to get lucky, biker man?” They had reclaimed their sex life in the past couple of months. It was different, and there were things she’d once loved that she didn’t think she’d want to do ever again, but what they had now was wonderful. It might even be better than what they’d had before. More significant.

  He gave her a wide-eyed, innocent look. “Not me, baby. You say you’re tired and your back hurts, I’m not making a move. I mean, that oil gets you all relaxed and feelin’ good, and you start thinkin’ you need a little somethin’, I’m happy to let you use me. You know.”

  “Well, that’s very generous, love. Okay, take me home. Oil me up.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Isaac was on edge every second that he was away from Lilli. He was on edge every second he was with her, too. She was beyond irritable, and he was getting barked at or ignored pretty much nonstop. But at least when he was with her, he was there, ready to help her. Her due date had passed. Nearly a week now, and no obvious sign yet that their daughter was getting restless. Yesterday, at her appointment, her doctor had scheduled an induction for the following Monday. Lilli didn’t even want pain meds during the labor and had tried to make Isaac promise not to let her have any. He’d refused that ridiculous demand. When she wanted drugs, she was getting fucking drugs. But the idea of her labor starting with drugs had her even more stressed out and depressed. Nothing he said or did seemed to make her feel better.

  He’d had Horde business he had to take care of—finalizing the movie option deal—but before the ink was dry, he was on his bike and heading home. He’d called before he left, but she hadn’t answered. He hoped she was sleeping; she napped often these days. But he always got anxious when she didn’t pick up. He thought he might never be calm about that again.

  He trotted across the yard and into the house—and saw his nine-plus months’ pregnant wife at the top of the stairs, trying to wrangle down the solid maple cradle he’d made. He ran up the stairs and took hold of it.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, woman! What the fuck are you doing?”

  She stared down at him, flushed and panting. Her hair was loose, hanging in her face. She was wearing nothing but one of his t-shirts. He could see up and know that she was wearing absolutely nothing but his shirt. She’d given up underwear awhile back, when her belly got too big for anything but what she called “granny drawers.” In the last week or so, except to go to the doctor, she hadn’t really bothered with clothes at all.

  “I want it in the bedroom. Why did we put the nursery upstairs? That was fucking stupid. She needs to be close to us. I can’t believe we were so stupid. We need to redo everything.”

  Okay. Lilli had lost her mind. As soon as he thought it, it chilled him. He’d almost said it out loud. But he hadn’t, and that was good. These last couple of weeks, her worries about her mother’s mental illness being visited on her, or on Gia, had resurfaced. She’d been dealing with it better than before, talking to him about it, working through the anxiety. But the last thing he needed to say out loud was that she was being crazy. Even if she was.

  He needed to be calm.

  He pulled gently on the cradle, taking the bulk of the weight from her hands. She wouldn’t let it go, however. “Okay. Lilli, listen to me. I think it’s a great idea to bring the cradle into our bedroom. You shouldn’t be carrying it, but I will take it down right now, because you’re right. When she’s first home, she should be with us. But when she’s ready for the crib, we have the video monitor, so we can see her. It’ll be okay that she’s upstairs. We talked about all this, remember?”

  It had taken forever to get her involved with the nursery, but once she was, they had together made a beautiful refuge for their girl—and for them. With the town rebuild, and the B&B, and the orders he’d already taken before the Ellis shit blew up, he hadn’t had time to build anything more than the cradle, but he’d picked up some nice unfinished maple pieces and had coated them with a ruddy stain. The room was all in cream, with faint touches of pink and green. Lilli’s choices. It was worthy of a magazine. He’d be damned if they were undoing it.

  “You’re talking to me like you think I’m crazy. Maybe you’re right. But I’m not stupid. So fuck you.” She yanked hard on the cradle—and her water broke in a rush, splashing and flooding over the hardwood stairs.

  She looked down at the wet, dripping staircase. “Oh, shit.”

  His pulse instantly in overdrive, Isaac went into action. “Lilli, let go of the cradle. Now.” She did. He hefted it in his arms and went backwards down the stairs, praying he didn’t miss a step and break his damn leg. As soon as he hit the hall floor, he turned and set the cradle down, just inside the dining room. Then he ran back up the stairs and took hold of his old lady. “You know what we need to do?”

  She nodded. “First, I need to get clothes on. Then I need to call the doctor. Then we need to go.” About halfway down the stairs she gasped and stopped.

  “Sport?”

  “I get what they meant by feeling pressure. Kinda hurts.”

  Pressure? Should it be pressure already? They’d gone to some childbirth classes—and he was never going to live that shit down in the Keep—and he tried to remember about the stages. He didn’t know. Fuck it—whatever, they needed to get moving. “I’ll call the doctor. You get dressed. We need to go.”

  “I made a mess, though.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll call Badger.” He met her eyes, and they both laughed. Poor Badge. “Come on, Sport. Let’s get our girl.”

  ~oOo~

  Isaac had expected yelling. Screaming. Or something. But Lilli was almost completely silent. She had his hand—well, three fingers—in an impressively badass grip, to the point that he’d needed to take his rings off, but she made no more noise than the sound of her labored breath. He’d stopped trying to talk to her, because she only scowled at him when he did. Things had been grinding on and on for hours, but now everything was happening really fast, he thought. Her water had broken almost twenty hours ago, and they’d been trapped in a kind of a loop for most of that time, left alone for long stretches. But now the room was full, and people in scrubs were moving around, changing the bed, setting things up. She was ready to push.

  She pushed a lot. She was pale and soaking wet, but still silent. Isaac did some calculating in his head, and he thought it had been half the day since she’d said anything but the shortest possible answer to a question a nurse or doctor asked. Her focus on her task was complete.

  “Okay, Lilli. I think we’ve got one, maybe two more pushes. We ready?” Lilli nodded and sat back up. She really liked this doctor. Isaac liked her, too, normally. He was very glad it was a woman’s hand up his wife and not a man’s. He wasn’t sure he could be okay with that, and he knew Lilli couldn’t. But he was mightily tired of the way she said “we,” when it was obviously Lilli doing all the work.

  She pushed again. Her face had gone red with every push; this time it didn’t. Her grip on his hand had been bone-breaking, but not this time. The push over, Lilli dropped back to the bed, and the room was filled with a full-bodied wail. Isaac, who’d been focused intently on his wife, turned at the sound and saw his girl—squishy, covered in bloody goo, and screaming her fool head off.

  Perfection.

  He turned back to Lilli. “Holy fuck, Sport. Look what you made!”

  Her eyes closed, she smiled. And then her smile faded, and her hand drooped around his fingers. He grinned and lifted her hand to his lips. “You fall asleep, Sport?” Jesus, she was pale. “Lilli?” He looked at the doctor. “She okay?” They were muttering down there between her legs.

  Dr. Andrews loo
ked up, her eyes serious over her mask. “Why don’t you go check on your daughter, Isaac. Lilli and I have some work to do.”

  Fuck that bullshit talk. He looked over Lilli’s shrunken belly. Fuck, the blood. “What’s wrong?”

  A nurse came up to Lilli’s side and put an oxygen mask over her face, then injected two syringes into her IV. Dr. Andrews said, “She’s bleeding. We’re taking care of it. Go see your little girl and let us work.”

  He couldn’t leave Lilli. “No, I have to—I can’t—”

  “You’re in our WAY, Isaac. Trying to save her here.” Andrews’ voice was sharp and direct, and in her tone, Isaac understood that he was losing Lilli. He felt a hand on his arm, and he jerked away, twisting around. It was a little nurse, trying to lead him to the corner, where they were doing whatever they did with babies. He couldn’t leave Lilli. But he couldn’t be in the way of the people trying to save her.

  “Come on, dad. Come see your miracle. Let them take care of mom. That’s the best thing you can do for her. Love on your daughter and let them work.”

  He let the nurse lead him over. His daughter. Lilli’s daughter. Gia. What a ride they’d been on, the three of them.

  She wasn’t so gooey anymore, and she’d stopped screaming, but her face was still squished up. The nurse put a little plastic band around her tiny ankle and then held one out to him. On autopilot, he lifted his arm, and she put the I.D. band on him. She smiled and patted his hand. “Seven pounds, eleven ounces. Twenty-two inches long. She’s tall!” He nodded, staring.

  Dr. Andrews raised her voice a little, and Isaac spun around. They were still working busily, and Lilli was still unconscious, as pale as the white hospital linens. Andrews was standing up between her legs, pressing into her belly. A nurse ran out of the room, and the nurse in the corner with him put her hand on his arm. “Here, dad. Why don’t you cut the cord, and we can get her wrapped up.” She handed him a kind of scissors, and he took them and cut where she said, not really understanding what he’d done.

  The door opened again, and the nurse was back, with an IV bag full of blood. Oh, Jesus, oh, Jesus. He stood at the bassinet or whatever it was and watched them hook up a transfusion for Lilli. The floor under her legs was pooled with blood. So much blood.

  He couldn’t lose her. They’d survived so much. She had survived so fucking much.

  “Dad. Here’s your girl.” He turned, and the nurse presented him a pink bundle, wrapped up like a burrito. He took her, letting the nurse shape his hold so he had her right.

  Her eyes were closed. She looked mad. But she was perfect. She had her mother’s mouth, with that extra fullness in her lower lip.

  “You have a name yet?”

  Isaac looked at the nurse, his head gone blank. She smiled and raised her brows. She was kind, and she was trying to keep him distracted, he knew. Oh, name. “Gia.”

  “Oh, that’s so pretty. I’ve never heard that name before.”

  “It’s Italian. Lilli’s Italian.”

  “Well, I love it.”

  “Isaac.” Dr. Andrews walked over, her scrubs bloody. “We need to talk.”

  He looked over at Lilli—still. So fucking still and pale. No. Fucking no. No way. Uh-uh.

  “No. No.”

  “She lost a lot of blood. It’s called postpartum hemorrhage. We got the bleeding stopped, but if it happens again, the prognosis isn’t good. We need to move her up to the ICU until we can get her stable. Baby can’t be in the ICU. You’re going to need some help here, I think. Can’t be with both at the same time, not until Lilli stabilizes.”

  “She’s okay?” All he heard was that she wasn’t dead. He’d thought he’d lost her.

  “No, she’s not. But she has a chance. We’re going to take her up now. Why don’t you stay with the baby now, and I’ll have somebody fetch you when we have Lilli settled upstairs. Okay?”

  ~oOo~

  Isaac sat at her bedside and watched. Again he was sitting at her bedside in the fucking Intensive Care Unit. They’d been together just more than a year, and he’d nearly lost her time and time again. He was incapable of keeping her safe.

  He’d stayed with Gia until a nurse told him he could go up, and then he’d set his daughter in a bassinet in a big nursery and left her without a second thought. He had to be with Lilli. She would kick his ass sideways when she woke up, but he didn’t give a shit. And now he sat and stared at her still form.

  “Brother, I’m here.”

  He turned and saw Showdown standing in the doorway. He hadn’t known who else to call. Show was his best friend, his advisor, his confidant. But he was a broken, grieving man, just beginning to find a way to have a life again. Isaac had no business asking what he’d asked, but he had no other choice, no one else he trusted.

  “Thanks, Show. I know—”

  “No, Isaac. It’s good. I’m here. She in the nursery?”

  “Yeah. I signed something so you can go in. Her name’s Gia. Lilli won’t want her lying alone in that plastic thing.”

  “Okay, brother. I got her. I know girls.” He grinned sadly.

  “I love you, man.”

  “Yeah. Me too.” He nodded at Lilli. “You get her well. Girl needs her mom.”

  ~oOo~

  It was another three hours before Lilli woke, but she did wake. She was weak and disoriented, but she was awake. Isaac leapt out of the chair and kissed her cold forehead.

  “Lilli. Fuck me, baby. My heart can’t take this shit.”

  She wrinkled her brow at him, looking confused, and for a second, Isaac felt more panic. Andrews had been up to talk to him, to explain some concerns about the effects of the blood loss. He was familiar. Last summer, she’d lain in this same ICU, nearly dead from blood loss. So he knew: organ failure, brain damage, stroke. But she’d gotten the transfusion quickly, this time. Not like last summer.

  “Isaac? Is she okay?”

  He laughed, relief flooding his muscles and making him weak. He shifted and sat on the edge of her bed, her hand clutched in his. “She’s perfect, Sport. She’s so beautiful. You did an amazing thing. God, I love you.”

  She smiled and relaxed. “Where is she?”

  “She’s down in the nursery. They won’t let her up here.”

  At that—as he suspected—she was instantly upset, trying and failing to sit up. “She’s alone? You left her alone?” The heart monitor alarm went off.

  “Lay back, baby. It’s okay. She’s not alone. Show’s with her. I’m sticking with you, and until you can kick my ass, you’re gonna have to live with it.”

  A nurse came in and pushed him aside, taking her vitals. “Good to see you awake, Mrs. Lunden. But you need to rest and take it easy.” She turned a disapproving look on Isaac. “People should be helping you stay calm.”

  “I need my baby. I’ll be calm with my baby.”

  “No babies up here, honey. You don’t want her to get sick, now, do you?” The nurse patted her hand. “You rest.” With another displeased look at Isaac, she left.

  “I want Gia.” Her words were losing their sharpness as she began to drift off.

  He kissed her on her lips, softly. “Then get better, Sport.”

  “’Kay. Love you.” She was out.

  Isaac spent the night watching the monitors.

  ~oOo~

  Until he put the car seat in the back of the Barracuda, it had not occurred to Isaac—or apparently to Lilli—that they needed a different kind of car. A classic ‘Cuda did not have the kind of back seat that was conducive to car seat installation. Getting it secured back there required flexibility Isaac had not known he possessed. His truck had no back seat at all. The government had taken the Camaro back—not that that would have been any better. They were a family now. They needed a family car.

  But for the moment, he was working a car seat full of his daughter into the back of the ‘Cuda. And she was screaming, which was apparently something she really enjoyed doing. Once he got her secured in there, he helped Lilli�
��who wanted to sit in the back seat, too. Weird. But, okay. He’d play chauffeur. Whatever. He just wanted to get his family away from this fucking hospital and home in one piece. What a long week it had been.

  Gia screamed almost the whole way home. He watched in the rearview to see how Lilli was holding up, but every time he looked back, he saw her smiling down at their girl. When Gia took an occasional breath, he thought he could hear Lilli humming quietly.

  Gia finally dropped off to sleep about five minutes from the house. They pulled down the drive—and shit. Bikes every fucking place. He was bringing his weak wife and his crabby daughter home to a Horde party? He had some necks to wring.

  “Goddammit. I’ll get rid of them. Sorry, Sport.” He met her eyes in the rearview.

  She was still smiling. “No, it’s okay. They want to see her. They’ve been patient.”

  He’d kept everybody but Show away from the hospital, wanting to keep Lilli calm and let her rest. Other than phone photos, nobody else had seen his baby girl yet.

  “She’s gonna wake up and start screaming.”

  Lilli laughed. “She’s going to do that anyway, as soon as we take the seat out. Let her scream in her uncles’ ears for awhile.”

  But she didn’t. She seemed to like the commotion, getting passed around from paw to paw. She was quiet and awake for a couple of hours, her longest stretch of good humor in her week of life, and she had the Horde utterly charmed. Good. He was going to enlist those assholes as babysitters so he and Lilli could get some sleep someday.

  ~oOo~

  That night, after they had their house to themselves again, Isaac and Lilli lay together in their bed, their daughter asleep between them. Isaac lightly brushed a finger through the dark hair on her little head, and she sighed.