Damien was adamant that we deliver our baby at home. There was nowhere else it was happening but at our ranch. The one he bought for us a few weeks after I told him I was pregnant. We also got married here a few months ago, under the stars with only Mama Rosa, Andromeda, and his father in attendance. Damien pulled some strings, and with time, patience, and a shitload of money, he was able to get his father into the States. Where he now resided a few miles away from us. No longer a prisoner of the Fatherland.
We lived on ten acres of private property with horses, cows, pigs, chickens, and baby chicks for Andromeda. Exactly the way I grew up and always wanted. We had hired help to run the place, but Damien leant a hand too. I swear he secretly loved it, finding him out in the barn with Andromeda, milking the cows and helping her name all the animals. Never imagining the badass lawyer in suits getting his hands dirty. I resigned from my position at the bureau, and became a stay-at-home mom and wife. I’d never been happier. Damien had a guest house built on the back acres of land for Mama Rosa to live in, and he was already talking about having a third, fourth, and fifth child. He wanted a fleet of kids like our farm animals.
“Your cervix is one-hundred percent effaced and you are dilated to ten,” Louisa added.
“I don’t care! I’m not having this baby without him! He missed our first child’s birth, he will not miss this one too. I refuse. Put a cork in there, I will wait!”
My morning had started off like every other morning, waking up to my husband burying himself inside me. Claiming that our baby boy was almost a week late and needed to get fucked out of me. I wasn’t stupid though, Damien would spend every waking moment inside me if he could, the man was insatiable. It seemed like he was only getting worse with time. Figures our little man would pick today, out of all days, to grace us with his presence. The one day Damien had to appear in court for an ongoing trial for one of the cases I went undercover on. He’d left just after seven-thirty in the morning, taking Andromeda with him to drop her off at school, before heading to the courthouse. I went about my day at home like usual, busying myself with Mama Rosa, getting everything ready for our baby’s arrival, and for the guests who would be staying with us once our son decided to join the world.
He was already in control and stubborn just like his daddy.
I decided to hop in the shower and let the warm water run over my aching body, while Mama Rosa ran some errands for me. And that’s when it happened. My water broke, instantly bringing on the labor pains. I panicked, getting out and grabbing my cellphone, needing to call my list of people. First off Damien. His phone went straight to voicemail. I tried over and over again, finally calling his assistant to get him the fuck home now. I rang Rosarío, who thank god was on her way back, and then my midwife. Within a half-hour, I was surrounded by people, minus the most important one. Laying on my makeshift bed on the living room floor, trying like hell to keep this baby inside of me till his daddy arrived.
“Okay, this baby is strong-willed, Amira. He is ready to come out. I’m sorry, but if we wait any longer there could be some complications—”
Before she got the last word out, I heard the front door whoosh open and slam shut, followed by pounding footsteps racing through the foyer. “Amira?!” Damien shouted in a panic-laced tone.
“Babe, in here!”
“Fuck, I thought I missed it,” he exhaled, falling to his knees beside me, taking my face into his hands and kissing me all over. “I’m so fucking sorry. I got here as fast as I could.” He kissed me some more before Louisa cleared her throat.
“You’re just in time, Mr. Montero. Can we have this baby now?”
Damien nodded, kissing my forehead one last time before standing and walking over to where Louisa was positioned.
“With all due respect, sir, we advise the dads to stay up by the mom’s head. We don’t need you on the floor passed out next to her.”
“With all due respect,” he threw her words back at her, “this is my fucking world laying here bare for all to see, I can handle a little blood. So how about you worry about my wife and child, and not about me.” He cocked his head to the side, challenging her.
She brushed him off, redirecting her focus on the task at hand. “Okay, Amira. As soon as you feel the next contraction coming on, I need you to bare down and push ‘til I say relax.”
We did this for the next thirty minutes. Just when I was about to tell them I couldn’t do it anymore, another surge of pain shot all the way through me. Unbearable sensations I wasn’t sure I was strong enough to handle. My hand searched for Damien’s and I squeezed. “Ahhhh, ahhhhh, ahhh!” I screeched, huffing and puffing out through the agony. “Aaarrrggghhh…” The torture consuming me.
“Push! You’re doing great. Keep pushing, pushing, pushing. And relax,” Louisa praised. “The baby is finally crowning. A few more of those and you can meet your son. Whenever you are ready, sweetheart.”
Damien brushed my hair away from my damp forehead and kissed my lips. “You’re doing great. I’m so proud of you, baby. You’re doing amazing.”
“No, I’m not. This hurts way more than Andromeda. I can’t do this,” I admitted, looking into his eyes before feeling the next contraction. I closed mine tight and held my breath.
Damien was there instantly with reassuring words, “Breathe, baby. Breathe. Come on. In one, two, three, four. Out, one, two thr—”
One of my hands squeezed his as hard as I could, and the other clenched a fistful of his shirt. Holding my breath and the words that I really wanted to tell him which was ‘shut the fuck up,’ instead I begged for relief, “I give up. I want something for the pain. I changed my mind. Please give me something.”
Mama Rosa wiped my forehead with a cool wash cloth again, speaking quiet, calm words. “It’s too late for that, Mamita. Remember, you said you didn’t want drugs. You wanted to have him naturally like Andromeda. Just breathe through the contractions, Amira. You can do this.”
“I need something for the pain. Whose idea was this?”
“Muñeca, look at me. You can do it, baby. Just focus on my voice. Remember we decided to forgo the drugs.”
“Was I a part of that conversation?” I gritted, feeling the next contraction coming full force. “Aaarrrggghhh!”
Damien chuckled, “Yes, I’m pretty sure it was your idea. Some bullshit about it not being good for the baby.”
“Do you value your balls right now? Owww…”
“Just as much as you do, Muñeca.”
I shot him a death stare as I tried to govern my breathing. “I can’t. It hurts. Oh my God. It hurts! It wasn’t like this with Andromeda! I think there’s something wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong. All pregnancies and labors are different,” Louisa chimed in, reassuring me.
This continued on for twenty more minutes. My contractions getting closer and closer, and the pain getting worse and worse.
“I can’t do this anymore, Damien. I can’t. He will just have to live in there.”
“Yes, you can, Muñeca. You’re the strongest person I know. You can do this. It’s almost over, baby. You’ve got this. I swear you do. And it’s not an option to live in there, that’s mine.”
I didn’t have this though. My hair was soaked in sweat, I felt like I was going to throw up, and I was exhausted. With real tears, I cried into Damien’s shirt, the shell of the strong girl he thought I was. I wasn’t strong, and I really couldn’t do it anymore. That last contraction almost did me in, and I wasn’t sure I could keep going.
“I don’t want to, Damien. I can’t.”
He let go of my hand and walked over to Louisa, asking her to please give us a moment while gently pushing her into the adjacent room where she could still monitor the progress. He did the same with Mama Rosa, and then unexpectedly turned off the lights.
“What are you doing, Damien? What’s going on?”
“Hang on, baby,” he coaxed, closing the curtains to our left.
I tried to bre
athe my way through another contraction alone, gripping the blankets as the room went dark. I didn’t even care, I turned my face to the inside of my pillow, and squeezed my eyes shut, begging God to make it all stop. Paying no attention to what Damien was doing because I couldn’t stop focusing on the pain.
Half-way through another contraction, I felt him move on the floor beside me, and I gladly took comfort in his arms. “I can’t do it anymore, Damien. I can’t. Please don’t make me do this.”
“Open your eyes, Amira,” he said with soft words, kissing my forehead.
I slowly opened them to the dark room, instantly seeing our constellations dancing off the ceiling. I took comfort in that too, relaxing a little more into his arms. Starting to cry for a whole other reason. He’d lit a candle inside the warming box he had made for me for my nineteenth birthday. After all these years I still kept it, he must have found it when we were unpacking the boxes at our new home.
“You see that star right there?” he asked, pulling me away from the pain.
I looked to the star he pointed to, but I didn’t speak. I just laid in his arms and listened, waiting for him to continue.
“That’s Princess Andromeda. And that one right there is her husband, Perseus. You see how they unite right there in the middle? You can’t tell where one star ends and the other one begins,” he repeated the same words I said to him on the beach on my fifteenth birthday, and then again when he recalled them on my nineteenth. The same beach we conceived our son on while we were in Cuba.
His body relaxed into mine as well, as he continued our story.
“Damien,” I whispered when he was done. “Te amo.” He kissed me again until I whimpered, “Ow, ow, owwww…” Bearing down, feeling every inch of myself being torn open. More sweat pooling at my temples, breathing heavily.
Louisa and Mama Rosa came back over moments later, and I finally progressed to the stage where our son’s head was out.
“Okay, just a few more pushes. Just need to get past the shoulders and it will be smooth sailing,” Louisa soothed, looking up at me.
“You hear that? Smooth fucking sailing. You got this. Breathe, just breathe,” Damien calmly spoke, even though I knew he was freaking out on the inside. Rubbing my thigh in a comforting gesture.
I spent the next few minutes doing nothing but pushing and breathing, breathing and pushing. Watching Damien’s resolve with Louisa become less and less. He was losing control of the situation, and that was never a good combination. Especially if my life and our baby’s was on the line. He started to take back that control little by little, getting in her way, barking commands like he knew what he was doing. At one point, both of them were ready to explode. All while I was laying here, trying to deliver our son.
“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he interrogated her like she was on the stand.
“Mr. Montero, I’ve been a Midwife for over twenty-five years. I have delivered hundreds of babies in my lifetime. Yes, I think I know what I am doing.” She glared at him to get out of her space, so she could do her job. “Amira, take a few deep breaths for me—”
Damien began to pace the living room, roughly running his hands through his unruly hair. Hating to see me in so much pain. “This is bullshit! Move out of my way. I can do this, just tell me what to do,” he ordered, shoving her aside.
“You are out of your damn mind! You are not a trained medical professional. Now, please stand back, we only have a short window to get him out. We don’t want your son’s heart to go into stress being stuck in the birth canal.”
“Owww… get him out. Get him out! Please, get him out…”
The pain was getting worse as the minutes ticked by. Poor Mama Rosa’s hand would need to be looked at by the time this was all over, listening to my control-freak husband and midwife bump heads instead of helping me out. I was losing my patience.
He shook his head, gritting out, “I am paying you a shitton of money, for giving my wife a private birth in our home. I think it’s in your best interest to respect my wishes and let me help bring my son out. Now!”
“Not happening. I could lose my job.”
“Well, then it’s a good thing you know a damn good lawyer.”
“Enough!” I screamed, as another wave of intense contractions wreak havoc on my body. Panting profusely, “Show him what to do, Louisa. I refuse to bring my baby into this new life with negative energy surrounding us. He is not going to back down, so move over and explain step by step… Aaarrrggghhh… what… to do.”
She peered back and forth between us, and reluctantly moved out of the way. Handing Damien a pair of gloves. He removed his suit jacket and rolled up his sleeves, putting the gloves on. Settling between my legs, he gazed back at Louisa.
Waiting for her direction.
DAMIEN
“Okay, Mr. Montero, on her next set of contractions you are going to place your hands here and here.” She guided my hands in the right position to pull our son out.
I’d never been so nervous in all my life. I had killed men point blank and never had an adrenaline rush quite like this before. Pumping wildly through my veins and straight to my heart. Feeling as though it could beat right out of my chest. Things moved pretty fucking quickly after that.
“Push, push, push, push,” Louisa guided. “Good. And relax. Okay, you’re doing great, Amira. Are you ready to meet your son? Here we go again. Push, push, push, push,” Louisa called over and over, nine times in a row, the number of stars in our constellation.
I would never forget the look of pride on Amira’s face when I held our son in my arms for the first time.
“He’s so perfect, Amira. Just like you.”
“Just like you,” she joked back, giggling, “he couldn’t just come in like his sister, could he?” She eyed him in my arms. “No, you had to be stubborn just like your daddy.”
I tried to listen to everything she was saying, but I was beyond enraptured by the little person in my arms. It was the first time I’d ever held a baby. My son. This would be a day I would never forget. A day that would change my life and make me a better man. Everything about it was slowly imbedded into my memory, becoming just as much a part of me as my family.
The loves of my life.
Like the constellation box still burning by our makeshift bed on the floor. Even with the light coming in, the tiny stars danced around the room. My whole life brought me, us, to this moment in time where nothing else mattered but the lives we were creating out of our love for one another. The love that had withstood the test of time.
I saved Amira.
She saved me.
Our daughter saved us.
When he started fussing, I brought him closer to my face, murmuring in his ear, “Shhh… it’s me, Julio. I’m here, shhh... I’m here. I’m always here.”
“Julio?”
I nodded, shifting my gaze to Amira who had fresh tears falling out of her eyes. “Julio?”
“A solid name to carry on for another good man.”
She smiled, thinking about her father. “Julio Perseus Montero.”
I crouched down beside her, nuzzling into her hair and neck. “Te amo, Amira Montero.”
She sniffled, “I know.”
We spent the next few days getting adjusted with our new family dynamic. Andromeda loved her brother. She loved getting up with him. Helping Amira with anything and everything while Rosarío assisted in between. My father did his best to help as well. We weren’t father and son by any means, but we were a family, and I knew we’d eventually get there too. He earned my respect with what he did for my girls, and in some ways, that was far more valuable than my love. Which he was slowly earning as well.
A few weeks later, after everything had settled down, we finally had people over who were anxious to meet Julio. From my coworkers, to Amira’s old friends and coworkers, to some of Andromeda’s friends and family. The ranch was full of people, everyone gathered around—talking, laughing, enjoying the beautifu
l day while Sunday football played on all the screens in the house.
“How’s it feel to have your balls owned by a woman?” Bossman questioned from behind me, catching me off guard.
“You son of a bitch,” I laughed, quickly turning around. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Instantly jerking back when I saw he was with Noah Jameson, who was holding hands with some pretty young girl I’d never met. “So, I take it you’re not here for a fucking piece of cake?”
“Afraid not,” he replied.
“Alright, come on in,” I addressed, nodding to the door of my home office.
They followed me in, and Amira caught my guarded expression from across the foyer. She was standing in the living room with Mama Rosa and Andromeda, surrounded by a group of people ogling over the new baby. Her eyes tore from mine to Noah’s, and then the girl he was obviously protectively hovering over.
She cocked her head to the side, silently questioning what was happening, I grinned and winked at her in reply. Trying to ease her anxiety for what the fuck was going on, even though I hadn’t a clue what that was either. I was about to lead them into my office to discuss whatever bullshit they were trying to involve me in, but everyone turned around and glared over at us.
Not us.
Them.
I guess from an outsider they looked out of place, Noah was covered in tattoos and Bossman was dressed in a backward ball cap, cargo shorts, and a t-shirt that read, ‘Zero fucks given.’ All of them seemingly walking in to welcome the baby. It wasn’t until they started whispering that Amira and I locked eyes again, both of us confused by what just happened.
The girl who was with them, still holding onto Noah’s hand gasped loudly. Snapping my attention back to her.
“What the fuc—” The look on her face rendered me speechless.
She looked like she was about to faint. Her petrified expression glued onto something behind me. I slowly spun, following her stare that was fixated on the television screen in the living room.
“Oh fuck!” I muttered to myself, realizing right then and there my guests weren’t looking and whispering at the men who’d walked in with me. It had nothing to do with Bossman or Noah.