by Lilian Darcy
'Steve, I'm—'
'You can't leave,' he repeated for the third time.
'I'm not,' she gasped at last. 'I'm just packing this up for Mom and Maddy. The things they bought. They couldn't fit them in their suitcases, and I'm going to mail them instead.'
'Uh...!' The breath went out of him as if he'd been struck with a blow. 'That's...a help, I guess,' he said. He was still gripping her arms. 'But, no,' he went on, 'it doesn't change anything. My God, Candace, we're so far overdue for a talk it's not funny! You have no right to make any of your decisions alone!' His voice softened suddenly. 'But, of course, it's at least half my fault that you don't know that.'
His arms slid around her and she was astonished to find them trembling. So was his jaw. Trembling with tension, his whole body.
'I love you,' he said. 'God, why haven't I said it before?'
His kiss was passionate, imperious, sure of its response.
'I love you, too,' she answered, tears burning in her eyes. 'I've loved you for—I don't know when it started. Is it enough? I've been wondering if it's enough.'
'Hell, yes! Enough? It's the only thing, Candace. Maybe I didn't know it until tonight, but I know it now, and a moment ago when I thought you were packing to leave without even a word of advance warning... Loving each other is the only thing. We have to say it to each other—'
'We just did.'
'We have to say it every time we're together, and then we have to talk about the future, knowing that what we decide has to be based on that. The fact that we love each other. Candace, I love you, and I want to be with you, whatever it takes.'
His arms and his lips softened, as his voice had softened, and when he kissed her this time it was sweet and slow and cajoling.
'So do I,' she said, with her cheek pillowed against his chest.
'Whatever it takes?'
'I want to be with you. I want to make a family for this little boy.'
'Here? Do you want it to be here? That's one of the things that seemed like a mountain between us.'
'Anywhere.'
'Anywhere. That's almost as big as "forever"—do you realise that?' he said.
'Are you asking me about forever?' She lifted her head, cupped his face in the palms of her hands and looked deeply into it.
'I don't think I'm asking. I'm telling you,' he said, meeting her gaze steadily. 'Or I'm offering it. Forever. If you want it, Candace. I want to marry you and promise you that it's forever. As for where, it can be wherever you want. Wherever we decide. Only let's decide it together. Let's not second-guess what we think the other person needs.'
'Can it be here?'
'What about Maddy?'
'I've been thinking about that tonight. Really thinking about it, instead of running away from it because it's too confusing and scary. Maddy...' she took a deep breath '...will find it easier this way. To live with Mom, who's so good with her. That's kind of hard for me, because she's growing up and I haven't accepted it yet.'
'Mothers don't, do they?' He smiled.
She nodded. 'It's the same as it was when I first came out here. It was harder for me to leave Maddy and accept that she'd be all right than it was for her to wave goodbye to me. She's going to be sixteen soon. She'll live with Mom for a couple of years and they'll have fewer fights than Maddy and I would have, even without this baby on the scene. Mom will talk to her about the baby, and about you and me, and she'll listen and take it to heart in a way she never would if I said it. She'll make more visits over here, and we'll visit there. We'll talk on the phone and run up huge bills, and stay closer that way, I think, than if she had to live with us.'
'Yeah?'
'Two lovers, their baby and a teen? Doesn't work! That's really why she's been miserable with Todd and Brittany.' For the first time, she spoke those two names together without pain. 'It's not because she was missing me. It's not even because Todd and Brittany are particularly horrible.' Again, she could say it and it didn't hurt.
But he told her seriously, 'Candee, I'm sure they're very, very horrible.'
She laughed. 'Thanks! But when she's older and settled somewhere, could we move close by so that she can get to be friends with her second little brother?'
'I like the idea of that,' he said. 'Living there, when it seems right. I like the idea of not making it an either-or thing. We can do both. There'll be sacrifices. But when I think about what I feel, I can believe they'll be worth it, and they'll balance out.'
'The Pacific seemed so huge to me today when I watched their plane taking off,' Candace said. 'But, yes, when there's solid ground beneath my feet, the solid ground of loving you, and knowing that you feel the same, the distance doesn't seem so important.'
'Nothing else is important, everything else finds its right place, when we're so certain of this,' he whispered, and found her mouth.
EPILOGUE
This isn't fun, Steve thought to himself. This most definitely and absolutely isn't fun.
Candace squeezed his hand again. Lacerated it, if he was truthful. Her face was red and straining and sheened with sweat. Her blue hospital gown was limp, and she was very, very tired. Sixteen hours of labour, a quarter past four in the morning, and it wasn't over yet. He hated her pain, and his powerlessness. Hated it. Oh, truly, there were moments in this adventure called love that were definitely not fun!
But at least Candace's pain had been replaced to an extent by hard work over the past half-hour. The baby's head was crowning strongly, and no longer slipping back up into the birth canal between contractions. It wouldn't be long now.
'You're doing so great, Mom!' Maddy said with a sob in her voice. She squeezed Candace's shoulder from her position on the other side of the bed. 'I'm so proud of you.'
But Candace was too involved in her work to respond to her daughter with more than a big-eyed, love-filled, exhausted look, as another contraction came.
She and Steve had both been thrilled and relieved when Maddy had announced over the phone, several months ago, that she wanted to be present for both the wedding and the birth, if possible.
'I've talked about it a lot with Grammy, and I want to apologise for being a spoiled brat, before, when I was with you.'
'Oh, sweetheart...'
It had ended up a very lengthy phone call, and both Candace and Steve had been very happy to accommodate what Maddy wanted. The logistics of distance dictated that both events would have to take place during the same trip, over Maddy's Christmas and New Year break from school.
This had given all of them some anxious moments on 23 December when an hour of false labour made it seem as if the baby might arrive before their scheduled Christmas Eve wedding.
'Really, baby!' Elaine had admonished Candace's round, hard belly. 'It would be a lot more convenient if you would wait. Your big sister might want to see you born—personally, I'll be waiting somewhere civilised, not in the delivery suite—but I'm here to see your parents married first!'
And the labour had subsided, the simple wedding had taken place, outdoors, at seven o'clock in the evening at a local park—Candace had looked huge and fabulous in a simply cut cream linen maternity dress—and now the baby was coming, right on his due date of 7 January. As promised, Elaine was waiting for the news at home in Candace's and Steve's spare room, while Maddy was here, tired but very involved.
'Pant through the break, Candace,' coached the midwife urgently. 'His head is almost out. One more push...'
'One more push, Candee,' Steve echoed. 'You can do it.'
She nodded and gripped her angled thighs, and he held her shoulders and prayed.
'He's coming... He's coming...' the midwife said.
Candace gave a huge sound of effort, half groan, half yell. The head was out...it was rotating...the midwife delivered one shoulder...the other slipped out on its own, followed by torso and limbs, all wet and slippery. Born! He was safely born! Steve's eyes stung then filled, and his diaphragm jerked with sobs of relief that he barely noticed. He was grinning so much th
at it hurt, was in no doubt at all that this was the best moment of his life.
The baby cried at once, lustily, and waved his tiny, splayed fingers. Pink spread all over his body, and the midwife cradled him in a towel and laid him at once in Candace's arms.
'Oh... Oh...' Candace said. She was crying, too. 'He's so beautiful! He's amazing! So perfect!'
Maddy had dissolved completely. 'I knew it would be special, but I didn't know it would be like this,' she said. 'Oh, Mom...'
They hugged, clumsy in their emotion, and Maddy touched her little brother's head.
'I'm so glad you were here, sweetheart,' Candace whispered to her daughter. Then she turned to Steve, frowning. Strands of hair clung damply to her forehead, making him itch to smooth them back. 'Is your hand OK? I think I was pulling on it a bit...'
'It's fine.' He hid it from sight, didn't want her to see the stiffness in it or the scratches. 'Everything's fine.'
He leaned across, pushed the hair from her brow and kissed her, then watched as she lifted her gown and gave the baby her breast. He felt a fullness inside him, a physical sensation of love and protectiveness, pride and triumph, which was almost a kind of pain.
'You know, I actually think this was all worth it,' Maddy said. She was laughing now, while brushing tears from her young face with the back of her hand. 'All the horribleness. Everything. Never thought I'd be able to say that. But it really was.'
'Is she right, Steve?' Candace whispered, looking at him across the damp black shape of their baby's head, pillowed at her breast.
'Do you even need to ask?' he whispered back.