Page 85 of Henhouse
Hope woke to pain like bad period cramps in the middle of the night, and not long after the sheets were damp with the breaking of her water.
The bags for the hospital were packed and waiting by the door. Brayden ran around like everything wasn’t ready to pick up and walk out with. Hope laughed at the frantic energy that bubbled around him as the clock neared one a.m.. She checked the timer she’d started on his phone, waiting for her contractions to be close enough together to warrant going to the maternity ward. She didn’t want to labor long in the sterile environment that still smelled too much like a reminder of her last visit to the hospital to say goodbye to Aunt Beatrice.
But at some point, it would be unavoidable, and that point was now. “Time to go,” Hope said, swinging her feet over the side of the bed. Brayden rushed to her side, holding her steady as another contraction ripped through her.
“That seemed like a bad one,” Brayden said with a wince.
“Oh, we’re just getting started,” Hope teased, intent to stay lighthearted through the labor, especially because if she stopped too long to think, to take this seriously, she’d be wracked with worry. It was time. She would have a baby in her arms within hours, and there would be no version of her that wasn’t a mom ever again.
It was thrilling and terrifying all at once.
Brayden guided her down the stairs and out to the car. He ran back inside for the bags before hopping into the driver’s seat. He started the car and fumbled through neutral and reverse and drive. Hope placed a reassuring hand over his on the shift stick. “Breathe,” she said.
Brayden inhaled and exhaled along with Hope. “Bug is really coming,” he said as though he too had thought it was some distant possibility, not a promise. “What if he hates me?”
“Shewill love you, but only if you get me to the hospital in one piece.” Hope’s face scrunched in pain as she breathed through another contraction. “And soon.”
Brayden’s hand steadied as he put the car in drive and pulled onto the road. Hope’s stomach fluttered with anticipation. She could not wait to meet the being that made the picture of her life complete. Writer. Mother. Wife.What more could she want?
The labor was a blur of nurses and breathing techniques and grunts of pain Brayden could do nothing to ease. He stood solid beside Hope, his arm or his hand ready to be squeezed to a pulp if that’s what she needed.
She was so strong, so beautiful.
By the end of it, Brayden decided that there was nothing moreimpressive, more amazing, more awe-inspiring than watching the woman you love bring your baby into the world through will and grit and instinct. Because that’s what Hope did. When she felt something was off, she changed positions. When she wanted to walk around the room, she did. Every breath, every movement was born of some womanly instinct that Brayden could only marvel at.
And the bundle he now held in his arms, well he was another kind of miracle. A gift from Hope. She’d taken the building blocks of them and combined them into a living, breathing little boy, with ten fingers and ten toes—he’d checked—and a personality he could already feel forming with each twist of his nose and lips. Brayden was so grateful that Hope had cooked this little man to perfection, and he could not wait to see who he would become.
Hope leaned against his shoulder, a gentle hand smoothing back the peach fuzz that coated the baby’s head. “What should we name him?”
“Him!” Tibby exclaimed from the open doorway, the rest of the Thatcher women behind her. “A Thatcher boy? We’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Well, now maybe he isn’t a Thatcher,” Ellen mused setting down a gift bag on the windowsill before kissing Hope on the head and waggling a single finger in greeting to Brayden’s son.
“Posh,” Dorothea said as she shuffled into the room, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as the rest of them despite the early hour. “The only reason any of you are Thatchers is because I demanded my daughters take my name.”
“You did?” Brayden asked, never having heard this particular story.
“I did. Herman’s last name was King, and wonderful as he was, hedidn’t have to carry them for nine months and push them out his hoo-ha. It’s arbitrary that babies take their father’s last name, so I made my case, and he agreed.”
“A king indeed,” Theo drawled from the doorway, arm draped around Effie’s shoulder. Dorothea harrumphed her agreement before settling into one of the empty seats on the other side of the room. Louisa and Pamela wrangled the three little girls onto the couch under the window, each clutching a gift for the baby.
For the first time since meeting Hope, he was grateful for her wild, crazy family. They had become his and he couldn’t be happier, especially since Uncle Theo had officially joined the fold. If it was a numbers game, there’d be more votes for Thatcher than Schilling, but he didn’t care what the baby’s name was. He’d learned long ago that family was made, sometimes in blood and name, but more often in action and love. “Well, what’s it gonna be?” he asked of his future bride.
“Elliot Schilling Thatcher,” she said with a bit of worry that he might be upset. “Grams and I agree on this one.” She laughed. A chorus ofamensfrom her aunts and cousins confirmed the strain of labor earned naming rights.
Brayden laughed and looked down at his son. “Welcome to the world, Elliot.”
43
Theo walked up the brick walkway, the site of the only breakup that had ever threatened to undo him, to join the Thatchers for dinner.
What he found instead was a bustle of activity, the front door thrown open as the ladies shuffled in and out with furniture and belongings from the carriage house. Ellen marched behind her two little ones, each carrying pillows and blankets. “Hey, Theo,” Ellen said like it was just another day.
“Hi?”
He followed behind her in search of Effie. He found her in the great room scolding her sister as she paraded through on her way to Beatrice’s room. “I didn’t mean you had to do it now!”
“No time like the present!” Ellen retorted before continuing down the hall. The girls had disappeared upstairs with their bedding.
