“We woke up the next morning next to each other in bed, but our clothes were on,” Thorn said.
“But they looked like a monkey had dressed us in the dark,” I added.
“So, we didn’t know, and we decided not to talk about it,” he said.
“I thought it would be better if we didn’t discuss it again because you both know how Thorn feels about things like that before marriage. We just left it alone,” I said.
“Like I said,” Meri snarked, “all it takes is once.”
“So, the baby is Thorn’s,” Mom said with a smile. “This is wonderful.”
“It is,” Thorn added. “I can’t believe it myself, and I would have been over the moon with her either way, but this is just so much more than I ever could have hoped for.”
I reached out and took his hand with mine. “We should name her so we can stop calling her the baby,” I said. “Did you have anything in mind? We didn’t get around to picking anything yet.”
“You should name her,” Thorn insisted. “You and your family.”
“No,” I said and squeezed his hand. “She’s your little miracle. You should name your firstborn.”
“I can’t get the name Laney out of my mind,” he said. “It’s been floating around in there ever since the doc handed her to me the first time.”
“Laney?” I said.
“You don’t like it?” Thorn asked. “Like I said, you and your family can choose.”
“No, I love it. It suits her perfectly,” I said.
“It really does,” my mom agreed as she slipped Laney’s stocking cap back on over her curls.
“I’m surprised I wasn’t showing more, because she’s not a tiny baby,” I said. “She’s big and healthy.”
“The doctor said something about your parts being tipped in there,” Thorn said and blushed furiously. “I didn’t catch it all, but he said that whatever it was, it made women show less.”
Later that evening when my mother and Lilith had gone back to Coventry for the night, it was just my little family left in the hospital room. Thorn sat in a chair next to the bed, and Laney slept against my chest. Meri snuggled against my feet, and so far, none of the nurses had acknowledged his presence.
I’d been out of bed once when a kindly nurse had helped me take a shower while Thorn held me up and kept my IV site dry. It had been quite the affair, but I felt so much better. A nice hot shower could fix a lot of things.
“Can’t he heal you?” Thorn asked when I finally gave up flipping through the television channels.
“He has as much as he could,” I said. “That’s why I was able to shower today instead of tomorrow, but there’s only so much we can do now. I want him to save his magic for Laney.”
Thorn looked like he was about to argue, but he just nodded in agreement. “Are you okay? Can I get you anything?”
“That last nurse said they had grape popsicles at the nurse’s station,” I said and Thorn sprung out of his chair as if it were on fire.
“Say no more, my life. I will get you two,” he said. “You want a Sprite? I know they keep them back there.”
“Do you think before you go to the nurse’s station, you could sneak to a vending machine and get me a Coke? I doubt they would approve, but I could really use one.”
“There are vending machines in the family waiting room,” he said with a smile. “I will hit those up before I obtain your popsicles.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“I will return with your sugar buffet momentarily,” Thorn said before he leaned down and kissed me, and then Laney, on our foreheads.
One of Meri’s eyes opened. “Don’t even think about it,” he said.
“I wasn’t,” Thorn said with a chuckle.
He left the room, and I went back to flipping through the television channels. I eventually settled on the Weather Channel and watched as the storm system that had been terrorizing us moved off to the east.
“Thank goodness,” I said. “I was wondering how long we’d be dealing with these storms.”
“Something in the atmosphere has changed,” Meri said.
“What do you mean?” I asked, but he’d slipped back into sleep.
Once they took the radar off the screen, I flipped past the Weather Channel. I must have gotten to the local news station because the name Coventry flipped across the screen.
I watched for a couple of minutes as they talked about the tornado and showed some of the devastation. Most of the footage included shots of the National Guard helping people. Next up was a story about local contractors all descending on Coventry to help with cleanup and rebuilding. There were dozens of companies all volunteering their time and what materials they could afford. The news lady said that several GoFundMe fundraisers had been set up to collect money for building materials as well.
“Looks like we’re going to get a lot of help rebuilding,” I said, but Meri was still snoozing away.
I was about to flip to another station when Stewart Randell’s picture flashed on the screen. Instead of changing the station, I turned up the volume a little. Neither Meri nor Laney stirred.
The newscaster was dressed in a red blazer with red lipstick to match. Her hair was sprayed to within an inch of its life, and she talked about Stewart’s death as if she were giving a traffic report.
She said that local law enforcement had interviewed the stepfather of the deceased’s child. That was probably Jeremy, and she was talking about Dixon and his
