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EPILOGUE
CALLIOPE • 7 MONTHS LATER
“You fucking piece of shit.” I am who I am. I will not apologize for that. I will say what I feel and if that upsets Raniero, so be it. But I’m in labor and it fuckinghurts.
Raniero holds my hand in the car as he races down highway 24. “We’re going to be at the hospital in five minutes,” he swears. His fingers wrap around mine like a vice. “Give me all your pain, baby. Make me feel it. Squeeze my hand until you break it.”
Who am I to tell him no? The next contraction that rocks through my uterus gets linked to how tightly I wring my hand around his. He blows through a red light and as we pass under a particularly bright part of the road, I can see his jaw tighten. “That’s right,” he growls through his teeth, “you make me hurt like you hurt, baby.”
“I think I’m being ripped apart from the inside out, Raniero.” My gritted teeth match his, but that’s because my uterus feels like it’s being torn out.
He tries to smile, but he’s keeping his eyes on the road. I didn’t expect to go into labor at 3:00 am when the rain was pouring down, but Raniero is handling it like a pro. He keeps the car straight and it doesn’t drift for a second when he turns fast and tight off the highway and onto a backstreet to the hospital. “When we get to the hospital, you’ll get an epidural and it’ll be fine. You’ll be out of pain in no time at all.”
No time at allturns into an hour. First, they have to find out how close my contractions are. Then they check to see my dilation and progression. When they finally call the anesthesiologist, he’s in another part of the hospital. It feels like forever before he arrives to put me out of my misery.
Being drugged is sheer bliss.
Despite my contractions coming every three minutes like clockwork, I was only five centimeters dilated. They put me in my own labor and delivery room and sent a nurse to check on me every half hour.
“Can I get you anything?” Raniero is like an anxious puppy. He goes from sitting in the proffered chair by the hospital to standing by my side and squeezing my hand. His eyes watch my belly and he nervously rummages around in the ‘go bag’ when I ask him for my phone. “I-I don’t remember grabbing it.”
For the first time in the months we’ve been together, he looks genuinely distressed. Gone is the calm, cool, and collected Valenti that casually pulled a gun on me at my open house. In his place is a fretful and anxious man that looks left, right, and center when he can’t find my phone.
“It’s in my jacket,” I remind him dreamily. The doctor said the epidural wouldn’t put me to sleep, but it would certainly lessen the pain and I might fall asleep anyway. “I just wanna text my dad.”
Raniero is halfway to bringing my phone back to me when I say those words. Then he stops in the middle of the room and holds the phone up next to his head. “Uh, what? Calli, baby, maybe we should wait until we’re back home.”
He’s remembering the wedding. After we exchanged vows in the hotel room, a little private ceremony between the two of us, we headed to the church a few blocks away where a bevy of police cars were waiting for us. My father, who’d been invited, was nowhere to be found, but all of his buddies were. They said they’d received a tip that Raniero Valenti had held me captive against my will.
I don’t know if my father knew or if he just suspected it, but either way, Raniero had to clear his name before the festivities were allowed to start. I lied with my hand on a Bible that he never kept me captive. I’d go to hell one day for those lies, but at least my life on earth would be pretty nice for a while.
“It’s okay,” I reach out to grab my phone from him even though he’s nowhere close to me. “We’ll be okay. I just want to tell him that I’m going to be a better parent than he ever was.” If I had my mother’s phone number, I’d text her, too.
I know why she left all those years ago, but I’ll never forgive her for leaving me and my brothers behind. Apollo and Ares were old enough to defend themselves against dad, but I was still young. I was still abused by him until the day I left the house.
Raniero sighs heavily, making it clear that he doesn’t approve of what I’m doing, but ultimately, he crosses the rest of the room and hands me the phone. “If he sends the police here, Calliope, I swear to God,” he threatens.
If my father sends the police to the hospital, I don’t know what I’ll do. I’ve never been the type to fight back against him, but that will change now that I have a family to protect.
It takes me a few minutes to type up a suitable message. My fingers feel slow and my brain feels thick with fog. But in the end, I press send on my last communication with the man that almost ruined my life.
Your grandson is about to be born. If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t be having my happy ending. Thanks for all that you’ve done. Thanks for all the times you beat sense into me, literally. You made me stronger. Strong enough to know that I will move heaven and earth to keep this baby safe from you. Strong enough to protect him and all my future kids from men like you. You’ll never see your grandson, not as long as I have anything to say about it. I hope you’re happy now that you’ve driven everyone away.
I toss my phone onto the side table and let Raniero be my strength for the rest of my labor. Five hours pass before I’m dilated enough to push. The nurse holds one of my legs and Raniero holds the other. With the doctor in front of me coaching me to push, my husband looks me in the eyes and mouths the same words.
Sweat drips down my forehead like a waterfall. I grab onto the railings of the bed for support. Every time I bear down to push, the pressure grows. The epidural withholds most of the pain, but I can still feel my son as he crowns. My body feels like it’s being opened up. There is no stabbing, tearing pain, just tension and heaviness as our son is born.
“And… he’s here!” The doctor says with an excited look on her face. She lifts his little body up enough for me to see him. He’s covered in placenta and blood, but he looks beautiful. “What’s his name, mama?”
Raniero and I talked about this at length before he was born. I wasn’t partial to anything in particular, so he presented me with a list of names that he’d always wanted for his son.
“Gabriel,” I breathe out with what remaining energy I have, “we decided on Gabriel.” I lay back against the pillows that are now soaked in my sweat.
“You did such a great job,” Raniero praises me. His eyes sparkle with tears, the first I’ve ever witnessed. “You were strong and brave and beautiful every step of the way.”
I know I look like hell and I call him on it. “Shut up,” I groan, “I look like shit.”
But he brings his hand up to my forehead to remove the bits of hair that stuck to the sweat on my brow. Then Raniero leans forward and presses his lips to the sweaty patch of skin. “You look like a mother, Calliope, and that is certainly the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen.”
