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My son feels alive to me in a way he hasn’t since I woke up alone in the hospital. I speak of him more freely. During a visit to Landry’s house, I mention something Owen went through similar to her daughter’s current situation. His name leaves my lips without the usual despair. I’ve reclaimed my son by facing his death.
Spring offers a new beginning after a long, painful winter. I feel lighter by the time Selene gives birth to Walker. I can share in her joy without recalling my loss.
By then, I’m part of the girl gang. Of course, I occasionally feel a little unsure of my place. Eagle and I are similar that way. However, my friends are learning when to push me and when to leave me be. I don’t need to fake anything with them.
They’re so supportive when Clementine is born. I’m surrounded by people during the delivery. A party atmosphere fills the hospital, just like when Walker was born. My little girl enters the world with so many people ready to love her.
Even Fiona visits the hospital, when I’m kept a few extra days after my blood pressure won’t remain steady. Worried about me, she organizes a security detail to surround her as she faces a world she still fears.
“I’m not afraid,” Fiona insists when she arrives pushed in a wheelchair by a giant, armed man. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
With the shades closed and the lights dimmed, Fiona meets Clementine.
“She looks like Eagle,” she announces with the baby in her arms. “He frowns in this exact way when unsure about something.”
My man can’t hide his proud grin. He’s repeatedly claimed Clementine looks like me. Her little face does remind me of Owen’s.
However, I suspect he wants something of his mom to live on in his child. What he never noticed was how he looks like Jillian when he’s grumpy. In a video he showed me, she frowned at something someone said, and her face puckered up in the exact way his does when he’s uncomfortable.
Now, a little part of Jillian will greet Eagle whenever his daughter is in a bad mood.
“I had lots of hair when I was born,” he tells me as Fiona grins at the thick-haired baby girl. “My mom told me how she could comb it into a faux hawk by the time she came home from the hospital.”
Smiling at Eagle, I’ve felt him struggling over the last few days. I know he wishes Jillian were around to meet Clementine.
“She’s missing the best part of my life,” he admits that night after we’re alone and the baby is asleep. “I imagine what she’d say about Clementine or the house we’re building in the woods. I know she’d be crazy about you.”
I don’t distract Eagle from his grief. Over the last six months, we’ve learned to accept how much our losses defined us. Grief isn’t a cancer needing to be cut out so we can survive. It’s something we need to learn to live with if we hope to remember those we loved and lost.
So, I hold Eagle while he misses his mom like he cuddles me whenever I long for my son. Without the pain, we can’t really feel the joy.
And we have a lot to be happy about in our life.
During my pregnancy, Eagle asks to marry me. Of course, I agree but hope to wait until the baby’s birth.
“I want to party hard when I become Missus Eagle,” I explain to his amusement. “I also don’t want a baby shower until after she’s born. I’m partly afraid to jinx this pregnancy, but mostly, I want booze at my shower.”
Though Eagle agrees, I sense he doesn’t want his child to be a bastard like him.
“You are better than your sisters,” I assure him. “Their parents being married didn’t turn them into better people. In fact, they’re objectively worse than you in every way. You even have better boobs.”
Eagle loves my comment, but I can tell he’s still nursing old hurts.
“How about we compromise?” I suggest when I’m eight months along and time’s running out. “We’ll get everything legal before Clementine is born. “But we’ll save the wedding and reception for when I can party.”
Eagle gives me a sexy grin and murmurs, “You’re a wild woman.”
“Only because of you.”
We get married at city hall. Once Clementine is a month old, I start planning the wedding reception and baby shower.
“I don’t have to go to that girly party, right?” Goose asks on my last night before moving to the new house.
I grin at her horror, knowing her well by now. Of all the new biker wives, I’m the one with the best inside knowledge about the Steel Berserkers Motorcycle Club members. For nearly nine months, I live in the Pigsty with them. We share meals. I hear about their sexual mishaps. They baby me when my ankles swell up. After Clementine is born, they take turns babysitting, so Eagle and I can enjoy sexy times.
By the time I move into my dream house, I feel like the club is my family. I never figured I’d trust anyone like I do Fiona, but I’m genuinely sad to leave the Pigsty.
The first night in the gorgeous house Eagle and I designed together, I struggle to get comfortable. The large contemporary with the walls of windows and sloped roof doesn’t feel like home. Everything is too new, lacking the lived in vibe at the Pigsty. The quiet here feels oppressive after sharing a space with so many people.
