“Kiddo,” Cherie’s uncle laughed and reached over and tousled her hair, which he had done probably thousands of times before, but it had never gotten any less annoying. “Where did you get that hair?”
Cherie dodged his next ruffle, instead darting forward like a fish and tickling him with one hand while trying to pry his wallet out of his pocket with the other. It was a running contest between her and her Uncle Jade; that whomever ended up with the wallet at the end of the night would receive a five-mark note from the other. Most of the time she won, and she had a feeling that he let her, but lately their diversion had been getting more and more competitive. Last time, on Loki’s birthday, she had lifted his wallet when he was reaching up to fix a canopy pole, and ran away before he could catch her and stuffed it in her father’s back pocket. Uncle Jade had turned over the money on the spot, saying that he would rather be five in the hole than have to attempt to touch Kunzite’s ass to get his wallet back. And the time before that, he had cleverly armed himself with several empty dummy wallets in his pockets, the real one hidden under the hat he wore all night.
This time he was too quick, pinning her arms to her body and sweeping her up in a bear hug. “Ah, you think I’m going easy on you because it’s your birthday. Guess what, kiddo, you’re in the double digits now, so that means, it’s on.” He flipped her upside down and shook her vigorously; his patented “washing machine”, and she shrieked and wiggled as the blood rushed to her head.
“Jadeite!” her Aunt Rei shouted across the room. “Stop! Atalanta threw up last time!”
He stopped, but not before Cherie grabbed his wallet and ran away, cackling hysterically in a whirl of curly blonde hair.
Everyone had gathered at the palace for her birthday, well, not just hers, they were celebrating Tristan’s, also. The number of people in her extended family was large enough for there to be overlap, so her The Queen had started the tradition of having an extravagant birthday party once a month to include everyone, and the family units usually had a private party at home on the actual birth date. Cherie though that The Queen just liked to have parties, and who could blame her? They needed something to celebrate in this new world they were creating, which was fraught with challenge, and things didn’t exactly go smoothly all of the time.
They had kept the ancient Julian calendar, and since it was the middle of February, it was too cold to go outside, they gathered in the palace, the adults eating and drinking way too much, the older children bunched around, trying to sneak away from the younger children, who were in turn always sneaking underfoot, desperate to hang out with the older kids.
Cherie had no interest in tagging along after teenagers. She ran past Clio and Callie, Evander, Astraea and Aja trying to sip forbidden champagne and feign indifference to the children’s games, and made a beeline right for the White Music room, where she stuffed the stolen wallet in the guts of the giant white baby grand piano.
“What are you doin’?” Cherie’s oldest brother Eros hung in the doorway, trying to slouch like he had seen Evander doing before, although what looked attractive on the much older Evander didn’t quite have the same effect on a boy who wasn’t even thirteen. Cherie was afraid that he would jump ship soon, and start hanging out with the older cousins, just sitting around and talking and not playing and being boring all the time. Anteros, Andy as they called him, was poking his head around his older brother’s arm.
“Nothing.” Cherie automatically replied, even though she had no problem with telling them the truth. She was extremely close with her two older brothers, each of the three born about a year apart: Erie and Andy first, so that she had never known life without them. Erie was a lemon blonde, just like Cherie and their mother, but Cherie had somehow inherited a wicked curl in her hair, which no one else in her family shared. Her father would simply shrug when asked about it and cast scathing, dark looks at anyone foolish enough to continue joking about her paternity. All three of them had dark gray eyes, Andy looking like a younger carbon copy of their father. Cherie thought he was going to be tall like her dad, and would end up taller than Erie, even though the latter was older. They often compared, marking their heights on the wall of Erie’s room with a pencil, and Cherie always came in third.
Another blonde head barreled in the room in flurry of mess and noise. “Cherie! What are you doing?” Her brother Marcus was seven, irritatingly cherubic, and usually did whatever his older siblings wanted, a fact that Cherie took advantage of at every turn. He was Andy’s favorite, always tagging on his heels, hyperactive and playful to Andy’s stoic, serious demeanor. Sometimes Andy got mad when Cherie was too bossy to Marcus, and then, as always, would frustratingly refuse to scrap with her, sometimes trying to reason, but most often, simply walking away, which was the most maddening. There was a small scar on the back of his head when she had once chucked a wooden toy at him when he was calmly retreating away from her instigation, and she had thrown with enough force to draw blood.
Her parents had been very, very angry with her.
Marcus was almost never without Felix, the youngest for now, three and a half and towheaded like their father, but with bright blue buttons for eyes, a thumb sucking habit, and pronounced her name like “cherry”. She had tried to teach him the correct way, enunciating the second syllable so that it would sound beautiful, the lilting song of a name that was intended, and smacking him whenever he got it wrong, and usually that ended with him crying and her being punished.
“They’re going to sing to you now,” Marcus said, tugging at the hem of her blouse. Her mother had made her to wear something other than her usual t-shirt, forcing her into matching ice blue pants and a vest, with little roses and lace on it. Cherie had almost died with embarrassment when she put it on, and had chucked the vest as soon as she could, and was running around in the plain ivory blouse, which was still a little too frilly for her taste.
“This isn’t fair!” she bellowed at her mother, as she rummaged through a drawer trying to find socks that matched. “You never make the boys dress up!”
Her mother had sighed and arched her back painfully; she was in the last months of pregnancy and every move seemed laden with stiffness. “They’re dressing up too, and we’re not going to argue about this. The Queen gave this to you and she would be happy to see you wear it. Now put it on.”
That last statement was an order. Cherie had huffed a bit more, but at least it wasn’t a dress. Several times she was forced into a dress, usually during some very formal occasion when she was expected to dress like a princess, and the entire time she would fidget around trying to get comfortable under the layers of silk slips and stiff hems.
It drove her mother absolutely batty; she even asked out loud why her daughter, such a lovely girl, doesn’t like to dress up and look pretty. Cherie’s Aunt Mako had scoffed, and said that maybe she would someday, or not, and would you please just let it go, Mina, it just bugs you because it’s not the way you are. Her mother had rolled her eyes and said it was easy for Mako to say, she had seven daughters, and Mina had only one.
Just Cherie.
“Come on,” Marcus urged her. She wriggled out of his grasp and raced Andy and Erie to the banquet hall, Erie winning by a hair. Felix started crying; he had tripped over his blanket halfway down the hall and fallen. Wimp, Cherie thought. The palace halls had such thick carpet that you could eat it face first and jump right back up with barely a bump: she knew, she had done it several times.
Her father left and came back carrying the sniffling Felix, who pressed his head against their father’s shoulder and popped his thumb in his mouth. She felt a quick pang of jealousy; she was ten now, and too big to be carried by her father, even though he probably still would do it, if she had wanted him to. Her father would do anything for her…
Her mother was at her side now, holding out the hated vest, asking her to put it on, please. Cherie felt like ripping it out of her hands and throwing it as hard as she could, but since everyone was watching her, she had to content herself with sulking as hard as she could as she shrugged it on.
Everyone sang the birthday song along with the musicians, and she and Tristan blew the candles out on a giant white cake, and their Aunt Rei did the trick where the candles would light up again; first one, then another on the other side, and then a few at once, having Tristan and Cherie chase the flames across the cake, blowing until they were lightheaded.
After the cake, they opened some presents, Cherie horrified to discover that The Queen had given her another vest and pant combo, this one in pink, and then the best part, in her opinion, when Uncle Jade would play and sing any song, within reason, he reminded them. They didn’t want to hear him throw down rhymes, he said, although for Uncle Dimi’s birthday, he had tried his hand at some sort of spoken poem, with a pounding bassline and a lot of swear words. He said it was one of Uncle’s favorite songs from before the sleep, and later Marcus asked what a “hoochie” was.
Tristan picked something lame, of course; Cherie was too busy trying to stick the extinguished birthday candles in Augustin’s ears to pay attention. Her mother grabbed her wrist and held on until Cherie dropped it, whispering sternly to behave, she had been acting up all day and it was not acceptable. And she would speak to her later about acting so ungraciously about The Queen’s present. She finished with: you’re acting like a brat.
Cherie didn’t get to fight back, since Uncle Jade was calling her to him, to help sing her song with him. She knew what he was going to play, he played it every year, only once, and it was even more special knowing that someone had written a song with her name in it. Apparently the guy was also blind, and had been dead for centuries.
She knew the words by heart. “My Cherie Amour, won’t you tell me how could you ignore, that behind that little smile I wore, how I wished that you were mine…” The “la la la” parts were the best; Cherie noticed The Queen and Uncle Dimi dancing together and laughing. All of Daphne’s sisters were swaying and singing along, giggling when they messed up the words. Felix forgot that he was supposed to be hurt and started jumping around with the music.
Cherie loved this part. Her song always made everyone happy.
She liked it even more when her dad would tuck her in at night and he would hum the chorus, since he said that he couldn’t sing, he would leave that to the professionals. She had heard him whistle it a few times when he thought he was alone, and those times made her feel unbelievable happy and loved, knowing her father was thinking of her when she wasn’t even in his presence.
Her mother never sang it.
She loved what her name meant: her father told her it was French, a language from her Uncle Zo’s kingdom, and it meant “my dear love”. She liked that.
She ate too much cake, got a smudge on her nice pants, which horrified both her mother and Ophelia, who was sometimes a little too prissy about that sort of thing, played games and won most of them, and celebrated victoriously when Uncle Jade approached her with a five mark note and asked her humbly to please get his wallet back before he drank too much and forgot about it.
She ran to the White Music room again, this time alone, the leather soles of her shoes silent on the marble floor. The hallway was dark, and a halo of light peeked out from the edges of the doorway. Cherie inched it open a little and poked her eyes through to see what was going on inside.
Her mother was laying across one of the plush sofas, her knees bent slightly underneath her white dress, and one hand resting on her stomach that looked absolutely painfully swollen. Aunt Rei sat on the other end, holding a wineglass, and her other Aunts: Serenity the Queen, Mako, and Ami, were sitting on chairs opposite, each sprawled out and comfortable, their shoes off and sleeves rolled up. The Queen was speaking.
“—phases. Come on, there was a point where I was clumsy enough to kill myself, and reckless as hell and I managed to turn out OK.”
Aunt Rei and Aunt Mako started loudly joking, and they laughed along with them. “Please,” Rei gasped. “Repeat that again. I needed a laugh.”
“Oh, shut up,” The Queen said with a grin. “I don’t think reminiscing about what a spazz I was is going to help here.”
“You didn’t need the past tense there,” Aunt Ami said. The room erupted in laughter again.
When they had quieted, Cherie’s mother spoke. “It’s not that she’s clumsy, it’s the other way. Sometimes she’s so calculating and manipulative that it’s hard to believe she’s only nine—oh wait, ten, ten now, and then other times she runs on nothing but emotion and acts out. I never know who she’s going to be on any given day. She’s either going to turn out to be a great leader or an absolute tyrant. Maybe both.”
Ami shifted a little in her seat. “Have you talked to Kunzite about it?”
“Of course. He can see it up to a point, but it’s his little girl we’re talking about. She has got him wrapped around her finger. She manipulates him, too, and the boys—it’s the strangest thing, they follow her orders even when it’s not in their best interest, even Erie and Andy, and, listen to this, the other day she made Marcus run outside with no coat or shoes on to find something she left in the snow, and not only did he do it willingly, but when he couldn’t find it and came back, he was afraid of her. Apparently, she said she would break one of his toys if he came back empty-handed.” She stopped and drew a breath. “This is crazy. I don’t understand her at all. I don’t understand why she does what she does.”
The Queen opened her mouth, and Cherie’s mother stopped her before she had a chance to speak. “Please don’t say she’ll grow out of it. I don’t know how you can grow out of your personality.”
Serenity huffed and took another drink. “It does happen. I think you’re overreacting. We’re all little shits when we’re young, yes, all of us, and all of our children, too. Children don’t think like adults. She’s not manipulating her brothers; she’s just…testing them, I think, to see how much they care for her. Deep down I know she loves them, and her parents, too, Mina.”
“Serenity,” Rei said. “Goddess bless your eternal optimism, no matter how batshit crazy.”
No one laughed this time. Cherie’s mother sat up, her gold jewelry clinking around her neck. “Well, maybe this one will be a girl. I can start with a clean slate.”
Cherie stepped fully into the room, noting that everyone looked horrified to see her, her mother especially. The color had drained from her lovely face, and suddenly her eyes were wet and she was blinking.
Cherie spoke before her mother had a chance to apologize. “I hate that baby,” she hissed. “And I hate you, too.”
She managed to avoid her mother for the rest of that night, and most of the next day, thankfully. Her night had been spent angrily staring at the ceiling, wishing she could have been born into a different family. Well, maybe not all of them.
However, she found herself the next night on the back patio with all of them, including her mother, huddled around the fire pit to gather warmth from its orange radiance, and the snow, covering the fields and forests behind her house, glowed blue in the full moonlight. She tied her scarf tightly against her mouth: they were playing her favorite game, “Will it burn?” Her father would bring them things that he had found from his last expedition outside the country: rubbish, mostly, he said, things from before the sleep found in abundance that had no purpose anymore, and usually never did. Marcus especially was fascinated with the chemical reactions of some of the objects as they melted or sparked in the fire pit. A disproportionate amount was old food containers, and the size and volume that her father brought back was staggering. The people before the sleep must have been very lazy; who would think to only use a cup once? Why would they make utensils so brittle that they would only be useful a few times, and then sit forever in the ground, never disintegrating? Wouldn’t everybody be sitting in their own trash after a few years?
Andy and Marcus were making their way through a stack of brown paper napkins with some sort of logo stamped on them, all of which burned very well. Some of the containers would smell as they melted, and they would have to throw sage in the fire to cover the smell before her father would make it disappear with a wave of his hand.
Cherie was perfectly happy to toss objects in the fire pit with the boys, ignoring her mother, who was stretched out on a lounge chair, wrapped in quilts and a hooded shawl made of creamy white wool. She caught her mother watching her several times, trying to catch her eye.
After awhile Erie suggested that they walk through the woods, another activity that Cherie loved. The moonlight on the snow made it light enough to see without flashlights, and sometimes they would see an owl, or a hawk. Everything in the woods was most beautiful at night.
“You take them,” her mother told her father. Cherie jumped up, eager, but stopped when her mother added: “Cherie will stay here. We have to talk about something.”
Marcus oohed, thinking she was in trouble for something. Her father nodded, Felix sitting on his shoulders, and let the boys out into the field, snow crunching loudly underneath their boots. Cherie watched them go with an absolute crushing longing.
“Cherie.” She stared at the ground, wishing that she could be anywhere else at the moment. “Come here.”
She shook her head, keeping her eyes on the blinding orange flames in the fire pit.
“Please,” her mother said softly, and Cherie obeyed. She sat on the very edge of the lounge chair.
“Come closer.” Her mother adjusted her stomach and her layers, making room for Cherie to wiggle in next to her. She moved in, and her mother threw the covers over her, wrapping her in warm pocket, and pulled her closer to her side. She couldn’t move now, she was pressed against her mother, and suddenly she could smell her again, the special scent that she could recognize instantly as belonging exclusively to her mother, clinging to her skin and clothes, and it made her feel like a baby again.
Her mother reached out and turned Cherie’s face to her own. “Hey,” she said, her voice quavering. She looked into her mother’s eyes, large and blue and swimming in water, and something squirmed in her stomach as she realized that her mother was crying. She couldn’t remember the last time her mother had cried: not when she was angry at Cherie or her brothers, or when she argued with their father, or when something went wrong in their kingdom or planet and people were hurt or died. When things like that happened, her mother usually got harder, angrier. She would not weep over those things.
It made Cherie feel uncomfortable. She lowered her eyes and tried not to notice.
Her mother pulled Cherie’s head in and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I’m—I’m so sorry, darling,” she gasped, the tears now pouring from her eyes. “I don’t know why I said what I did, I didn’t mean it.”
“You wished that I was different,” Cherie replied, knowing that she was pouting and ashamed of it. “You said that you wanted to start over with another girl. That’s not fair.”
Her mother sighed and pulled Cherie’s head to her chest. One hand twined in her gold curls. “I did. Your mother is a foolish, stupid woman sometimes, love, and says stupid, foolish things that she doesn’t mean. I don’t want you to be anybody else but who you are, and I’m an idiot for thinking otherwise. I know,” She drew another ragged breath, and Cherie, horrified, hoped that she wasn’t going to start sobbing. She wouldn’t know what to do if that happened. “I know what I said was unforgivable, and I don’t expect you to forget it for a long time. I just wanted to let you know that I am so, so sorry. I’m sorry that I hurt your feelings, and I’m sorry that I thought what I did. I know I was wrong, and I hope that one day you might forgive me, not completely, but just a little. I will understand if you don’t, though.”
Cherie’s throat was tight, and she nodded.
“I love you so much, Cherie.” Her mother sniffed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Goddess, I’m so sorry. I love you and I’m sorry.”
It felt a little better to hear her mother say that. She let her mother stroke her hair, and she reached out with one finger and traced the curve of her mother’s hard stomach, feeling the stretched skin and muscle below it. The baby must be sleeping, because it wasn’t moving.
“Mom?”
“Yes, love?”
She looked up. “Why did you guys want to have another baby?” She had asked her father the same question a few months ago, and he had responded “Full moon,” and refused to explain further.
Her mother smiled and sniffed again. “Honestly, darling, we don’t choose when to have you guys. You choose us. Every time. Actually, I’m surprised that you let Erie and Andy go first.”
“You think we choose?” Cherie frowned a bit.
“I do. I think that you were meant to be my daughter, and your brothers were meant to be my sons, and that you all chose your moment to join our family.”
Cherie pictured herself and her brothers, all ghostly apparitions in some netherworld, elbowing and shoving over who got to be born next. “This one, too?”
“This one, too.” Cherie stopped tapping and pressed her full palm against her mother’s belly, putting some pressure on it, and felt the small body inside shift around.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
She was silent for a moment before making her request. “Can I be there when you have this one?”
Her mother reached under the covers and pressed Cherie’s hand against the swell of her stomach. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Really?”
She cleared her throat. “Yes. Yes, you can. In fact, we can ask your father if you can take his place.”
“Huh?” Cherie hadn’t been expecting this; she really hadn’t even expected her mother to agree. She was too young to remember when Marcus was born, but had heard that her mother had difficulty having him, since he had been a nine-pound fatty meatloaf that practically had to get yanked out. Typical. Felix had been born very suddenly, when her mother had been home alone and in the bathtub, and Cherie had come home from school that day to find her mother in bed, sitting on icepacks and holding her new baby brother, while her Aunts laughed and joked and cleaned the bathroom.
Her mother squeezed her hand. “Do you think you can do it?”
Cherie thought she could.
The next morning, after talking to Cherie’s mother, her father agreed. “You think you can do it, Cherie?” he asked her.
“Of course, Daddy.” She hoped she sounded brave enough to convince him. “Maybe it’ll be like Felix and I won’t have to do anything.”
He smiled. “You might get lucky that way.” Her mother whacked him with a cloth napkin as she passed behind his chair.
Erie dropped his spoon in his cereal. “Well if Cherie gets to be there, then I get to name it!”
“No, I do!” Felix yelled, although Cherie suspected that he didn’t know what he was fighting for.
Marcus cut in. “No way! You wanted to name my first chameleon ‘Garlic’. You’ll pick a cruddy name.”
“No I won’t!”
Her father stopped the argument. “Form a committee,” he advised, pouring himself another cup of coffee.
She had a little over a month to prepare. Her Aunt Ami took her to a class with expecting civilian women at the city hospital, and told her it would be a little different for her mother, since their bodies were different than the civilians: that they were stronger and could endure more pain, and healed much quicker. Her Aunt Makoto had seven children practically right in a row, and her body healed so completely that it was hard to tell that she had ever been pregnant.
Aunt Ami took her to her office in the palace and made her watch videos of other births, all civilians, some with painkillers, some without, some using scissors for a purpose that Cherie could not have fathomed on her own, and one operation where the baby was pulled out feet first through the mother’s stomach. “Do you think you could handle this if it happened?” she asked after each one. “It’s very improbable that it will, but I want you to be aware of some of the things that could happen.
Cherie said that she could. These were all civilians. Her mother was a queen.
She got more nervous as the date got closer. Clio and Callie tried to give her advice, since they were present when Loki was born, but they had been pretty young when it happened, and Uncle Jade had been there. Callie simply remembered it as being “gross”.
Fat lot of help she was.
It was the dead of night when her father woke her up gently. “Are you ready?”
“Right now?” she sat up in her pajamas, panicking a little. Of course she would be ready, but maybe not tonight. Besides, she had been sleeping. “Where’s Mom?”
“At the palace already. I took her first.” Her room was still dark; her father hadn’t turned on the lights. “Do you want to change? You probably have some time. It’s not like Felix.”
“Daddy!” she leaped out of bed and yanked a drawer open. “Of course I’m going to change! It’s cold out.” Snowflakes were swirling in the black sky and melting on her skylight window. “Plus I have to brush my teeth. Can you pull my hair back?”
“I can try.”
She changed into warmer clothes and let her father pull her hair up into a messy bun. “I’m ready now.” Her father knelt down and wrapped his arms around her, and in a white flash they teleported to the palace.
“I wish I could do that,” Cherie said, yawning as they made their way to the infirmary.
“You will, one day.” The older children could do it, although not very well, and they expected Erie’s powers to emerge any day now. Cherie couldn’t wait; she hoped that she had a weapon like her mother’s chain.
The Queen met them at the entrance to the infirmary. She kissed Cherie’s father in greeting. “Go back home and get some sleep. We’ll take care of her.”
Cherie’s father picked her up, which he hadn’t done in a long time, and hugged her tightly. “Take care of your mother. Be brave.”
She set her jaw, a habit she shared with her father. “I’m always brave, Daddy.” She took her Aunt Serenity’s hand and followed her into the infirmary.
The delivery room was the same one Cherie had been born in, and most of her brothers and cousins, too. It was enchanted to be as big or small as needed, and the windows could either fill the walls or disappear altogether. All medical equipment was hidden in pockets and behind panels, and could be on hand in moments, but was concealed from view. The color of the carpet and furniture could turn colors to whatever the patient wanted, or disappear altogether.
Her mother was laying on her side on one of the soft couches, which she had chosen to turn the color of bleached sand, wearing the same black cotton tank nightdress that she had worn when she tucked Cherie in that night. A civilian doctor sat at her feet, gently rubbing the sole of one of them. Her Aunt Makoto sat in a chair opposite of Cherie’s mother, and smiled when Cherie and the Queen entered. “I’ll get Ami,” she said, standing and squeezing her mother’s shoulder. “Good luck, dear,” she said, kissing her on the cheek. “Remember, number six. Nothing to it.”
Cherie’s mom smiled. “Number five had nothing to it. Number four was a differ
ent story.”
“Yeah, well, that was Marcus. He’s always a pain in the ass.” She stopped and stroked Cherie’s hair on the way out. “Good luck to you, too. You’re a very brave girl.”
That was the second time someone had mentioned that to her: did they expect her to be anything other than brave?
“Cherie,” her mother sat up, holding her enormous stomach. She froze for a moment, her eyes closed seemingly in deep concentration. Cherie ran to her side.
“Does it hurt?” Her voice sounded small and afraid.
Her mother opened her eyes. “A little. Your Aunts took away most of the pain.”
The Queen joined them on the couch. “I’ll take the rest.” Her mother waved her off.
“I’m all right; they took enough that it’s just going to be uncomfortable. If it gets bad, I’ll let you know.”
Cherie wished she could be part of this ritual, taking part of the pain so her mother didn’t have to suffer, so she did what she could. She tied her mother’s hair back. She helped Aunt Ami lay drop cloths. The civilian doctor, a gray-haired lady with large brown eyes named Kris, showed her where everything was that they would use later. She would be doing most of the work, and Aunt Ami would be assisting. She recused herself from performing major medical procedures on any of Cherie’s Aunts and children, unless it was an emergency, saying that it was unethical for her to work on her family.
Mostly, they waited, Cherie offering her hand to squeeze whenever her mother had a contraction, but her mother had been truthful: she was in discomfort, but not the excruciating pain that the civilian women had been in. Her Aunt Rei had stopped in briefly, bringing prayers and hugging her mother tight. Soon it was just Cherie and her mother, the doctor, Aunt Ami, and the Queen.
It was still dark out. The lights were dim, the room was warm, and Cherie was beginning to nod off watching the snow fall outside through the window, when her mother sat up and gasped loudly, and called “OK, Ami.” The front of her nightdress was wet.
Ami was at her side, her tiny computer in hand, while the civilian doctor pulled on gloves. “Where do you want to be?”
Her mother didn’t respond, but sank to the floor, and knelt on the drop cloth, knees apart, leaning against the couch for support. She lifted her head, her eyes wide and briefly panicked. “Cherie?”
Cherie kicked off her shoes and slid to the floor next to her mother. “I’m right here Mom.”
“Good,” her mother breathed, pulling Cherie to her and lacing their hands together. She leaned her head against Cherie’s shoulder.
Ami brought the lights up a bit, and knelt in front of them with the doctor. “Whenever you’re ready, Mina.”
Cherie felt her mother’s grip tighten as she strained, tiny beads of moisture starting to collect on the back of her neck. She wiped them away with a damp cloth. “Thank you, darling,” her mother gasped, then went silent again as she leaned forward slightly and pushed again.
Cherie felt something in her stomach slam shut, and the sensation crawled up her chest until it was in her throat, and then she was shaking. The anxiety seemed to spread until it filled the inside of her skin, and she wondered frantically why she had even asked for this in the first place. She thought she could prove that she was brave, and that her mother had been wrong about her, but she didn’t feel very brave right now, she was a hair away from completely losing it.
“Take care of your mother.” Her father’s words came back to her, and as she watched her mother struggle to give birth to her newest sibling, she realized that it was her mother who was brave, not the way Cherie thought she was, but because she would put herself through this, this pain and effort to bring her children into the world, because she loved them that much.
And sometimes they didn’t love her back like they should.
“Don’t be scared, Mom,” she squeaked, still a little shaken, but the electric feelings of panic were subsiding as she spoke. “You’re doing good. I’ll help you.”
Her mother stopped and gave her a tired smile. The doctor reached between her legs with a gloved hand.
“OK, hold it a moment. You have to stretch.”
Her mother swallowed and sucked in air. “I hate this part.”
“Amen,” Kris agreed, holding her hand in place. “Just breathe.”
It was getting harder; her mother held Cherie’s hand in a vise grip and groaned as she resumed pushing. She kept talking to keep herself calm. “You’re OK, Mom. You’re doing great.”
Her mother shuddered, and Aunt Serenity cried out excitedly, “Oh, here it comes.”
“Oh, Mina, your kids’ damn shoulders!” Aunt Ami reached her hand in, too.
“Don’t look at me, blame their father,” her mother groaned. “Can I do it?”
“Get into a squat, we need more room.”
Carefully, painfully, she helped balance her mother as she drew her feet up underneath her so that she was squatting. She panted laboriously, and small whimpers started to escape. Cherie was beginning to get scared again.
“Mom?” she blurted out. “I won’t care if it’s a girl. I promise.”
Her head picked up and she looked into Cherie’s eyes, and let out a short laugh. She panted and strained again, then suddenly arched her back and cried out. “Ouch!”
The baby fell to the floor, slick and wet and horrifyingly gray, and Cherie was nearly keeled over by the smell of the thing. No one had mentioned anything about the smell. It flailed spastically in the doctor’s hands; trying to move away from the towel that Ami was wiping it down with. Cherie watched as it gurgled, spit out a blob of something clear and gooey, and then began wailing thinly.
“Oh,” her mother said, still breathing heavily. “Goddess.”
The smell was really getting to her. “Mom, it really smells!”
“I think I left that part out. I apologize.” Aunt Ami handed the baby and towel to her mother, who pressed the bundle against her chest. It was still kind of messy.
Her mother had tears in her eyes. “Cherie. Look.”
She reached over and moved some of the towel, trying not to touch the baby or the umbilical cord, which was still attached and really, really gross. Callie was right. “Hey Mom, it’s another boy. I can see his beanbag.”
Her mother was stroking the baby’s face. “Hey, little guy. I’m your Mom.” She smiled again, radiant and exhausted. “Thank you.”
“Mom, I didn’t do anything,” she protested. “Not like you.”
“You can do something,” Aunt Ami said, holding out a pair of medical scissors. “Cut between the clamps.”
She maneuvered the scissors over the gross cord and cut it. Her mother grabbed her hand before she had a chance to move away.
“This is your sister, guy.”
Cherie finally touched the baby, running a finger down a clean patch of his face.
“Hi, there. I’m Cherie.”
True to form, she did hold a committee with her brothers. They left their parents alone for a while and convened in a conference room that Aunt Ami let them use, with swiveling chairs and a computer that projected the list of names in midair, striking through the rejects in red. It took them several hours and two snack breaks to even narrow it down to ten.
Their parents were reclining together, their mother’s head resting against their father’s chest while she fed the new baby. He was wearing a stupid orange and white hat, probably given to him by the Queen, and making tiny gurgling noises as he sucked. She opened her eyes as they entered.
“So what’s his name?” she asked, adjusting the robe she was wearing to move the baby to the other breast. He cried a little during a switch.
Great, another wuss, Cherie thought. “Actually, Felix thought of it.”
“Felix?” Her father said. “Really? No offense, little guy, but that makes me kind of nervous.”
“Don’t be, Dad,” Erie said. “Andy and I still held veto power.”
“Tell him,” Cherie urged Felix.
Felix suddenly got shy and pressed his face into Cherie’s side. She turned him around. “Tell Mom and Daddy what you picked.”
His small face was red as a berry as he grabbed at her clothes. For once, she let him. He whispered the name.
“A bit louder, love,” their mother said, her eyelids fluttering as she yawned.
“He said, ‘Dante’. He found it on one of the bottles we burned the other night.” Marcus was as subtle as a brick to the face.
Their father had a funny expression on his face. “Was it ‘Dante’s Rib Sauce’?”
Felix nodded and popped his thumb in his mouth, signaling that he was finished with orating for now.
Their parents looked at each other for a long moment, their father in particular looking like he just swallowed a baseball.
Their mother beckoned towards Felix. “Come here, baby.” He prized himself from Cherie’s side and climbed up next to his mother, his thumb still plugged in his mouth. She drew him close to her. “I think you’re very resourceful, and I think the name you picked is perfect.” She looked up at the rest of them and winked. “Let’s not tell anyone where we found it. It will be our secret.”
Cherie met Erie’s eyes, then shot a look to Marcus. Erie nodded, very slightly, sharing her thoughts. They would have to grill him later.
“Do you want to hold him?” their mother asked Felix. He nodded, his eyes huge. “Honey, you have to take your thumb out of your mouth first. OK, hold out your arms like…that.” She gently placed Dante—his name was Dante now, into Felix’s lap. “Very good, love. Say hi to him, you’re his big brother now.”
Andy and Erie went around the back and stared down at the new baby; Marcus sat and started yammering about all of the names they had shot down, like it was even relevant now. Cherie slowly crept to her father’s side, leaning over him to take her mother’s hand.
Her mother looked at her and smiled. She was beautiful, and Cherie loved her.
