Page 182 of Bad Bishop
Made her live under the same roof with it.
My heart thrashed so hard it nearly cracked my fucking ribs.
I couldn’t make a stink about it. Not here, not now. With Lila writhing and aching as the doctor stitched up the sore place between her legs. A nurse dabbed her temples with a cloth, and my wife’s arms stretched open, waiting to be filled with the baby she just birthed.
My baby.
He was fucking mine.
I would raise him as my own, and he’d look exactly like me.
No one would question his origin.
“Gealach, he is beautiful,” I praised, pressing my lips to her sweat-coated forehead. She shuddered under my lips. I pulled back and caressed the damp hair away from her face.
One of the nurses placed a much drier, slightly less sullen version of our newborn in her arms.
His hair.
I couldn’t stop staring.
Did Lila know?
I couldn’t stomach what it must do to her.
She sniffled, looking up at me through glittering eyes, waiting for my words. She couldn’t offer me any of her own, seeing as her hands were busy cradling our baby to her chest.
“You did so good. I’m proud of you.” I kissed her mouth, then leaned down to kiss the crown of my son’s head. I looked back at her so she could read my lips, speaking as slowly as I could.
“I love you, sweetheart. You fractured my soul and dug so deep into it, you are now ingrained in all that I am, and all that I ever will be. As for our son.” I placed a hand on his tiny shoulder,smiling down at him. “I already love him more than I do anyone else in the world.”
But you.
She would always come first.
Before our son. Before myself.
I stayed for twenty more minutes, fussing and cooing over them, feeding her prosciutto and watching as she nursed the baby for the first time.
Finally, when the baby was napping, she turned and told me, “You haven’t had a second for yourself. Why don’t you go take a shower and a nap?”
“It’s fine,” I said, even though every fiber of my body itched to go to Fintan. “I’m happy to stay.”
He was probably halfway across the continent by now. Not that it’d help him.
She shook her head, smiling.
“Mama and Imma should be here any minute in case I need anything. And now that he is napping, it’s smart if I do the same. Please. Go rest. For me.”
“Doeshehave a name?” I rubbed my thumb across her flushed cheek.
She looked down at the pink scowling thing sleeping in the bassinet next to her. “Gennaro, I think.” A tender smile touched her pink lips. “He looks like a Gennaro, right?”
He looked mostly like a Fintan to me.
He also looked entirely too Irish to carry such a distinctively Italian name.
“Yes,” I said, nevertheless. “Gennaro.Nero.Perfect.”
