by Cat Mann
Chapter 33
Push
Her breathy cries, her moans and pain-filled screams echoed in the corridors, reverberated in my veins and caused an ache in my bones. She needed me.
“Push, Ava,” they demanded from her, the doctor and nurses. “Push, you have to push now.”
“No.” She cried, “no,” she begged.
“Ava!” My gaze darted down the long hallway. Shooting through the hospital, nurses dressed in baggy, mint green and mauvey-pink scrubs were a blur to me. “Ava!” I yelled. “I’m here.”
The door thrust open with my weight and I spilled into the delivery room. Hospital staff surrounded her, covered in scrubs, white gloves, caps and masks. Their disapproving, judgmental gaze turned to me and then quickly back to Ava.
“Oh, God!” She breathed and I rushed to her side, “God.” Her face pinched and her knuckles whitened.
“I’m here.” I offered her my hand and her grip tightened around my fingers.
“You’re here.” Her glassy, wet, frightened eyes looked up to mine.
“I’m here.”
“Alright, Ava,” Doctor Patel talked to her from the seat at the bottom of the bed, “your husband has arrived now. You have to push. This baby won’t wait any longer. It’s time.”
“Are you alright? Please tell me you are okay.” My shaky fingers brushed wayward strands of pretty hair from her damp forehead.
“Ari,” she smiled at me despite her pain, “I’m okay, so far everything is fine. You are here now. We get to hold our baby today. We get to see ten little fingers and ten tiny toes, a little nose and two bitty ears. It is all coming true. Our life is going to be perfect.”
My heavy eyelids slammed shut. I bit back the bile that rose up my chest and nodded. She was wrong, of course. I had just agreed to the unthinkable. My life was no longer my own. Perfect was no longer in the realm of the possible.
“Ava.” I held her face in my hands. “Ava, I love you. Please, please promise me that you will never forget how much I love you.” Frantic, my chest caving in, my voice quaking with every word, I begged her.
“I won’t… not ever.” She was the one who soothed me. “I love you, Ari.”
“Ava, push!”
“I’m here. I’ll never leave you. I am here. You can push. You can do this.”
She is my whole world. She is my reason for life. I could not take my eyes away from Ava. Her grip tightened, her face pinched, her gaze was forward, focused and determined despite her fear. Moisture that flooded her eyes broke way and began to stream down her cheeks and I searched her for a way to help.
Pushes and tears.
I stood right there at her side and our baby came into the world. Tiny cries filled my ears and I pulled my eyes away from Ava and took my first glimpse at our tiny miracle.
“Oh, my God.” I breathed. “Ava!” I cheered. “Oh, my God.” I cried. “She’s here. Ava, it’s a girl. Oh, God… Ava, you gave me a little girl! She’s so beautiful. She’s here. Zadie is here.”
“It’s a girl? It’s Zadie?” Breathless and tired, her voice rasped, giving away her exhaustion.
“Yes, she’s here. She’s so beautiful.”
“October Seventh, 12:02 pm. Seven pounds, seven ounces, twenty one inches,” A nurse announced and then wrapped our baby in the receiving blanket Ava had brought from home. The one that smelled like us. The nurse carefully placed little Zadie in my arms and I stared down at her in amazement. With wide-open, brilliant green eyes, a head full of wild, dark hair, soft pink and full lips, she was lovely and my heart swelled for her.
“She’s perfect. See?” I passed Zadie in to her mother’s arms and looked on at Ava. She stared at our daughter for the first time.
“Oh, my goodness.” With the baby cradled and swaddled, Ava’s words trickled from her trembling lips in a quiet litany. Her eyes were wide with wonderment and she smiled down at our little girl. “Oh, my goodness. I have never felt a love like this before.”
This love, this tiny, wide-eyed creation was ours. She left us speechless and filled our hearts and souls with this amazingly powerful emotion. We stared for ages without speaking. Nurses checked and rechecked, the sun moved over in the sky but to us, time stood still.
****
“Thank you.” My lips pressed a peck to the top of Ava’s head and she blinked to look up at me.
A crinkle in her nose matched the crease in the middle of her forehead. The line deepened, wiggled and then knitted. Her hand left its warm place on the baby and slowly, she pointed at me, bringing her finger closer until it rested upon the corner of my lip. “What’s this? I didn’t do that.”
My fingers darted to my mouth, brushing her hand aside and the wide pad of my salty thumb wiped at the tender bite mark that Fauna had left on my mouth. I looked down at the now dried blood that smeared across the pad of my finger.
I gaped. Unsure. My mouth opened before I could formulate any rational words. My throat went dry and my breath stuck sharply in my lungs. I looked away from her, up towards the corner of the room, unable to meet her eye. “Car accident. On the way here… I was, um, rear-ended.” I gagged on venomous stomach acid. “I must have bitten my lip in the accident. I didn’t realize it… I was too worried about getting to you in time.”
“Are you alright? Is everything okay?”
“Of course. Everything is going to be just fine.”
We weren’t fine. This was just the beginning of the end. I told the first of many deceitful, ugly lies to my wife and she believed me so easily.
About The Author
Cat Mann is an Illinois author who writes teen and adult romance. She is happily married to a genius of a man and together they are raising two beautiful daughters. With her dog at her side, Cat obsessives over French music, witty films and lengthy novels. Cat’s books have been listed on numerous Amazon bestseller lists, including the Amazon Top 100, Literature & Fiction Fantasy Based Novels, as well as being a top contender in Mythology & Fairy Tales. To find out more about Cat’s projects and get dates on upcoming releases, find her on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/authorcat.mann and follow her blog, https://authorcatmannblog.blogspot.com/.