Page 25 of Light

Like the man with half a brain that I’ve become, it takes me until now to snap all the logic together. The currents from my fingers…they’re her Bolt-alized TENS unit. But while a hundred kinds of happiness suffuse me at giving her relief from the pain, I’ve researched enough about every pregnancy aid on the planet to know that this isn’t exactly the right way to be approaching this. “Bunny, I should be doing this to your spine, not your—”

“Do. Not. Stop.” Once more with the grip that carries the force of a small army. She secures her hand across mine, working it tighter against the rounded surface at her middle.

The surface that’s now rolling like ocean swells.

And then lurching like the sea under a tsunami watch.

And then undulating as if every citizen in Atlantis has been awakened by that storm.

“Holy…fuck,” I rasp, fighting to comprehend there’s only one creature responsible for all that tumult. The most precious, powerful creation in the whole history of this planet…

The incredible little person who pushes so hard at his confines, I can count all ten of his fingers and all ten of his toes with one gawk at my wife’s stomach.

And I mean a gawk.

A dazed, dorky, utterly dumbfounded version of the term—which intensifies as soon as Bean seems to rear back and then punch out as hard as he can. The strike is so zealous, it audibly strips away Emma’s breath. But she gets in a tight laugh while inhaling once more. “Okay, Mighty Bambino, we get it. We get it.”

I don’t join her in the chuckle. Pure paralysis prevents me—from the moment a force takes over her body that has me wondering why I dared to toss around the word terrified with such cavalier ease. What I’ve declared to her as terror was a whisper of sensation compared to this. On the other hand, I’ve never had to sit by and witness something like this.

Her skin, glowing until the dazzling surface turns blinding white.

Her face and hair, ignited like some video-game fire fairy.

Her limbs, jerking out from her like splayed matchsticks—and then igniting the same way.

“Ahhhh!” Cal unhands the wheel long enough to deflect a flying kitten-heeled shoe. “That yeet’s not cool, kids.”

I attempt to work my mouth around an apology, but my throat still can’t produce anything but lame chokes. The emerging sounds may or may not be vowels. I’d like to think the dude who just used “yeet” in a complete sentence will understand, but as Cal speeds us deeper into the canyon, his knuckles are as white as Emma’s skin.

Emma—who’s still giggling like we’ve simply gotten on a roller coaster.

Emma—who’s radiating light as if that roller coaster has been erected on a beach in Tahiti.

Emma—who deepens my astonishment and adoration as she speaks up, offering to Cal, “Sorry, dude. The yeeting wasn’t on purpose.” She grins a little wider and bites the inside of her lip. “But I’m pretty damn sure my sweet son just broke my water.”

“Huh?” Cal spurts along with his instant kneejerk. No, really. The whole car lurches as he instinctively goes for the brake. “Wh-What the hell?”

I layer the same demand over his, following it with a frantic burst at my wife. “Now?” I thunder as my pulse escalates to full thunder in my veins. I peer down and then around, petrified to venture my sights anywhere near her crotch. “And here? But I don’t see any—errmmm, I mean why isn’t there any—”

And the guy who used to spend his weekends playing between women’s legs now can’t form his lips around the words amniotic fluid. My man card just went up in flames. Appropriate metaphor, considering what’s going on with the woman in my arms. Cradling her now feels like holding a kiln. Her hairline resembles a forest firebreak line. Her fingers and toes are feathers of flames.

And she’s still smiling with the serenity of a damn Madonna.

“Ohhhh, Zeus,” she chides, guiding my hand into broader sweeps across her belly. There’s no time to marvel that her fire feathers aren’t charring my skin, especially as she halts our twined fingers atop a spot where Bean has decided to pull a full Riverdance. “Feel that,” she exhorts, though her voice cracks with impending tears. “Feel your son, Reece. Soak in everything he already is. That life. That magic. That drive.” She swallows hard as we tangle our gazes, and I show her how thoroughly I’m obeying every syllable of her words. I do feel it all. I do feel all the brilliance of him. My God, he’s amazing. “Now tell me,” she finally murmurs, “do you really think he’s going to be bothered with bullshit like spilling membranes all over the place?”

My breaths are threaded with lead now too. That doesn’t stop the lightning speed of the burn behind my own eyes as well as the quaver of my reply. “So…what now?” Or the desperation, as a full understanding decks me between the eyes. All the online classes, the procedure guides, the daddy workbooks…they all mean nothing now. I truly have no damn idea what I’m doing.

But that means nothing to this kid.

This is happening.

He is happening.

“Holy. Shit.” I make a mental note to apologize to him for the profanity, in ten or so years. But at the rate he’s already tackling life, that might be ten minutes.

Again, a factor I have no choice about.

Suck the hell up, buttercup. You’ve faced drug dealers on Skid Row, embezzlers in Century City, and pimps in NoHo back alleys. You are prepared for this, just in different ways. A baby, even electrically enhanced, has to be easier than the collective lowlifes of LA—right?