a grin.
“Your family’s downstairs. They brought you some shep-
herd’s pie.” Phillip reached out to touch Steph’s shoulder, and
she yanked it away.
“Need anything?” he asked, looking dejected.
“Yep. To have this baby out of me. Can you do that, Phil-
lip?” She pointed to her mid-section with both hands. As she
moved toward the restroom, she muttered. “You certainly had no
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problem putting it in there…”
Cheyenne snickered, and Phillip uttered a long suffering
sigh. On his way out the door, Steph saw him mouth the words
“thank you” to Cheyenne. A simple nod was her only reply.
As Steph returned from the restroom, another contraction
gripped her. She had a stricken look on her face.
“I changed my mind. I can’t do this.” Stephanie’s voice
sounded strident, and during her trip to the restroom she’d been horrified at the enormous bags under her eyes.
Cheyenne nodded and handed her a cup of ice chips. “Now
you know why I only wanted one.”
“You called Cedric and Dad, right?” Steph slowly lowered
herself onto the bed. She hit the call light and made a half-assed attempt to put her baby monitor back around herself.
“Yes. I called everyone on the list. Cedric just called back
and said he got a flight for later this afternoon. Your dad and
Shirley are flying out tomorrow morning.” Steph smiled at that.
Her dad had recently started dating his long time senior editor.
She figured he had decided to seize the day after having a minor heart attack nearly two years before. Though he still owned The Sound Wave, he no longer acted as Editor-In-Chief.
His close call had served as a major wake-up call for Steph
as well. One morning over breakfast in bed, she asked Phillip
when he was going to put that big diamond of Nana’s on her fin-
ger. He nearly fell out of bed as he retrieved it from his closet.
They decided to get married two months later on Inishmore Isle.
Refusing to allow the moment to be turned into a media circus,
they assembled their guests quickly and quietly. Fury and Phillip and Steph’s families—including Phillip’s Uncle Cal—were the
only guests present. The bride wore jeans and an off-white Irish sweater. Cedric presided over the seaside ceremony.
For their honeymoon, they rewarded themselves with over a
solid month in Ireland. They wandered the country—sightseeing
castles, standing stones, and historic homes. Best of all, they
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spent weeks making love in every room of their cottage and all
over the surrounding grounds.
Stephanie finally told Phillip all there was to say about Jon-
quil. To her relief, he didn’t laugh at her, and he seemed com-
pletely unfazed by her lunacy. In fact, he suggested they plant jonquil bulbs all around the cottage. They did just that, and six weeks later, they discovered that they were just as fertile as the soil around their country home.
When her gynecologist showed them the monitor and they
saw a heartbeat, Phillip lit up with unconcealed joy. He immedi-
ately ran out and bought a several books on the subject and tried to get Stephanie to pick out baby furniture. Steph was terrified.
She started losing weight again and called the OB’s office con-
stantly. They were patient considering her history and allowed
her to have more ultrasounds than were probably necessary. It
wasn’t until the baby was kicking her regularly that reality finally sank in and she had to accept the fact that she was going to be someone’s mother.
Steph smiled as she remembered fighting with Phillip over
baby names. For months he came home testing out different ones
on a nightly basis.
“How’s Alfie today?” He’d ask, and she’d wrinkle her nose
and shake her head. She’d known for a long time it would be
another girl, but didn’t have the heart to screw with his “male
heir” fantasies. He had insisted it was bad luck to know the sex in advance, but had since changed his mind. Now he made a daily routine out of trying to trick her into revealing whether to
paint the nursery pink or blue. She told him to pick yellow or
green. He’d gone with green. Steph remembered with a grin his
gorgeous voice singing along to the stereo as he painted the
nursery with low fume paint.
Another contraction gripped her, and she breathed calmly
through it. It was just subsiding when her nurse hurried in the
door. She rushed over and picked up Steph’s monitor belt.
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“You need to leave this on.” she said this with the obvious
exasperation of someone who’d dealt with Steph for some time
now.
“I had to go to the bathroom.” Steph snapped, changing the
t.v. station.
The nurse sighed. “Push the call light and I’ll help you use
the bedpan.”
“Yeah. ‘Cause you were so speedy coming in here after I took the monitor off.”
“Do you want me to put a catheter in?” The nurse adjusted
the belt, looked at the monitor above Steph’s head, and frowned.
Steph smiled evilly. “I’d like to see you try.”
“Stephanie Kersey! Pipe the fuck down and let this lady do
her job.” Cheyenne managed a perfect tonal balance of sternness
and amusement.
The nurse left without another word. Steph crunched on ice
chips and flipped through the channels, settling on an episode of The F Word. Moments later the nurse returned with an older
nurse trailing after her. Steph sighed bitchily, expecting a lecture from them both. Instead, they adjusted her belt silently, watching her monitor. They exchanged concerned glances. The younger
nurse printed a strip off her monitor. The older nurse put oxygen tubing in Steph’s nostrils and tightened her blood pressure cuff.
Steph nervously met Cheyenne’s eyes. Cheyenne frowned and
sat forward in her seat.
“Is something wrong?” Cheyenne took the words right out
of Steph’s mouth.
“The doctor will be in soon.” The young nurse blurted as
she ran out the door. The older nurse turned to Steph, who real-
ized she’d begun to tremble.
Steph’s voice shook as she asked “Is my baby okay?”
“We’re seeing what we call “late decels.” We’re paging the
doctor, but we’re going to need to prep you for a C-section.
Now.” The no nonsense expression on the older nurse’s face
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caused Steph’s heart to race. She turned to Cheyenne.
“Go get Phillip,” her voice cracked. Cheyenne was out the
door
