Solstice Song

by Colleen Charles

  It was a hard sell, talking Ronan into living part-time in the US. But in the end his love for me swayed him. As much as I do, he longs to create a true family from our love for one another. That dream’s about to come to fruition. If the agony burning my loins is any indication, it can’t come soon enough.

  “Ahhhhh!”

  The midwife glances up at me. “Just one more push, Savie. Yer can do it!”

  I bear down, putting every single cell in my body behind my efforts. It burns, the blazing agony of a million fires, and Ronan says words I’ve been desperate to hear. “I can see his head.”

  Ignoring his wishful thinking about the sex of our unborn child, I focus on the serious face between my legs. Sobbing now, I look down and watch the midwife turn our baby before she says, “Now ‘tis time to push out the shoulders. Yer almost there, yer are.”

  Inhaling deeply, I bear down, and the baby slides out in a rush of amniotic fluid and wonder. As if a flip has switched, the intense pain abates, and I leave the memory of it behind as if it’s been nothing but a bad dream.

  My heart thunders in my chest until I hear a wail. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I open my arms and the midwife puts the bright red baby on my naked chest.

  “’Tis a girl.”

  Ronan laughs and cries, so many emotions on his face. “Seems our daughter has yer lungs. She’s caterwaulin’ just like yer did when first we met.”

  I no longer want to strike him, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him yet for getting me in this predicament. “And she has your inability to remain still,” I say, watching the squirming infant try to settle herself into a comfortable position.

  “’Tis the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen,” Caris says, running a fingertip across the baby’s thick shock of dark hair. Blue eyes peer up at me. Her father’s eyes. “What are yer going to call her?”

  “Her name’s Delaney. Delaney Helen,” I add, allowing my daughter to grip my finger. A burst of love so deep and strong overtakes my body, and I feel I’m going to explode if I don’t express it. I lean down and kiss her forehead, overcome with emotion. My tears fall until she finally stops crying and settles.

  “Ach, that’s a pretty name. It fits her, it does,” Caris says. “I think ‘tis time we give yer both some time alone. As a family.”

  A family. My family.

  I never thought it would happen, but I’m so glad it did. When my bus broke down on the side of a gravel, Irish roadside, fate stepped in and took over, sending the love of my life to rescue me. It’s like a song.

  A solstice song.

  And it’s the most beautiful song I’ve ever written.

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  Solstice Song by Colleen Charles ©2017 All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Colleen Charles loves reading and writing stories that entertain and sweep the reader away from their everyday life.

  Irish Slang Glossary

  Bag o’ swhag – Very good

  Ballsch – Rubbish

  Banjaxed – State of disrepair

  Bogger – Person from the countryside

  Bombay Shitehawk – General colorful insult

  Boreen – A rural Irish road

  Cacks – Underwear

  Chancer – A person who pushes their luck

  Chubbed Up – An erection

  Cocktrough – A woman with a sloppy vagina

  Doing A Line – Having an affair

  Eejit – Someone of reduced intellectual capacity

  Flaming – Intoxicated

  Flange – Vagina

  Fleecing – The act of stealing

  Flute – Penis

  Fuck Face – A person who behaves in an unfavorable manner

  Gee – Vagina

  Geebag – Unpopular female

  Giblets – Female genitals

  Gyppo – A dirty itinerant

  Horned Up – Being aroused

  Horse It In – To be sexually ravaged

  Knock The Hole Off – To have intercourse with

  Lack – Girlfriend

  Langer – Penis

  Loosebit – A woman

  Manky – Unclean or dirty

  Mucksavage – Someone from outside Dublin

  Muckshites – Country folk

  Neddy – Fool

  Pikey – Member of the travelling community

  Piss Artist – Alcoholic

  Relax The Cacks – Calm down

  Rosspot – Good looking young lady

  Savage – An expression of satisfaction

  Scaldy – Tea

  Schnozzlewoppers – Cash

  Scunders – Male underwear

  Shanks Pony – On foot

  Shite The Bed – Expression of surprise

  Shitehawk – Anyone unpleasant or untrustworthy

  Slapper – An easy lay

  Stall The Ball – Wait a moment

  Steamboats – Seriously inebriated

  Stinker’s Bridge – The skin joining the anus and the ball sack

  Thicko – Intellectually challenged as well as lazy

  Throw It In – Have sexual intercourse

  Titmickey – Secretly touching someone with your penis in public

  Townie – City dweller