Born In Death

“Yeah, I’m happy for you.”

“Couple of old married ladies now. Who’d’ve thought it? Pretty soon, I’m going to be a mother. I want more than anything to be a good one.”

“Mavis, it’s in the bag.”

“There are so many ways to screw up. I used to be such a screw-up. But I came around, right?”

“Yeah, you did.”

“I wanted to say something to you, before everything changes again. Because I know this is going to change everything. A good change. An abso mag change, but still. Dallas, you’re the best person I know.”

“Are you sure you haven’t had drugs already?”

Mavis gave a watery laugh. “I mean it. Leonardo, he’s the sweetest, but you’re the best. You do what’s right, you do what matters, whatever it takes. You’re the first of my family, and you really started me on the road. I wouldn’t be here, wouldn’t be doing this except for you.”

“I think Leonardo had more to do with it.”

Mavis gri

“Mavis, if I didn’t love you, I’d be a thousand miles from this room.”

“I know.” Now she hooted out a wicked laugh. “It’s kind of a kick to know. But you do what’s right. You do what matters, so you are so completely stuck. Oh, shit, damn, fuck, here comes another one.”

Two hours later, with a little something to take the leading edge off, Mavis was pronounced “ready to push.”

“All right, team.” Randa lifted the tent between Mavis’s legs. “Positions.”

“Why is this my position?” Eve demanded when she was maneuvered to the bottom of the bed.

“Mavis, I want you to take a long deep breath on the next contraction, hold it for the count of ten, and push. Dallas, give her resistance. Leonardo, on the resistance, pull. Roarke, on breathing.”

“It’s coming!”

“Get your breath, and go. Push! One, two…”

“Mag! You’re amazing,” Leonardo declared when the contraction passed. “You’re a miracle. Breathe slow now, sugarcake. You don’t want to hyperventilate.”

“I love you,” Mavis said with her eyes closed and her face slack. “But if you tell me how to breathe one more time, I’ll yank your tongue out of your mouth and strangle you with it. Here it comes again.”

During the next hour, Leonardo bathed Mavis’s face with cool cloths, gave her ice chips, hunched in shame when she snapped at his over-cheery encouragement.

For herself, Eve did her job and looked anywhere but at what was going on below.

“I think we should switch.” She narrowed her eyes at Roarke as Mavis sucked in for the next round.

“There’s no power in heaven or hell that could make me go down there.”

“That’s the way, Mavis,” Randa encouraged. “See, the head.”

Instinctively Roarke glanced at the mirror angled for Mavis. “Oh, God! My eyes.”

Pulling on the bright red strap Leonardo held, pushing strongly with her foot against Eve, Mavis let out a nearly inhuman growl, then plopped back and panted.

“A couple more,” the midwife told her. “Just a couple more.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“You can do it, starshine!”

Mavis bared her teeth at Leonardo. “You want to switch places? Shit, shit, shit.” She reared up, grabbed the strap, and dug her free hand, nails first, into Roarke’s.

“Head’s out. What a great face!”

With one eye shut, Eve looked down, and saw the wet, slack face that was vaguely human poked out of Mavis’s crotch. “Is that even possible? Can that be right?”

“One more, Mavis, and you’ve got yourself a baby.”

“I’m so tired.”

Eve blew the hair out of her eyes, waited until Mavis’s glazed ones met hers. “One more time, for-the-money shot.”

“Okay, okay, here it comes.”

It slid out, slippery, wriggling as Mavis pushed with a vengeance. Its cry was raw and irritated, in counterpoint to Mavis’s weeping laugh. “My baby! Our baby! What is it? I can’t see that part. Does it have a dingle or not?”

Eve cocked her head as the midwife held up the now-wailing baby. “Dingle-free. It’s a girl. Got some serious lungs on her.”

Leonardo wept as he cut the cord, wept as the baby was laid on Mavis’s belly. “Look at my beautiful girls. Look at my girls.” He spoke it like a prayer. “Do you see them?”

“It all right, Daddy.” Mavis crooned, stroking his hair with one hand, the baby’s back with the other. “Hello, my baby. Hello, true love. I’m going to do everything I can so the world doesn’t suck for you.”

“We’ll need her for just a minute,” Randa told Mavis. “Just to clean her up, to weigh her. Dolly’s going to take her and bring her right back to you. She’s a real beauty, Mom.”

“Mom.” Mavis pressed her lips to the baby’s head before Dolly lifted her. “I’m a mom. Thank you.” She reached for Roarke’s hand, then smiled down at Eve. “Thank you.”

“She is beautiful.” Roarke leaned over to kiss Mavis’s cheek. “Like a perfectly beautiful doll.”

“She’ll suit her name.” Leonardo wiped tears from his eyes.

“We went all over the place on names, remember, Dallas?”

“I think Radish was the last you ran by me.”

“Apricot.” Mavis rolled her eyes, and simply glowed. “But we decided to go with something softer, if it was a girl. Something sweet. She’s Bella. Bella Eve. We’ll call her Belle.”

The beautiful Belle was wrapped in a pink blanket, her pretty bald head covered in a pink hat, and placed in her father’s big arms. “Now,” he whispered, “I have everything. I have the world.”

Hours later, Eve stood in the quiet of her own bedroom, and pulled off her boots. “Hell of a day.”

“Hell of several.”

“We did okay, didn’t we? Coach Roarke.”

“Some shaky moments, but I think, yes, we did just fine. And thank all the gods it’s done.”

“It kind of looked like that vid – the pod people vid, before they’re fully formed.”

Tu

“Yeah, that. It – I mean she – kind of looked like that when she came out, then she didn’t. She looked mostly real. I never thought I’d hear myself say this, but I’m glad Mavis cornered us into doing this. It meant a lot, to see this through with her.”

“It did.” He crossed to her, put his arms around her. “And you’ve two lives, two new begi

“Hope I never have to arrest them.”

He laughed, swept her up. “I want you in bed.”

“I want to be there, too. Be glad if you came along.” She pressed her lips to the side of his neck. “I’ve got to clean up the mess tomorrow, on the job. Tie up the last of it. Might take two days, but no more than. Anyway, the new mother will sulk if we don’t come in and ga-ga over Belle. But then, it’s just you and me, pal. Dancing naked under the tropical sun.”

“Hallelujah.”

When she was wrapped around him, she let it all go, the questions, the answers, life and death. They’d all wait for her until the morning.