Page 80 of Bringing Home the Bacon
And that’s when my water breaks.
All over his designer shoes.
Chapter 26
Bacon
“Did you just pee on me?” I ask.
She looks down.
“I don’t, uh—I don’t know. Maybe? I’m sorry, Bacon. For everything. For leaving you—both times—for making you work so hard to love me, and now…” I look down at his shoes. “…for peeing on you. I love you, and I need you, Bacon. I’m not afraid to say it anymore. I, Colleen Murphy Bedd need you Harold “Bay-CAHN” Hotman with every fiber of my being. I need to see your beautiful face every day. I need your warmth and your kindness and your touch of weird. Mostly I need you to know that I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Gosh, did I really just pee on you?”
“Let me make something very clear to you, Colleen. You have never been hard to love, and nothing would make me happier than for you to pee on me for the rest of our lives.”
“Ha! God, I love you.” She grabs her belly and winces while she speaks. “Yup, these are getting super strong now.”
“What are getting super strong now?” I try to hide my panic, but I am wholly unsuccessful. I also let go of the sheep. “Colleen, are you in labor!?”
“Affirmative,” she says through the pain. “Also, I’m realizing that was my water breaking on your shoes just now.”
“But we’re only thirty-five-and-a-half weeks!” I say.
“They told us twins usually come early.”
“Sure, but not this early!”
“It’s okay,” she soothes. “Everything is going to be okay.”
It occurs to me then that I have to get my shit together immediately. Colleen is in full labor, and she’s comforting me.
“Alright, I’ll run up the hill to the restaurant and pull the car around. We’ll have you at the hospital before you know it.”
“The hospital is over a half hour away in Climax. I know I’ve never done this whole giving birth thing before, but I’m pretty sure we don’t have time.”
“What makes you say that?”
She reaches under her skirt. “Because I can feel one of the babies’ heads.”
Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.
“Baaa!” the sheep bleats from her fancy sheep palace, almost like she’s beckoning us. “Baaaa!”
“That’s a great idea, Baabara, thank you,” Colleen says, still gripping her belly. “Bacon, can you help me walk over to Baabara’s enclosure?”
“You’re going to give birth in Barbara’s pen? Also, you speak sheep?” I loop an arm behind Colleen’s back and guide her in that direction.
“Baaa!” the sheep bleats louder than the last time.
“She’s yelling at you,” Colleen says. “You pronounced her name wrong. You’ve really gotta hit the Baaa part, or you risk pissing her off.”
“Sure, sure. This is a perfectly reasonable discussion to be having while our children are being born. Let me rephrase for the sheep. You’re going to give birth in Baaaaaaaaaaaaabara’s pen?”
“If it’s good enough for Baabara, it’s good enough for me,” she says. “Quick, put that blanket down over the hay.”
“Is it sanitary, though?”
“Baabara is the most pampered sheep on the planet. Her linens are laundered every day.”
