Page 114 of Act Like You Don't Care
"I'm fine." He picked up his phone to check his messages. "Mom's heading to the airport now."
I was silent for a moment. "Do you wish she was here right now?"
He let his head fall back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. "A little? But I wanted you here more."
I kissed his cheek, which made him smile. "Thank you," I whispered.
He turned his head to press his forehead to mine, then picked up his phone again and put it down. "Can you give me my script? I might as well get some work done while we're waiting."
Tam
Igot nothing done. Our daughter decided about two hours after we got to the hospital that she was tired of hanging out in the dark and she wanted out. Miles had the balls to quip that she obviously took after me, since once she made a decision she wasted no time putting things in motion. I wanted to throttle him, but I was too busy remembering how to breathe and wishing I could also throttle the doctor, who was much too calm and cheerful for my current state of mind.
When the contractions had gotten to the point where the breaks between them were almost non-existent, Miles's phone began chiming almost continuously.
"That better not be work," I grunted with the little air I had to spare.
"I don't care if it's the President, he can fucking well wait," said the father of my child in a maddeningly calm voice. "You need me right now."
"What I need," I hissed in the brief relief from pain that was the valley before my next contraction, "Is for you to shut that damn thing off!" And then the contraction hit and I was just along for the ride, desperately trying to keep my head above water, following the doctor's instructions and Miles's instructions and not doing a good job of either. How on earth did people do this more than once?
I was terrified. It hurt, which I'd expected, but the worst part was that there was no backing out. Nothing I did made it better at all, could slow it down, could give me a breather. I couldn't stop to collect myself--all I could do was keep desperately breathing and pushing whenever the nurse told me to and praying for it to all be over.
The pressure grew, the pain reached a new high point and a weird numbness crept out from the center of that pain. And then, all of a sudden--nothing. No pressure. No pain. Some aching and a disconcerting feeling of emptiness. And then the doctor held our daughter up for me to see and she yelled at him with all the exhaustion and rage that I was too tired to vent.
"Lovely baby girl," the doctor commented. "Do either of you sing?"
We both shook our heads.
He grinned at us as he brought the baby around to lay her on my chest. "She's got quite the set of pipes."
I'm sure he said more, but I wasn't listening. Our little girl gave a couple more cries while I carefully stroked her head and her cheeks, marveling at this miracle that had just come from my body. Then, just as abruptly as she'd begun to cry, she stopped, her eyes staring bemusedly across the bed toward her father.
Miles leaned over us, as if he could shield us from the world with his body, or maybe just the sheer willpower I knew he possessed. "She's beautiful."
She wasn't, really. She looked like a small, wrinkled alien, but I could see the shape of Miles's cheekbones in her face already, the tiny tilt to her eyes that came from me. So, yes, she was beautiful, at least as I measured it. From the look of absolute adoration on Miles's face, that went for him as well.
"Here, Dad," said the doctor, holding out a pair of scissors. "Would you like to cut the cord, make her truly independent now?"
His eyes met mine. "That's your job, isn't it?" I reminded him. "To make sure she grows up strong and independent? Starting early, is all."
He laughed softly and accepted the scissors, performing the first of his paternal duties for our little girl.
"Okay, there," the nurse said, coming over with a little blanket. "We're not going to take her away for long, just long enough to clean her up, get her weight and her height and put her little wristband on. Have you two decided on a name for her?"
Miles looked at me and I tilted my head in uncertainty.
"We have a few ideas," he told her. "I expect she'll let us know which ones she likes."
Impulsively, I interrupted him. "I was thinking Cordelia. Cordelia Margaret."
He hadn't been expecting that. "You don't want to name her after your mother?" he asked with wide eyes.
I shook my head. "Maybe the next one. If it's a girl." I wasn't all the way to forgetting the pain of the delivery, but I'd worked harder and felt worse for less reward in the film industry. And with the boost up the ladder that Margaret's support had given me, I could afford the time to have another child. Maybe two more.
"You're sure?" Miles asked gently. "I know you wanted to do something for your mom."
I nodded. "I know. But something feels right about this. If you're okay with it."
