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I held onto his shoulder. Our lifetimes of combatting one another seemed to flip over like a spinning coin that fell to one side.
His lips an inch from mine, he whispered something, not a quote. Not in French. Connor Cobalt murmured, “What’s inside this feeling that screams at me?” His eyes spoke of battles and wins and years positioned right across from me. “Devotion.” He neared. “Fealty.”
His lips touched mine. Our very first kiss. My rigid body stayed erect, but I heated like a thousand burning stars. He deepened the kiss, in control so I wouldn’t have to think.
I was thinking.
I thought about how my mind sparked and blistered. I thought about how his hands commanded the moment as much as his lips. I thought about how he held me like I’d always been in his possession, as he’d always been in mine.
What’s inside this feeling that screams at me?
Devotion.
Fealty.
It’s what I remember as I scream in a hospital. As I squeeze my husband’s hand. He towers beside me—as invincible as the day he leaned against that library table.
“Push, one more,” the doctor encourages.
I push with everything inside my soul. I scream so horrifically, my throat scorched and raw. Then I hear the shrill cry pitch the air. That cry. It eases me like morphine, and I thud against the hospital bed. Connor dries my forehead with a towel, and we both watch the nurses clean our baby, the doctor assures us of good health.
Then the nurse places the newborn on my chest. I don’t hear the nurse’s next few words. Tears well and burn. Seven children and this one affects me all the same.
“Rose, darling.” Connor lifts my chin, and I meet his glassy blues, his grin terribly gorgeous. “We have a girl.”
“What?” A girl.
I didn’t hear the nurse. I didn’t remember to look.
Connor kisses my forehead and then he kisses hers and whispers soft French. A rare tear slides down his cheek.
When he looks back at me, I say quietly, “What’s this feeling that screams inside of me?”
His glassy eyes carry their own extraordinary grin. Sparkling like cut diamonds. “Love,” he tells me with such certainty.
His single tear dries faster than the waterfall my ducts let through. Connor brushes beneath my eyes with his thumb, and we watch our daughter coo peacefully.
I stroke her soft, tiny arm.
Years.
I wanted another girl for years. There was even a possibility that we wouldn’t try again after our seventh child, but we had her.
I smile. “Fate was kind to us after all.”
“Chromosomes,” Connor says. “Science. Not fate, darling.”
I shoot him a glare, my energy rising a little, even after intense labor. I rub my eyes once more and hone in on our newborn’s thin hair.
“She has red hair?” No one on my side of the family has red hair, but Connor’s mother did. “I thought your mother dyed her hair.”
“She did dye it a deeper red. Naturally, her hue was more orange.”
My lips inch upwards at our baby. I feel her heart patter against my chest, her little mouth opening in a breath. “Audrey,” I say the name I’ve had picked out for years. After Audrey Hepburn.
Tears fall again.
I’m a tsunami today. More water than rage.
Connor pulls his chair close and sits beside me. “Audrey Virginia Cobalt.” After Virginia Woolf.
I sweep up more tears with my fingertips. “Ugh. Audrey, I’m so sorry, little gremlin.” I wipe my nose with a tissue that Connor hands me. “This is not a good representation of me.”
“On the contrary.” Connor captures my gaze; his unrestrained emotion could power the world. “This is a good representation of both of us.”
Vulnerable and in love.
So in love.
He laces his hand with mine. I see Richard Connor Cobalt in nearly every frame of my life, and as his lips upturn with arrogant satisfaction, I know the greatest pieces of us have always remained the same.
“Mommy!”
The door whips open, and an excited two-year-old bounds forth, Jane clasps onto his shoulders, tugging him to her legs.
“Stay very still, Pippy,” Jane whispers to him, the nickname a play off of his middle name Pirrip.
Ben stands at attention as the rest of our children slip into the hospital room. Seven-year-old twins: Charlie and Beckett. Five-year-old Eliot. Four-year-old Tom.
Audrey on my chest.
Seven children.
Seven healthy, beautiful little gremlins.
Lily hangs by the door since she brought all of them to the hospital. Tears cloud her eyes, a smile illuminating her round face. She catches my gaze and mouths see you later. She gives me time alone with my family, and I nod in reply, the movement stiff.
I’d like all my sisters here, emotionally, but she closes the door to one sentiment just to make room for a thousand more.
“Come closer,” I tell our children.
Connor stands and gestures all of them towards his side. They collect in front of his legs by the hospital bed. I sit up a little more, and I look to each of them as I say their names, “Jane, Charlie, Beckett, Eliot, Tom, and Ben.”
They radiate, and the room teems with power and vivacity.
“We’d like you all to meet your new sister. Audrey Virgina Cobalt.” I have the baby in my
arms to show them.
Jane’s hands fly to her mouth, tears brimming. “A sister?”
Over the years, she’s seen me with her aunts, the support and love we share for one another. Over the years, she’s waited, like us, to see if we’d have a girl.
“Yes, a sister.”
Jane cries into a smile.
Connor sees our daughter and has to shift his head, angling his body more towards me. Away from our children. The sheer emotion on his face—I’ll never forget that either.
While the children speak softly to Audrey, I say to Connor, “We did it.”
“We did all of it,” he clarifies.
This room.
This love.
Our future.
Our dynasty.
His hand strokes my cheek. I hold onto that hand, and his fingers thread mine.
Connor & Rose Cobalt welcome the birth of their baby girl
AUDREY VIRGINIA COBALT
January 27th, 2025
May 2025
Philly Aquatic Club
Philadelphia
DAISY MEADOWS
At a crammed indoor pool, parents cheer for the 9 & older swimmers at a competitive meet. Lily and I are squeezed in between our husbands on the packed bleachers, all of us trying to ignore the onslaught of shouts, but hey, at least they’re not at us for once.
“Come on, Sydney!”
“Go, Michelle!”
“You got this, Jenn!”
Moffy and Sulli aren’t in this female 100-meter backstroke race. For one, Sulli is only seven and a part of the 8 & under category, which will race in about ten minutes. Moffy will be up first since he’s already nine.
Lily bites her nails. “OhmyGod, I see him. Does he look nervous, Lo?”
As I crane my neck Moffy stands totally chill by the blue-tiled wall. Swim cap on, ready to go, he just adjusts his goggles a bit.
Lo feigns fright and clutches Lily’s shoulder. “Christ, I think he’s about to hyperventilate. Oh wait…that’s just you.” He flashes a half-smile at his wife.
Lily gapes and almost goes to slug his arm, but she sees little baby Kinney in a gray woven wrap on his chest, sleeping peacefully.
