"Elizabeth," she declared, giving me a smile. "We can call her..."
"Eli," I said, feeling that all-too-familiar stabbing sensation.
He was more than halfway done, I reminded myself.
He would get to know his namesake before she even started school.
If he came back to us at all, the small, bitter little voice said at the back of my mind. It was hard to stay positive after three years of no contact. Eli had fired Ellis, so we couldn't even get him to get us information. And we knew no one on the inside. Our contacts knew no one on the inside.
It was radio fucking silence.
All we did know was that he was still alive and that he did use the commissary money we filled his account with every week. What he used that for - food, items for his cell, bribes, we had no fucking idea. But he used it. So, that was something at least.
I also knew that Fee, the genius that woman was, had found a small loophole in his 'return to sender' rule for all mail from us. He did not return the letters written in Becca or Izzy's handwriting or the pictures from little Mayla. Those ones he kept. Those connections he wasn't able to brush aside.
That gave us hope.
But those were thoughts for another day.
This day was about little Elizabeth and the amazing woman who brought her into the world.
"Happy Birthday, you weird, squishy combination of DNA," Atlas declared, looking down at the blanket-draped baby in his arms like it might declare a nuclear strike and take him and the whole hospital out. He had proven himself capable of handling Becca, Izzy, Mayla, and Jason, being that they were older and he could ask them what they were screaming, crying, or fighting about. But he was shit with the babies. The first time he had held Danny, he had almost dropped him when he wiggled hard and burst out of his swaddle.
"You could just call her Elizabeth," Scotti said, smiling at her brother. "Or little girl. Or little lady..."
"Yeah, well, where's the originality in... oh, God," he groaned, eyes going huge. "It's, um, it's," he went on, his brows furrowed as he jumped up and moved toward the bed. "It's like gurgling or some shit. I don't know. Take it. Take it, damnit," he begged, trying to shove the baby at Scotti who was laughing and groaning at the same time, holding onto her stomach and lower which she claimed felt flayed.
"Here," I said, reaching for the baby and saving him any further PTSD from the incident, understanding that panic. I hadn't handled Becca all that well in the beginning either. I generally loved her... from a safe distance. Until she stopped being so fragile. "She's just hungry," I explained to ease that frantic look on his face. "Don't worry. In a couple months, she won't be so scary."
"If you say so, man. Better me than you, that's all I can say."
I smiled at that, remembering thinking the very same thing. Eventually, though, he and all his brothers would be wrapped around her little finger, and she would completely change everything for them, even their ideas on possible fatherhood.
"Is King coming up?" I asked as he walked toward the door.
"Yeah. He's just finishing up for the day. He'll make it in before hours are over though."
Kingston was a fucking busy man these days.
But I knew he was perhaps the most excited out of all of them to have a niece. It was clear that was a man who did want children of his own, but he never got the chance to have them yet.
"Text me when you guys get back to the house. I'll drop in with some food or whatever the fuck I am supposed to bring after a baby is born."
With that, he was gone.
"He looked green," Scotti declared as I moved back toward the bed. She reached for her robe thing she was in and started to pull it down as Elizabeth started whining, her chubby face getting red and angry in indignation.
"He'll get over it," I assured her as she pressed Elizabeth to her breast.
"And here I was thinking it would be Nixon who was awkward with her."
"We thought the same thing about Ryan back in the day. But like Nixon, he just had a knack for babies."
"So," she said as the baby started suckling, looking up at me with a tired smile. "One down."
"Four to go," I agreed, smiling because we both had come from families of five kids, and both sort of agreed that maybe it would be the goal.
"You got some work to do on that house now. We don't have room for five."
"And a chicken."
"And you know they are going to beg for a dog some day."
"So long as it isn't related to Coop," I agreed. "Wherever that mutt ended up."