Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101168 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 506(@200wpm)___ 405(@250wpm)___ 337(@300wpm)
They scrambled after her, Poe falling into step with Cameron and saying something too quietly for Edgar to overhear.
A hand reached for Edgar’s. Jamie. Their sweet, comforting presence had been a source of stability the whole night. Now, rays of sun were beginning to peek through the windows.
“You don’t have to stay,” Edgar told Jamie. At the flash of hurt in their eyes, he quickly added, “I mean, I want you here. I just…I know it’s been a long time, and you have a life and work and…”
“It’s Saturday,” they said. “And I’m right where I want to be.” They lifted their joined hands and kissed Edgar’s knuckles.
Cameron knocked softly, then opened Allie’s door. She was groggy but awake, a nurse checking her vitals. It wasn’t visiting hours, but Edgar guessed that since Cameron was a doctor, no one questioned her right to be there.
Poe hung back by the door, and it took a minute for Allie to notice him.
“Poe?” she said. He stood a little straighter, and her eyes watered. “Get over here, you asshole.”
Poe walked woodenly to her side and let Allie pull him into a hug. The moment she let him go, he moved back, staring at her like he could drink her in.
“Where the fuck have you been?” she demanded. “And why are you constitutionally incapable of returning a phone call?”
Poe opened and closed his mouth like a fish. “Sorry,” he mumbled.
“Ugh, shut up, never mind. I’m so damn glad to see you.”
She looked on the edge of tears, and Edgar took her hand.
Allie looked between her brothers. “I’m having a baby. Can you fucking believe it?” She giggled. It was a sound as familiar to Edgar as his own voice, the burble of her laughter enveloping him in warmth. “We see ghosts, and I’m having a fucking baby,” she said, her laughter turning manic.
Poe snorted. “Dad abandoned us, and Mom went crazy, and you’re having a baby,” he said, then sputtered out a chuckle of his own. He and Allie looked at each other and laughed even harder.
Allie had a contraction and swore a blue streak, then went right back to laughing. For some reason, this struck Edgar as being absurd.
“Poe ran away from us the second he could, I’m a basket case, and you’re having a baby!”
He joined in his siblings’ laughter, and something broke open inside him. Having Poe back had shifted a missing piece back into place. They were a triangle once more, balance restored.
Allie’s contractions were coming more and more frequently. Cameron installed herself by Allie’s side and took her hand.
“Distract me!” Allie demanded.
Edgar scrabbled for something to say, but his mind was blank. Poe’s expression said he could think of many things to say, but none of them were appropriate. Cameron watched them with an expression that clearly said, Get it together and distract your damn sister!
Finally Jamie spoke, their tone so natural and calm that the tension in the whole room relaxed.
Allie had another contraction. And another. And then it was on.
Edgar stood, shoulder blades pressed against the painted cement wall, and watched as a creature tore its way out of his sister’s body in slow motion. He couldn’t imagine how anyone could experience such a thing without being ripped to shreds.
“I can’t believe I did this! What is wrong with me? I regret everything! How did you let me do this?” This last was snarled at Cameron, who had the calm of those regularly faced with the insides of other people’s bodies and equipped with the knowledge to fix them.
“You are not dragging me into this mess,” Cameron said. “One day, it was, ‘I will never be in that mess,’ and a year later, you were like, ‘Will you be my birth partner?’”
“I know!” Allie said, then devolved into grunting. “God, why didn’t I have a home birth?”
“Because insurance wouldn’t cover it,” Cameron said calmly. “And because your apartment would end up splattered with baby gore from front door to kitchen if you tried to give birth in there,” she added.
“Fuck, I gotta move,” Allie groaned. “My place is, like, twenty square feet.”
Poe snickered. “I can’t believe you still live there. Remember how you had to saw your bed in half to get it up the stairs?”
“No one say another word about my tiny hideous apartment!” Allie commanded. “Say nice, sweet, gorgeous shit about the beautiful fucking world I’m bringing this kid into!”
Then her eyes went wide.
“Oh my god. I’m bringing a kid into the world. This terrible world. Where they won’t have civil rights. Or health care. Or breathable air. Oh my lord, what have I done? Cameron! Keep it in there!”
“Yeah, I’ll get right on that,” Cameron said.
“Oh my god. Oh my god,” Allie said over and over again. “I’m gonna ruin its life. Somehow. Oh god! Fuuuuuck.”