Anxiety: Okay, but what if—
Me: Dude, we went over this a hundred times already.
Anxiety: I know, but hear me out. I’ve found twenty new reasons you should be worried.
Me: Go on.
Lanie stood at River’s hospital bedside, watching her grimace through an internal exam.
“Four centimeters dilated and fifty percent effaced,” the nurse said and gave River a sympathetic smile. “Still a ways to go yet, I’m afraid. We can’t do an epidural until the anesthesiologist gets here.”
Sweaty and flushed, River dropped her head back to her pillow and stared up at the ceiling. “I don’t think I can do this. I’m too tired.” She lifted her head again. “I want to go home. I’ll come back tomorrow instead, okay?”
She asked this with such sweet desperation that Lanie actually felt her heart squeeze.
The nurse looked to Lanie for help.
Lanie screwed up her courage. “You can do this, River.”
“No, I can’t.”
“You can. You’re the strongest person I know.”
The nurse smiled at Lanie and left the room. Some of her fear must have shown in her face because River let out a choked laugh and went back to staring up at the ceiling. “Look, I know how you feel about me but if you could just stay with me through this, I’ll never ask another thing of you.” A contraction hit hard and swift and River nearly broke Lanie’s fingers.
“Whew,” Lanie said, sinking to the chair, swiping her brow.
“Hard on you, is it?” River asked dryly.
“Hey, I don’t know what I’m doing.” Lanie looked at all the various things River was hooked up to. “I know nothing about having a baby.”
“It’s okay,” River said. “I know. I just need to keep breathing through the contractions.” As yet another contraction hit, River squeezed Lanie’s hand and inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth.
Lanie found herself doing the same right along with her, so that when another contraction hit, harder, faster, and stole River’s breath, Lanie was able to guide her through the breathing and slow her down.
“Good job,” River said weakly when the contraction had passed and she flopped back to her pillow.
Lanie had to laugh. “I should be saying that to you.”
And she did. Many, many times over the next two hours as the contractions continued. Nurses came and went, but the only constant in the room was Lanie at River’s side. And then suddenly there was a lot of talk about centimeters and dilation, all of it going over Lanie’s head.
“I think I’m going into transition now,” River translated, panting but somehow sounding shockingly calm.
“Transition?”
“It’s the last, most intensive phase of labor. The baby’s engaged in my pelvis and has dropped close to my cervix, making it soften and become thin.”
“That sounds . . . painful,” Lanie said, more than a little horrified at how barbaric all this seemed. “Where are the drugs?”
“Still waiting on the anesthesiologist,” the nurse said with empathy. “But at this point, you’re past the stage when an epidural would work anyway.”
“I’m okay,” River said, though she didn’t look it. She was breathing heavily and looking pale. “But I really should be breathing much slower,” she said through gritted teeth.
Lanie turned to the door. “This is inhumane. I’m going to go find you some drugs—”
“No, wait.” River grabbed her wrist with shocking strength, digging in too. “I can’t do this without you.”
“But you already know what to do.” And plus, the realization that there was really a baby coming was just hitting her. Kyle’s baby. The man she’d loved and trusted, the man who’d denied her a child but had given River one. Suddenly she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to be strong enough for River.
“I want you here,” River said tightly, getting a grip on the front of Lanie’s shirt with the strength of an Olympian champion. “I need you here, okay? So please, shut the fuck up, hold my hand, and breathe with me, and for Chrissake don’t leave me, or so help me God, I’ll kick your scrawny ass, and trust me, I could do it and hide your body where it will never be found.”
The nurse patted Lanie’s hand. “Don’t worry about it, dear. She doesn’t mean it, it’s the pain talking.”
Lanie was pretty sure River did mean it, every single word. So she didn’t leave. And River was . . . unbelievable. It was really incredible. By the time she was fully effaced—a word Lanie didn’t want described, thank you very much—the room was suddenly filled with nurses and a doctor.
Lanie was there through the whole thing and damn if it wasn’t the most amazing thing she’d ever been a part of.
“What if she looks like Kyle?” River asked during a rare break from the pushing.
“She won’t,” Lanie promised, and hoped to God that was true.
The tiny infant girl who finally made her way into the world and was set on River’s chest was covered in gunk and looked disgusting and . . . she was the most amazing thing Lanie had ever seen. So much so that she found herself frozen in place. The baby was here. Kyle’s baby.
River was both crying and laughing. “Hi, sweetness,” she whispered, stroking a finger along the baby’s cheek. “You made it. We made it. And look at you, you’re so beautiful.”
The baby’s eyes were wide open and locked on River, like she was listening and understanding every word. And it awakened an ache inside Lanie, a deep, unrelenting ache that she thought she’d gotten past. “A baby,” she said quietly. “You actually had a baby in there. Like, you just pushed a human out of your hoo-ha.”
River laughed softly. “Yeah, who knew? Delaney, meet Lanie,” she said to the baby.
Lanie’s heart caught. “What?”
“That’s your full name, right? I want her to be named after you.”
Lanie didn’t have words; she was undone.
“Here.” River tried to hand Lanie the baby, but she backed away, sticking her hands behind her back.
“What are you, five?” River asked. “Hold her. It’ll take the mystery out of her.”
No. The mystery was good. She didn’t want to get close or attached because she needed another string on her heart like she needed a hole in her head. And it was more than that. This baby—Delaney!—was a vivid reminder of everything that had gone wrong in her life.
A nurse stuck her head in. “Mama and baby have a whole bunch of visitors named Capriotti, but we try to limit to two at a time, so—”
Lanie jumped up, eager for the reprieve. “I’ll just . . .” She gestured to the door and then escaped through it like her life depended on it.
The nurse was right. There were a lot of Capriottis in the waiting room. All of them, it seemed, and some extras. Such as Holden. He met Lanie’s gaze, clearly hoping River was okay. She nodded and he nodded back, and then the guy slipped back out the door.
Mia and Alyssa went in to see River first and Lanie looked out the windows and realized it was almost morning. She stood there, a little lost, a whole lot exhausted, feeling raw and hollow.
“Hey.” A big, warm hand grasped hers and she looked up into Mark’s face, etched with easy affection and worry. “You okay?” he asked.
“Sure.”
“Uh-huh.” He pulled her away from the crowd and sat her down. “Don’t move.”
“I don’t like it when you’re bossy unless we’re in bed.”
He flashed a grin. “Humor me.”
He was back in two minutes with a hot cup of tea.
“You’re a god among men,” she murmured.
“I’m going to want that in writing.” He sat next to her and let her be for a few minutes, their silence comfortable.
“So the baby’s here,” he finally said. “River named her after you.”
Lanie felt her heart get all squishy. “I don’t know why.”
“Yes you do.”
Lanie sighed and flashed to the squirming, squishy newborn being set on River’s chest, how the infant had immediately settled down to stare so sweetly up at her mama. “Yeah.”
“And . . . you’re good?”
She closed her eyes and could see the nurse helping River put the sweet little bundle to her bare breast. “Yeah.”
Mark slid an arm around her shoulder and pulled her close, brushing his lips across her temple in an incredibly comforting and also intimate gesture. It was tempting to sink into him. She was so tired she couldn’t even hold her head up, but she didn’t need him. Yes, he was strong and warm and dammit, he smelled amazing, but he wasn’t hers. She was alone. Very alone. “I’m fine,” she said.
“Yes, you’re very fine. You’re also upset.”
“Of course I’m not. That would make me an asshole.”
“It’d make you human,” he said quietly. “You have every reason to resent River and the baby.”
She felt her throat burn but she refused to cry. “You were there when River told us her story. No one else feels that way about her and I can’t either.”
He squeezed her gently. “It’s not the same and you know that. You’ve pretended to be okay with it all, but we both know you’re not. And Lanie, it’s okay to not be okay. Hell, I’ve spent half my adult life not being okay.”
She lifted her head and met his warm, compassionate gaze. He had those faint lines fanning out from his amazing eyes. Laugh lines. And probably also worry lines. But somehow they only served to make him look . . . real. He was a man through and through, one who didn’t shrink back from reality or truths, no matter how ugly.
From his hip, his cell phone buzzed and he swore softly.
“Work?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He kissed her temple and held her another beat. “Go easy today.”
“On River?”
“On you.”
And then he was gone.
Lanie looked up and met Grandma Capriotti’s gaze from across the waiting room. She was sitting there, calmly, quietly, serenely, knitting, her fingers moving at the speed of light.
“Do an old lady a favor,” she said to Lanie. “And get me a hot tea.”
It wasn’t a request. Lanie rose and did as was bid, and then sat next to her.
“Marcus was right, you know,” Grandma said.
“About?”
“Everything. He’s got smarts.” The old woman smiled. “He got them from me.”
“Got his modesty from you too, I see.”
She smiled a little. “You’re upset about the baby.”
Lanie blew out a breath and slumped. “Of course not, that would make me a jerk.”
“I believe the term you used was asshole.”
Lanie sunk down even more. “I wasn’t looking for any of this.”
Grandma Capriotti looked up from her knitting, though her fingers didn’t slow down at all. “You do realize why God brought you two together, right?”
“Because he has a sick sense of humor, putting two of Kyle’s wives together?”
Grandma Capriotti’s lips curved. “I actually meant you and my Marcus. And yet River is yours too. As is everyone else here. You’re part of us now.”
“I appreciate the sentiment, but I’m a temp contract worker, nothing more.”
Grandma Capriotti just smiled serenely and tucked her needles away. “I’m tired. I’m going to nap now.” She folded her hands together, closed her eyes, and did just that.
Lanie got up and moved back to the window. It was just before dawn, that magical in-between time where the sky turned an indescribable kaleidoscope of colors that never failed to steal her breath.
Or maybe that was Wildstone and the Capriottis. Closing her eyes, she pressed her forehead to the cool glass. “You are one screwed-up chick.”
“The best ones are.”
Lanie sighed at the sound of Cora’s voice. She must’ve driven like a bat out of hell from San Francisco to get here so fast. “You Capriottis as a whole don’t really get personal space boundaries much, do you?”
“Nope.” Cora ran a hand down her back. “Why do I feel like you’ve done all the heavy lifting over the past twenty-four hours?”
“It’s okay, I’m good at mental gymnastics.”
Cora laughed softly. “Is my son driving you crazy?”
She opened her eyes and met Cora’s deep brown, warm ones. “Actually, he’s done nothing but be there supporting me in everything when he has no reason to care about me at all.”
Cora smiled. “Sometimes the best thing in life is finding that one person who knows all your mistakes and weaknesses and still thinks you’re completely amazing.”
Lanie shook her head. “Nothing’s that simple.”
“Maybe. But maybe life will surprise you.”