Flights of Angels (Exit Unicorns Series) (13 page)

He laid the baby in Pamela’s arms, uncertain of what to do now. Just then, a noise downstairs alerted him to the fact that help had arrived. He felt both relief and regret, sweet and sharp, for now this time alone, where the three of them had beat only to the heart of existence, was over and life, like the tide, had returned to its accustomed shore.

Gert poked her head around the door a moment later and with her came an awareness of the state they were all in. He was still bare from the waist up and Pamela was completely naked, both of them smeared with blood and sweat, the baby working himself up to a good squall now in his mother’s arms.

Beautifully unflappable and solid as the Hoover Dam, however, Gert did not even blink an eye at the scene before her. She came over and touched one fat, red finger to the baby’s nose. “
Ja,
is sweetheart, is he not?” she asked, beaming as though she herself had just produced him fresh from the oven.

She laid one rough hand on Casey’s shoulder. “Go down and see Owen. This part is women’s work.” The bedroom became a whirl of activity after that, with Gert sweeping him toward the door and Owen waiting at the foot of the stairs to place a full glass of whiskey in his hand. He finished it off in three neat swallows, for the events of the last few hours had just hit him and he was strangely anxious, though his wife and son were only up the stairs being tended by Gert’s extremely capable hands.

Pat came in with the doctor a few minutes later. Dr. Dooley was a brown chestnut of a man with a reputation for fearsome honesty, respected throughout the county.

“Upstairs?”

Casey nodded, not bothering to explain further. It would be obvious the minute the doctor stepped into the room.

“Well then?” Pat asked, shaking the rain from his hair as the doctor headed up the stairs, battered leather bag in hand.

“A wee, perfect little man,” Casey said.

Pat grinned and gave his brother a hearty hug. “Can I see him when the doctor’s through then?”

“Aye, sit an’ have a tea first. ‘Tis a bit mad up there right now. ”

A half hour later, the brothers were well fortified with both tea and whiskey. The doctor came down and surveyed them with a smile of satisfaction.

“All’s fine up there,” he nodded toward the top of the stairs. “The mother has done beautifully an’ the laddie’s hale as a horse. Ye did just fine yerself too there, man. Yer wife says ye were a rock through the whole thing. Congratulations.” Casey shook the proffered hand, feeling a relief so vast it threatened to take him to his knees that he’d done nothing to damage either Pamela or the baby.

“Please help yerself to a glass of whiskey before ye leave. Gert’s not likely to let ye out the door without a bite either.”

He turned to his brother. “Well then, Uncle Pat, are ye ready to meet yer nephew?”

The bedroom had undergone a transformation in Casey’s brief absence. The bed was made with fresh linens, his wife sitting up against the pillows in a clean nightgown, hair pulled up and away from her face with a ribbon, and their son, wrapped snug in a blue blanket, in her arms. A pot of tea, a delicate china cup, and a plate of toast lay on the low table to the side of the bed. The fire was built up in the grate and all traces of the last few mad hours had disappeared.

“Can Patrick come in?” he asked.

“Of course he can,” she said, her head bent in adoration over the tiny being in her arms.

Pat ducked into the room, bringing with him the scents of the rain and wind.

Pamela smiled up at him, her face flushed and glowing. “Hi, Uncle Pat.”

Pat bent over the bed and stroked one long finger down the baby’s cheek. “Who’s a handsome boyo, then?”

“Would you like to hold him?” she asked.

“Are ye certain?”

“Of course I am.”

Pat leaned down and took the baby gingerly from Pamela.

One tiny, splayed starfish hand came up out of the blanket and Pat caught it with a finger. The baby wrapped his own fingers tight around that of his uncle.

“He’s beautiful,” Pat said, a catch in his throat, and Casey knew that Pat was seeing in the baby’s face all the children he would never have with Sylvie. “He takes after his Mam there.” He grinned at his brother. Casey grinned back.

Pat walked over to the window with the baby. “Aye, yer a braw laddie. Yer Grandda’ would have loved to have been here to see ye.” He glanced up at Casey. “Daddy would be so pleased an’ proud. I can hardly believe that yer a daddy yerself now.”

“Aye,” Casey said softly, his eyes on the tiny hands waving above the blanket’s edge. I suppose I am at that.”

“Don’t fock it up,” Pat said lightly, but Casey heard the harsher words beneath the light tone.
You have been blessed. Don’t screw it up or I’ll kill you.

“Aye, point taken man,” Casey said, tone just as light, but knew all the same that his brother too could translate.
If I fock this up, ye’ll be welcome to kill me.

He looked back toward the bed to find his wife eyeing them both with thinly veiled amusement. Apparently, she was no slouch at translation either.

They lay facing one another, the baby carefully couched
between them. From downstairs came the sounds and smells of sausage and potato cooking. Gert had the entire household well in hand. The sounds of chat and laughter drifted up the stairs, for Gert had insisted on feeding the doctor as well as Pat.

Pamela was tired and knew she ought to sleep, but couldn’t bring herself to rest yet.

“How are you feeling?” she asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the baby’s peaceful contentment.

“Like a man who knows there’s a God in heaven,” he replied, index finger wrapped snug in his son’s wee fist.

“And all’s right with the world,” she finished softly.

“All will be right with
his
world,” Casey said firmly. “I’ll see to that.”

His eyes glanced up from where they’d been fastened to his son’s face for the last half-hour. “Ye ought to rest, darlin’. I don’t like how pale yer lookin’.”

She laughed, and a small fist shot up, catching her directly under the chin. “Casey, I’ve just given birth. Pale is the least of how I’m feeling. Besides, I don’t think I can sleep until we’ve named him.”

“Aye, the laddie deserves a name after the day he’s had.” Casey ran a thumb over the small fuzzy head and the baby gave a stretch that seemed to involve every cell of his being and emitted a great yawn that gave his parents a good view of healthy pink gums and tonsils. “Would ye like to name him after yer Daddy?”

She blinked in surprise. “I thought we’d name him Brian for
your
Daddy.”

Casey gave a slight shake of his head. “No, I thought of it too, but it doesn’t feel right. I’d like the wee man to have a fresh start, an’ that requires a new name, don’t ye think?”

She nodded as the baby began to turn his head, small tongue working furiously in search of his mother’s breast.

She sat up, Casey tucking pillows behind her back, and loosened her clean nightgown, baring one breast to the bundle now in her arms. He rootled impatiently, making small snuffling noises like a truffle pig.

“Ye can’t fault the laddie for knowin’ what he wants,” Casey said, laughing even as tears filmed his vision and the baby’s snuffles turned to outraged squawks.

“Ouch,” Pamela said as the baby managed to locate a nipple and clamped onto it fiercely, his entire being visibly relaxing as his tiny jaw worked vigorously.

There was a slight draft from the doorway and Finbar stuck his big, tousled head in.

“Come in,
gadhar
,” Casey said, voice gentle, knowing the dog was confused by the day’s events. “See, she’s alright. No one has hurt her.” He moved back a bit so Finbar could rest his worried countenance on his mistress’ face. The dog padded around the bed, big nose in the air, sniffing a whole array of new and elaborate scents. He sat by the bed, sagging against it when Pamela stroked his head.

“Look at ye, will ye? Yer like a queen surrounded by adorin’ subjects,” Casey said, taking in the air of utter contentment that surrounded his wife. She had never looked more beautiful, albeit pale and exhausted, yet with a glow that made her positively luminous—a Madonna wreathed in lilies. He leaned forward, tears stinging his eyes, feeling a profound and overwhelming gratitude toward whatever forces in his life had brought this moment into being.

“Have I said thank you for my son,” he said, voice low and rough with emotion.

“Not in the last five minutes,” she said and leaned toward him, bestowing a soft kiss on his forehead. “You had a bit to do with him as well, you know.”

“Perhaps we’re meant to name him Conor. Look—” Casey nodded toward the dog.

She looked to where the baby’s hand lay curled tight into Finbar’s fur, small ivory-pink digits pearlescent against the rough wool of the dog’s coat.

“Conor means ‘wolf-lover’,” Casey said with a smile.

“Conor,” Pamela murmured to the rounded head at her breast, “Conor.”

“Does it agree with yer tongue then, Jewel?”

She took Casey’s hand and laid it on their child’s head as though in benediction.

“Conor Brian Thomas Riordan,” she said, pronouncing each name distinctly as if to test the fitness of them.

“A new name for a new life an’ two to remember those who live in his blood.”

She nodded. “It’s right. Conor it is then.”

The newly named Conor was asleep, head falling back in the pure exhaustion of the newly born. One kelp-colored eye rolled back in his head, an eyelid, pellucid as the interior of an oyster shell, tipped over the exposed white, depositing inky lashes onto the flushed cheek.

Pamela turned to Casey, eyes half-shut with exhaustion. “Do you know what your own name means?”

“Casey?”

She nodded.

“Well, it comes from the surname O Cathasaigh, an’ Cathasaigh means vigilant.”

“Vigilant.” She stroked a hand down the side of his face. “It suits you.”

“Aye? Then go to sleep, Jewel, an’ rest easy, for I’ll keep watch over you an’ the babe.”

Casey found sleep didn’t come easy that night.
He was too excited by the baby’s safe arrival and with Pamela coming through it equally unscathed, being that he had been her only medical help through the labor itself. He felt a need to keep watch over everyone as they slept.

He lay down on the bed just to be near his wife and son, to listen to them breathe in the still of the house and know them safe and whole.

He could feel Conor start to move and stretch in his wee bed. Pamela had nursed him an hour before and the baby wasn’t fussing. When Casey got up and bent over the cradle, Conor merely looked up at him with that inscrutable ancient look that newborns wear, as if they are a tiny bit confused by the world in which they’ve landed but are also the harborers of universal truths and unfathomable secrets.

“We’ll let yer Mam sleep a bit more, aye?” He picked Conor up and tucked him tight to his chest, adjusting the blanket so that no cool air would hit his skin.

Pamela was resting soundly, Finbar on the floor by the bed, still worried about his mistress though he raised his dark eyes to Casey questioningly at this unprecedented disruption in the nightly routine. Casey clicked his tongue at him. Finbar rose on his gangly legs and trotted downstairs with them.

In the kitchen, he opened a window, letting the spring night flow in and around himself and the baby. The moon was a sharp quarter slice of pearl against the indigo of the April dark. The scent of green growing things was thick on the air and he could taste the tartness of sticky buds upon his tongue, the mint of new grass, the effulgence of fresh-turned earth. Conor stretched and wrinkled his tiny nose, blinking solemnly at his father.

“Ye’ve picked a fine time to make yer entrance, laddie,” Casey said, tucking the blanket more firmly around the baby, realizing suddenly what he had come downstairs to do.

Outside the dew was heavy on the grass. He was barefoot and the wet didn’t bother him. A soft wind ruffled his hair and stirred the flannel blanket that shrouded the baby. He took a deep breath to still the tremor he felt throughout his body, relishing the sharp and heady smell of rising pine sap in his very cells.