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Both of us were sweating, and neither of us were laughing anymore. Amber’s face was stark white from the pain.
“I’m done, Rubes. Can’t do any more. I need an epidural or a c-section or both,” she muttered then raised her voice. “This is crazy. This hurts, Rubes. It hurts so bad.”
She opened her mouth to continue when a vicious contraction stole her breath. Watching on the monitor, my eyes widened along with hers as the line snaked inexorably upwards.
“Oh, God! It’s too much! I can’t!” Amber tossed her head back and forth, her eyes panicked, her heels digging into the thin mattress.
I pulled her chin round firmly to face me and stared fiercely into her pained eyes. “Oh, yes, you can. You’re Amber fucking Vasilakis. Yiayia didn’t raise no pussies!”
The incongruity of the words ‘yiayia’ and ‘pussies’ in the same sentence struck us both at the same time, and Amber groaned deeply and huffed out a sharp laugh with the nurses.
A new nurse entered the room, announcing in a sing-song voice, “Dad’s here! Come on in, Dad. You haven’t missed anything yet.”
I turned to see my brother-in-law angling his massive shoulders through the door before striding briskly into the room, his eyes trained on my sister.
“Gus!” Amber whispered, and her face reflected her relief.
He leaned over her in the bed, his craggy face tight with concern. He wrapped his big hand around the top of her fair head and leaned his forehead against hers. “Amber, baby, I’m sorry it took so long to get here.”
“It’s okay,” she breathed, her eyes closed in relief. “You’re here now.”
The next contraction hit, but Gus’s presence smoothed the edge off her panic. He held her eyes and breathed with her through the pain, and she laughed, actually laughed, when the pain receded.
Gus smiled into her eyes, then leaned closer and brushed his mouth over hers in the sweetest, softest kiss I’d ever witnessed in my life.
“I love you, Amber.”
“I love you, too. We’re going to be a family soon,” she whispered.
He stroked her hair. “We were already a family, baby. We’re just going to be a bigger family.”
I shifted to move out of the room, but Gus caught my movement from the corner of his eye. “Hang on, Rubes.” He turned back to Amber. “Is it okay if Ruby goes, or do you want her to stay?”
Amber peered at me. “You okay to stay, Ruby? I’d like you to stay, but you must be tired…” She petered off, then looked around. “Can someone get my sister a chair, so she can stay with me?”
I fidgeted, feeling out of place. “It’s okay, Amber. Gus is here. I don’t want to intrude.”
Gus looked at me and smiled. “You could never, Rubes. If you’d like to stay, if it’s not too much for you, please stay,” Gus replied.
“If you two are done chatting,” Amber groaned.
Gus immediately turned back to his wife. She gripped his hand and he held her eyes while they breathed through the next contraction together.
An older nurse touched my elbow then smiled as she nudged me gently into a chair at my sister’s other side.
Twenty minutes later, my nephew lay across my sister’s chest, his body wet with amniotic fluid and streaked with blood, soft mewls coming from his tiny rosebud mouth.
Gus laughed at the sound, one large hand wrapped around the top of my sister’s fair head, the other shielding his son’s tiny rump. He leaned over them both, sheltering them with his body.
“Thank you, Amber,” he choked out, his voice thick with emotion.
Amber smiled at him softly, tiredly, proudly. He dipped his head and brushed his lips over hers once again, then rested his forehead against hers momentarily before they both turned their attention to their son.
I covered my mouth with my fingers, stunned by the stark beauty of it all.
The purity of Angus’s love for my sister acted as the defibrillator, jolting my loneliness to the forefront of my consciousness.
“Ruby,” Gus began, “I can’t thank you enough. I’m sorry I had to put that pressure- “
I cut him off with a slice of my hand. “She’s my sister. It was my pleasure,” I spoke quickly.
Amber’s satisfied smile warmed me. “Come meet your nephew.”
The beat of my loneliness settled back into its usual steady rhythm, pumping lazily through my veins, existing largely unnoticed in the background, and underlying all my other functions.
