Swamp Happens: The Complete Swamp Bottom Series

by Cora Kenborn

  “Handcuffs make a great accessory?” I deadpanned.

  He stopped pacing and stood directly in front of me on the other side of the thin plastic, his big hands curled over the top of the curtain rod, his deep sigh echoing off the walls. “This didn’t go as planned, but honestly, how much in life does? I could marry you under a freeway overpass, and it’d still be the happiest day of my life, Savannah. I’m not sure if you’ve caught on yet, but I’m truly, madly, and deeply in love with you.”

  I blinked and then blurted out, “Did you just quote Savage Garden to me?”

  He laughed, the sound doing wonders to soothe away the panic and despair that had been swirling around inside me.

  “I’d like to think it was more paraphrasing than quoting. I need to keep a few cool points.”

  Leaning against the tiled wall, I let myself relax for the first time all day. “In less than an hour, I can’t be forced to testify against you in a court of law, so I think your love of nineties soft rock is safe.”

  “So you’re not going to pull a Julia Roberts on me?”

  I bit my lip, stifling a laugh at his nod to what I considered to be the greatest Cinderella movie of all time. “Nah, Pretty Woman has nothing on me.” I reached up and covered his hands with my own, giving them a reassuring squeeze. “Besides, I left my Jordans at home.”

  73

  Here Comes The Bride

  Savannah

  Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana

  Dragging in a slow and calculated breath, I paced the tiny bathroom, my feet slipping inside my boots as sweat pooled around my toes. I tossed up a little prayer of thanks that I’d let Addie to drag me to her Lamaze class when Zep was working. All that structured breathing singlehandedly kept me from hyperventilating while waiting for my cue.

  Can’t stop my sexy.

  I braced myself as I took a tentative step out of the bathroom and into the narrow hallway to the opening chords of “The Luckiest” by Ben Folds. My heart pounded in my chest with reckless abandon, and my hands trembled so hard I could’ve easily been mistaken for a junkie coming down off a bender.

  Why am I so nervous?

  My mind raced with the question, a spin cycle of chaos warring between my ears. I’d been so sure of my decision while hiding in the ancient tub behind a soap scum stained curtain. Granted, it wasn’t an ideal place to make major life choices, but I’d been confident.

  So why am I sweating like a whore in church?

  I was sure it was partially because more than a hundred people had crammed into the small room, and it was sweltering. We were already over fire code capacity with only half of the guests in the actual building.

  I groaned softly as I felt pit stains forming on the perfectly gauzy white material. When I reached the mouth of the hallway, I tried to covertly stick my elbows out to get some circulation, but it just made me look like I was trying to do the funky chicken down the aisle.

  Calm down, Sav. This is a dream come true not a death march.

  It didn’t feel like a dream as I walked down the makeshift aisle. There were too many eyes on me. My skin was crawling, and all I wanted to do was run in the opposite direction of the unwanted attention. The moment I’d been dreaming about for months was becoming a living nightmare. Instead of smiles of joy and encouragement, I felt everyone’s heavy judgment threatening to suffocate me like a wet blanket.

  My gaze drifted from its affixed place on the yellow linoleum flooring to my right where it snagged on the senator’s condescending sneer. I hadn’t known it was possible to express the fire and brimstone of hell through one’s eyes, but much to my dismay, my soon-to-be father-in-law had turned distinguished hatred into an art form.

  I thought he refused to come?

  The politician’s eyes bounced from me to the front of the room where I was headed. Riddled with nerves, I hadn’t been able to bring myself to look up at Pope yet, but I felt myself needing to warn him about the impending fireball of hate coming his way.

  Without thinking of my reservations, I lifted my eyes and sought the one person who could calm the storm of doubts raging inside me. Cool blue eyes, shiny with unshed tears, glimmered back at me, and it was as if all the air was suddenly sucked out of the room. I stopped walking and couldn’t breathe. The press of bodies on either side of me melted away, and it was just the man I loved and me.

  What the hell was I so worried about?

  My synapses started to fire all at once and my muscles relaxed from their atrophied position. My feet moved on their own accord, the echo of my boots on the cracked linoleum filtering through my ears as I floated straight toward the physical embodiment of forever.

  Pope bent his head close to mine when I came to a stop before him and whispered in my ear, “You had me nervous there for a minute.”

  There was no stopping the brilliant, full-toothed smile that spread across my face. “It’s my job to keep you on your toes.” I followed it up with a wink before turning to the Justice of the Peace. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Pope shake his head before giving all his attention to the man in front of us.

  As instructed, the off-season Santa we had officiating kept it short and sweet. Neither of us wanted anything elaborate, and God only knew we were anything but traditional. The moment he took my hand in his, any residual stress and doubt fled my body, leaving me filled with a lightness I’d never experienced. It was as if all the pieces of my life that had been worn to jagged edges over the years finally clicked together and everything was as it was supposed to be.

  Generic-brand Santa smoothed his white beard and closed the book of poems he’d held open through the ceremony. With a smile, at least I assumed it was a smile since I couldn’t see much of his mouth underneath the sheepdog mustache, he pronounced us husband and wife. “You may now kiss the groom.”

  Pope blinked in shock at the unusual pronouncement I may or may not have asked Kris Kringle to add at the last minute. I was a Dubois after all. We were women who drank vodka in the face of tradition. I didn’t give him a second to process the proclamation before I was on him. My arms circled his neck, and I jumped, knowing he’d catch me. Sure enough, our first kiss as husband and wife was one for the record books. With my legs wrapped around his waist and his hands firmly glued to my ass, we turned to a whooping and hollering crowd.

  I scanned the front of the crowd, noting my sobbing but smiling mother and my Daddy, who pretended to have something in his eye. I shifted a glance toward the sister who’d been my rock through so many years, except she wasn’t there. I did a double take, only to find her exactly where she was supposed to be, but bent over at the waist. Zep hovered above her with his hands on her shoulders.

  Scrambling out of Pope’s hold, I pushed through the line of people who’d approached to congratulate us and skidded to a halt in front of my almost invincible big sister.

  “Addie! What’s wrong?”

  She straightened, and her face morphed from pained to relieved, but it did nothing to calm the flurry of butterflies that had taken up residence in my stomach.

  On a deep exhale, she gave me an apologetic smile. “Everything’s fine. My water just broke.”

  A quick glance down confirmed the stream of liquid running down her bare legs. Addie had told me a million times it was amniotic fluid, but it looked like piss if you asked me. It took less than ten seconds for the hamster wheel to start spinning and reality to seep in.

  “Holy shit, you’re going to have a baby!” I screeched.

  In a blur of arms and a cacophony of shouts, everyone was suddenly in motion. Zep swung Addie into his arms, cradling her close to his chest, and Pope’s deep voice boomed with authority as he directed everyone to clear a path while the whole family rushed for the doors.

  Someone tagged my arm, bringing me up short. I spun, confused when Deputy Doogie produced a set of shining handcuffs from behind his back.

  “Not so fast, you’re not going anywhere.”

  I briefly debated the re
percussions of kneeing a deputy in the balls.

  “Whoa, put those away. Savannah, you’re still in custody,” Sheriff Tucker said softly, flanking Doogie.

  There were two ways this could go, and both ended with me in the hospital with my sister.

  Narrowing my eyes at a man I’d known all my life, one who’d seen me at my best and my worst, I decided to go the non-violent route first. There was always “plan b” if it didn’t work.

  “Tuck, I swear to God and all the voodoo spirits Babs has in her arsenal, if you make me miss my the birth of my nephew over a fucking fine, I’ll make it my mission in life—”

  I didn’t get to finish because Babs jumped between our little huddle and set a varicose veined hand on Tucker’s chest. She leaned in, her voice so low I could barely make her out. “She come with us, or I show video.”

  The sheriff’s eyes ping-ponged between us, and he cleared his throat before nodding. “All right then, you go be with your sister, but you stay at the hospital.” His beady eyes pinned me in place with his command. I wasn’t about to bite the hand that unlocked my bars, so I quickly nodded, resembling a jailhouse bobblehead. “We’ll be up there to check on y’all just as soon as we clear out this place.”

  “Thank you!” I squealed, lifting up on my toes to peck his leathery cheek before I turned and booked it out the front door.

  74

  An Official Escort

  Adelaide

  Houma, Louisiana

  I’d seen Pope drive like a bat out of hell before. Just yesterday, I’d been an unwilling participant in his unofficial attempt to break the sound barrier in his jeep. Maybe that was why watching the speedometer barely break sixty miles per hour while a T-Rex tried to chew its way out of my uterus tripped a bitch wire in my head that was apparently connected to my mouth.

  “Hey, Speedy Gonzales, there’s a box of glazed donuts at the end of this for you if you push that pedal a little harder and get this piece of shit over eighty.”

  Pope lifted an unimpressed gaze toward the rearview mirror. “Chabert is the closest hospital. Would you like me to have an accident and decorate the highway with our dead bodies?”

  “Would you like me to have this baby in your jeep and decorate it with my placenta?”

  Afterbirth always wins an argument.

  Pope never glanced in the mirror again. He just hit the gas and launched us from sixty to ninety before I could blink. I felt bad for giving the guy a hard time. In less than two hours, he’d dealt with bridezilla and pregzilla and then calmly endured my meltdown when every wedding guest followed us to the hospital in a funeral procession.

  To his credit, he’d only mumbled a few curse words as I screamed out the window at the baby patrol. However, in my defense, with all the camouflage trucks and half-restored pieces of shit sandwiched in between Sheriff Tucker and Deputy Dumbass’s squad cars, we looked like Larry The Cable Guy’s presidential motorcade.

  Driving to Houma seemed to take hours when in actuality we’d only been in the car for less than ten minutes. However, time wasn’t on my side because the contractions were coming faster. Squeezing my eyes closed, I admitted the words to myself I didn’t dare speak aloud.

  I’m scared.

  No, screw that. Scared was too tame of a word. I was ready to shit two-ton bricks, and according to my pregnancy bible, at some point during the birth, I probably would.

  The day I saw that extra pink line on that pregnancy test, the logical, pragmatic side of me knew at the end of this whole thing, I’d deliver a baby. However, the side of me that now experienced pain that could only be described as someone French braiding my intestines decided logic could eat shit and die.

  If this was the beginning stages of labor, I’d never make it.

  Another contraction hit, and I gripped the back of the front seat along with whatever happened to be beside me. Unfortunately, both involved handfuls of Savannah and Zep’s hair.

  “Ow, holy shit, Ads!” Savannah screamed, prying my fingers away from her head and turning around to glare at me. “Zep, control her!”

  “What the hell are you bitching about?” Wincing, he wrapped his fingers around my wrist to loosen the tension from my grip. “I don’t believe your tits are in the danger zone my balls are.”

  Spots floated in my field of vision, and I spun my head around. Zep took one look at my face, which probably looked somewhere between demonic possession and homicidal rodeo clown, and slapped both hands over his groin.

  Pope’s nostril flared a little as he flung a hand backward and smacked Zep across the forehead. “Knock it off! Stop mentioning my wife’s tits in the same sentence as your balls.”

  The whole scene was ridiculous. Especially when my sister nosedived into a Hallmark Channel movie and got all googly-eyed at Pope. “Aw, say it again.”

  Pope grinned. “Say what? My wife? I’ll say it forever, Mrs. Pope.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Zep snorted, breaking the moment. “I have no interest in Savannah’s tits. Have you seen Addie’s jugs lately? I could get those things registered as flotation devices on my boat.”

  Uh-oh.

  Savannah’s head swiveled around, her eyes a little wild. “Are you saying my tits aren’t impressive? Because once Addie has that kid, hers are going to look like rotten zucchini.”

  I wasn’t sure where things derailed from concern about my impending childbirth to Zep and Pope arguing about my sister’s boobs, but I’d had enough.

  “Hi, remember me? Yeah, I’m the one with a human clawing its way out of my body. Can we please stop talking about vegetable tits and drive faster? Do you people understand what the hell is getting ready to happen? I have to squeeze this out of this.” Pointing both fingers at my belly, I paused for dramatic effect before circling them in the air and angling them both at my crotch.

  Zep held up his hands. “Whoa, that’s just a little—”

  Cutting him off, I shoved my pregnancy bible in his face. “Do you know what I read? Things rip, Zep. Can I get little sympathy here, please? I mean, what if one day your asshole just ripped halfway up your back, and some person climbed out of your spine? How’d that feel, huh?”

  I had no idea what the fuck I was saying at that point. The spots were back, and my hands were flapping like a drunk pelican.

  “Sav?” Pope asked, nodding his head toward the back seat.

  Savannah seemed to understand because she shifted in her seat and raised an eyebrow. “Zep?”

  Before I could ask what the hell all the name dropping was about, Zep sighed and grabbed my face in his hands, pulling me against him in a kiss that shut me up faster than duct tape. “Calm down, baby. You’ve got to get a grip because you’re freaking out the sane people.”

  He seemed so calm, his blue eyes almost amused as they searched mine for some recognition of the person who walked out of the house this morning. His touch soothed me enough that I could breathe.

  “I’m scared,” I whispered.

  “I know. I am too, but we’re gonna do this together, yeah?”

  I nodded. Thankfully, it seemed to be enough for him because he pulled me closer and rested my head against his chest.

  For about fifteen seconds.

  “Arghhhh!” Screaming as another contraction hit, I cursed in a language I was pretty sure didn’t exist. Reaching for my pregnancy bible again, I obsessively flipped through the pages, rambling in what I think I’d now determined to be some bastardized version of old country Russian. Just as I found the page I was looking for, Zep jerked it out of my hands, rolled down the window, and tossed my book on to the highway.

  I wasn’t sure if I blacked out or screamed. Maybe I did both because when I rejoined reality, I found myself attempting to crawl out the childproof window to retrieve it. Zep finally stopped laughing long enough to wrap his arms around my legs and pull me back in.

  Once I managed to stop hyperventilating, I let out a dramatic wail and flung my arms wide, inadvertently smacking h
im across the chest. “Why would you do that? That was my birth plan! What am I going to do now? How will I know—”

  “Addie!” Zep hollered, grabbing my face in his palms again. “Fuck the plan. You’re four weeks early. There is no plan. We’re winging this, baby, okay?”

  Exhausted and more scared than I’d ever been in my life, all I could do was nod as Zep as Savannah stared at me in silence.

  Still holding onto me, he pressed his forehead to mine. “Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Savannah turned back around in her seat and nodded to Pope. “Okay.”

  “Okay,” Pope repeated, pressing harder on the gas.

  75

  Happy Birthday

  Adelaide

  Houma, Louisiana

  The New Orleans birthing suite where I’d planned to give birth was the Air Force One of delivery rooms. Every sound-proof private room was tucked away in its own little corner with access keys and baby butlers. The rooms had jacuzzis, plush mattresses, and drop-down lighting fixtures that changed wattage to fit the mother’s mood. Rooms came equipped with flat-screen TVs, XM Satellite radio, refrigerators, and all the ass-kissing amenities I could’ve ever wanted.

  I spent months dreaming about my suite of serenity.

  The hospital shoebox in Houma where I now lay cramped in a toddler-sized bed was a far cry from my suite of serenity. In fact, it looked more like a dungeon of doom jam-packed with rusty medical equipment from Jack The Ripper’s OBGYN design line. Even the décor was unappealing. Everything was shit brown. The curtains were shit brown. The walls were painted shit brown. Even the dirty windows appeared stained with decade-old smears of shit.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.