Lon nods earnestly, wanting to do just that. Before letting himself inside the house, he turns to Alonzo, desperation imminent in his expression. “What do I do, Pop?”
“Whatcha always done.” Alonzo looks at him proudly, giving him his best encouraging smile. “Ya love da girl. You be dere fer her. Talk ta her. Hold her. Rub her back…her feet. Fetch her water. Ice chips,” he remarks as an afterthought. “Dey like ice chips in dese kinda circumstances.” Alonzo winks at him reassuringly. “You two be jus’ fine. All da love is dere. Let dat lead ya, son.”
The door closes behind Lon in search of Brianna and his mother who have taken up accommodations in the bedroom of his youth. Nearing the closed entry, he hears Brianna’s cries—guttural and controlled.
“Mama, it’s me.” He knocks timidly, identifying himself.
Winona pulls the door back, welcoming him in her gentle, quiet manner, “Just in time.” She smiles at him proudly, pulling him inside.
Brianna rests now between contractions, her fruitful form in a sheer white nightgown in the center of his bed. The ceiling fan above her whirls on high, attempting to aid the swamp cooler in the corner to aerate the private room. Rhythmic, native drum music plays softly from the nightstand, a bowl of sage burning beside it. Lon knows this is his mother’s way of maintaining positive energy about the room.
“Do you have everything you need?” His fists wringing apprehensively at his sides, he scans Winona’s makeshift work station. A portable table at the foot of his bed filled with sterile linens and a few pieces of medical accoutrement unidentifiable to him.
Winona nods heartily. “I’ve been here before, son,” she soothes, a double meaning—having delivered Lon at home and midwifing others in their secluded bayou community to do the same over the years. “She’ll be just fine.”
“Thank you, Mama,” he expels, completely indebted. “I don’t know what we’d do without you.”
Brianna’s grandparents cut her off after her heart finally won out, agreeing to move in with Lon and raise their child together. Lon’s medical insurance has yet to kick in from his recently acquired mechanical engineering job just a month after graduating.
Not that that would help anyway. How could they deliver in a hospital, not knowing what to expect out of the baby’s blood component? After all, if it’s the meshing of their blood that causes some crazy chemical reaction, this baby is a complete entanglement of the two of them. A fluorescent emerald green glowing baby might be difficult to explain to medical personnel.
“It’s my pleasure,” Winona coos, “I’ve never delivered my very own grandchild before.” She directs Lon further into the room. “I’ll leave you two with some privacy. You come and get me when it’s time.”
“How will I know when it’s time?” Lon calls after her.
“Oh, you’ll know, son.” She chuckles happily, closing the door.
On bended knee, Lon leans his arms and torso onto the bed, lightly. Brianna opens her eyes with the gentle disturbance. Looking up at him, she forces a half smile reading the concern in his expression. They say nothing, communicating with their eyes the apprehension and wonder of what is about to take place. His silver crucifix hangs about her neck, hopeful protection for her and the baby she carries.
Lon strokes his hand from her temple to the nape of her neck, the rich, pixie-cut auburn hair residing there still taking some getting used to. Attributing it to pregnancy hormones, her natural blonde locks have grown dark auburn over the past nine months, resulting in her shortened style. All traces of her
jolie blonde
status were snipped away as she transformed to
jolie roux
once again, this time without any hair color. The crude progression, quite strange, the only reason she agreed to deliver at home rather than in the hospital. What other
strange
things might occur with the birth?
His hand trails around to her cheekbone, his finger caressing the peaches and cream complexion, another pregnancy side effect—a rosy glow to her otherwise alabaster skin. Noticing her full lips, usually supple and glossy, are dry and chapped, he proffers ice chips from the bedside table.
“Mmh,” her quiet yet thankful sentiment releases as the alleviating crystals break down in her mouth. She does not swallow but simply lets the cool liquid roll down the back of her throat, enjoying its cooling effect, internally.
Lon helps her exterior, wrapping ice in a thin towel and lacing it around the back of her neck. Her flushed, blood-enriched skin, wet and glistening with perspiration soaks through her shear white nightgown in places, most notably her rounded abdomen. Lon lays his hand there, a kiss soon to follow, as he rubs it in a clockwise motion.
“You take it easy on Mama,” he whispers to her belly, hopeful the delivery will be as smooth as it can be. “We can’t wait to meet you.” He marvels at the idea of a creation that is one-half him and one-half Brie, his heart throbbing with so much love he feels as though it may burst.
He picks up on Brianna’s body language, her face pressing further into the pillow, her hands balling into fists as they dig into the sheet, her body at a slow writhe. She breathes her way through another contraction, remembering all of the coaching Winona taught her. Lon moves around behind her, his hands diligently massaging her lower back and hips, using her groans and sighs as directional devices in the amount of pressure to exert and where.
After a long eight hours have passed, midnight arrives and so does
the time.
Winona hurries into the room per Lon’s insistence.
“She’s in so much pain, Mama. Maybe we should take her to the hospital. Or call a doctor or something.” Lon leads the way, backpedaling now on their plans for an at-home delivery. Having been with Brianna for the past eight hours, he is beginning to hit his emotional ceiling witnessing her discomfort.
“Hoo-hoo. Hee-hee. Mmhhh,” Brianna’s controlled breathing intermingles with a sharp groan as she sits up in the bed, hugging her knees to her shoulders, the urge to push mounting.
Winona remains calm. Lifting up Brianna’s nightgown, she can see the baby’s head starting to crown. “There’s no time, son,” she shoots down his hospital recommendation. “We’re about to have a little Castille.” Her lips give in to a beaming smile as she rechecks her delivery equipment one last time.
“Ah. Oh. My. God. It hurts,” Brianna cries through ragged respirations, her body rocking back and forth.
Lon joins her on the bed, positioning himself behind her, his memory recalling such from the birthing books and videos they partook of. His chest pressed snugly against her back, he takes the brunt of her body’s weight encouraging her to relax against him.
Although he may not experience her pain as she does physically, his body is as fiercely searing as hers from hours of emotional exertion—the two most definitely having become one of heart. Their clammy hands interlocked, his crimson-toned cheek pressed against hers, their frames mold and burn into one another. The heat, excruciating, is not only indicative of their labor to this point but of their alliance to one another; both, finally dedicated to the cause, cannot imagine existence any other way.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Lon whispers into her ear before kissing her there.
“It’s okay,” she emits quickly before returning to her breathing, her back pushing steadily against his chest as she wriggles through another contraction.
“I wish I could take your pain,” he continues, most sincere in his intent.
Winona positions herself at the foot of the bed, all of her equipment prepped and ready. “Never say that to a woman in this condition, son,” she advises. “It’s sweet and all, but impossible. It loses its meaning.” She gives him a gentle wink. “When this contraction stops, you rest,” she coaches Brianna tenderly. “We’ll push with the next one.”
“I don’t know. If I can. Wait.” Brianna’s words release in cadence with her diaphragm, the tautness of her abdomen constrictive and throbbing.
“Ahh…focal point,” Lon recollects the term. “Let’s find a point on the wall.” He attempts a distraction, again, one they read about in birthing books, his hands sinking into her thighs kneading the exhausted muscle. “How about the dream catcher?”
“Mmhhh!” Brianna muffles her cry, a combination of physical and visceral pain.
The dream catcher, the one Winona made her years ago when she spent her first night in this room after the death of her parents, is a bittersweet reminder that they will never know their grandchild. Memories and endorphins of all varieties (pain, happiness, sadness, excitement) flood her system. With the rush come her tears as she gets a brief moment of rest at the end of her contraction. She presses her cheek tighter to Lon’s.
“I wish they were here, too,” he whispers, acknowledging the symbolism held within the dream catcher.
“You’re almost there, sweet girl,” Winona coaxes, rubbing a cool, damp washcloth across Brianna’s forehead. She points to the dream catcher. “You hone in on the center of that thing until you see your parents’ faces. Know that they are smiling. And you use these tears…” Winona dabs the apples of her cheeks with the washcloth. “Use all that heartache and love to push.”
Brianna nods, her eyes fixating on the dream catcher until her emerald greens are lost in its tangled web, the image of her mother and father—their smiling faces—looking back at her.
Winona waits, her hand resting on Brianna’s abdomen, until she feels the peak of the next contraction. “And…push!” she says, her tone low and soothing somehow even in its excitement.
“Ahhh…Mmhhh.” Brianna’s lips clench together, bearing down with the pain of the push for fear if they do not she will scream aloud.
“That’s it, baby. You’re doing great.” Lon’s arms are wrapped around the front of her bent legs, pulling them back and to the side in an attempt to help her open her hips. While Brianna stares down the dream catcher, his steel blues are equally engaged on his mother’s face awaiting the slightest expression of triumph.
Forty-five minutes later, Alonzo (alone and pacing on the front porch) hears Winona’s announcement, “It’s a boy! A handsome, healthy baby boy!” His wife’s vocal tenacity is matched by that of a vigorous newborn cry.
The proud Senior lets his body relax, slumping into the teakwood swing at the side of the porch. Pulling an oversized cigar out of the pocket of his t-shirt, one he has been saving for such an occasion, he presses it to his overjoyed lips and lights it up, letting loose a high-pitched “Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo-hoooooo!” into the full-moon bayou night.
Her back propped on a stack of pillows at the head of Lon’s bed per his insistence, Brianna finally rests, her work is through. She holds their son in her arms, skin to skin inside her nightgown, after his first meal. Lon kneels at their side, his elbows resting on the bed. He diligently counts fingers and toes. The young couple quietly smiling, their gazes dance back and forth between each other and to their son in wide-eyed bewilderment.
“What are we going to name him?” Brianna is the first to speak. Looking down at her son’s face, she contemplates who he looks like. What name would suit him?
“I like Maxim. Call him Max.” The testimony causes Lon’s shoulders to broaden and his chest to puff out a bit, considering the Latin derivative of Maximilian—the name given to at least three Roman emperors.
Brianna chuckles lightly, amused by his choice before stroking the infant’s cheek, her tone growing reminiscent and soft. “I was thinking we could name him Braydon. My daddy’s middle name was Braydon.”
Lon looks up at her tenderly. “I think Braydon would be perfect.”
“Braydon Alonzo Castille,” Brianna affirms, sure to include his father as well.
“Ooh!” Winona squeals, satisfied hearing the official title as she tidies up the room, ridding it of soiled linens and supplies from the delivery.
Lon’s head turns toward the front porch, a new voice (and a familiar one) registering on his radar.
“Is that Johnny?” Brianna identifies their visitor.
“I won’t be long.” Lon kisses her and the baby on the forehead before departing the bedroom.
“He can come see the baby if he wants,” she calls after Lon, having difficulty remembering the last time she saw their rebel friend.
The front porch door shuts abruptly with Lon’s presence as he steps out onto the dimly lit pad. “What the hell are you doing here? It’s two o’clock in the morning.” He keeps his voice down, his tone agitated enough to get his point across.
“It’s great to see you, too, bro,” Johnny counters as he sits quite comfortably next to Alonzo on the swing.
“Perfick timin’ I’d say,” Alonzo pipes, his hand slapping down on Johnny’s knee. Unable to contain the news, he continues. “We jus’ welcomed ’nother Castille man inta da world. Three gen’rations.” He holds up three fingers proudly.
Lon grabs Johnny by the arm, thrusting him out of the swing and down off of the front porch as he walks along beside him, heading directly back to the pirogue the bad boy came in. “She’s not up to seeing visitors. And I know it’s no coincidence that you just so happened to stop by. So why don’t you tell me what you’re up to,
bro?”
The affectionate moniker laced with deep sarcasm.
Johnny jerks his arm away from Lon, the men nearing the pirogue docked beside the airboat on the bank of the bayou. “If your pop wasn’t here, I swear to God, I’d kick your ass all over this yard,” he snarls through clenched teeth.
“Don’t let that stop ya,” Lon eggs him on. “If you’re here doing Shaw’s dirty work, you won’t have to start it. I will.” He looks back to the porch at his father who watches them, investigating. Turning his back to Alonzo, he stands a shoulder above Johnny purposely pushing into him. “Is that what you’re doing? You one of his flunkies now?”
His chest rises and falls arduously with the thought of Johnny betraying him and Brianna, and how the stakes are much higher with the arrival of an innocent life for whom he considers himself solely responsible to protect.
“You’re something else, man.” Johnny shakes his head. Pushing past Lon, he settles onto his motorized pirogue. “It’s not Shaw you gotta worry about,
slick.”
He curses himself for making the arduous and now pointless trip to tell his high-strung
friend
to keep Brianna and the baby away from Dr. Godfrey. “But since you’re so goddamn smart, you figure it out.”