The Birth of a Princess
“Honey!”
“Are you okay?”
Greg shot to his feet in alarm and hurried to Rachel’s side. Cassandra and I bolted up from our seats and crowded around her as well.
Rachel couldn’t even answer. She kept her eyes squeezed shut, one hand pressed to her belly and the other gripping the edge of the desk.
She must have been hit with a wave of pain the moment she tried to stand.
We waited, hearts in our throats. At last Rachel caught her breath and managed to say she was fine now.
But cold sweat still beaded her forehead, and her face remained drained of color. Greg helped her to the restroom.
While he paced outside the door, fretting, Cassandra tried to soothe him.
“Rachel said she’s okay, so try not to worry too much. Random pain is completely normal at this stage.”
Cassandra shook her head with a knowing grimace, listing off every ache that could strike during pregnancy—pubic pain, back pain, headaches, even toothache. Anything that could hurt, she said, would hurt.
“How much longer until her due date?”
“Two weeks. That’s why she was planning to stop coming in starting tomorrow.”
“Two whole weeks of total rest with nothing to do… that’s going to be rough for Rachel.”
Watching her like this, though, I wondered if two weeks would even be enough. It felt like the smart move would be to wipe work from her mind entirely and focus on getting her body ready until the birth.
“Greg, just clock out and take Rachel home. Better get on the road before traffic gets bad.”
Greg nodded and started packing up. Cassandra gave him a curious look.
“You two still haven’t moved in together?”
“There’s still time left on Rachel’s apartment lease, so we’ve been moving things over little by little. And she can still get around on her own, so she says she’s more comfortable in a place she knows…”
We sent the two of them off first. Cassandra and I tidied up a bit and headed out ourselves.
The kids always came home more tired than usual after a day out.
…Of course, on a day like today—when they’d already had a solid nap—I was the only one who ended up exhausted.
Sure enough, bath time turned into a full-blown water park for the two of them.
“Pee-yoooooong! Pwah!”
Splash!
Reni crashed his airplane into the water, then launched it skyward again.
“Pwahhh-waaah, pee-yoooong!”
I barely had a second to admire his dramatic sound effects before Luca started splashing just as hard beside him.
“Ah! Wooah!”
Once again, the poor yellow rubber duck was thrashing for its life, paddling furiously to escape the chaos.
I finally managed to get the two of them clean and rolled them up like little cocoons in their towels. Then I carried them safely to the bed, got them into pajamas, and dried their hair.
“Safely,” in this case, meant I somehow avoided getting kicked in the face or head, and that the boys didn’t accidentally clock each other while flailing.
The second they were in their pajamas, Reni wriggled free of my hands, rolled once across the mattress, and ducked behind the bed rail cushion to shout at Luca.
“I see you! I don’t see you!”
“Kyaaah!”
Watching a little brother thrash his hands and feet and laugh just as brightly as his big brother used to wash the tiredness right out of me… about three months ago, that is.
Now, watching them vault the bed rail like it was a fence and spin circles all over the mattress, I felt a little like crying.
The king-size bed heaved and rocked under the brothers’ game of tag. I rested my head against the edge of the mattress and felt a matching throb start up in my skull.
“….”
There was no putting them to bed like this.
A few months of extra experience had taught me when to cut my losses. I scooped each boy up in turn and set them down on the playroom mat—at least here there was no risk of rolling off a bed.
Then I dug out the secret weapon I’d stashed away for nights exactly like this: a brand-new toy.
“Daddy, what’s that?”
What else would it be? My last resort.
“This is a water ring game. See those rings floating around in the water? You press this button and try to hook them.”
It was a simple classic, but to the kids it might as well have been a whole new world.
And why do classics become classics? Because they’re fun enough to outlast time itself—memorable enough that people never quite forget them.
Just as I’d hoped, Luca and Reni locked onto the game in seconds. Each of them planted a palm on a button and mashed away, delighted by the rings scattering every which way.
“Okay, you guys play for a bit. Daddy’s gonna shower.”
“Mah-bah!”
Reni didn’t even seem to hear me. Only Luca answered—though whether he was answering me or yelling at the toy, I couldn’t say. Probably the latter.
I went into the bathroom and left the door wide open. First I cleaned up the disaster zone that was their bath, then I took a quick shower.
Every so often I poked my head past the curtain to listen, but the kids didn’t seem the least bit interested in where I’d gone.
I rinsed off under the hot water, let myself breathe for a minute, and came back out to find them still mashing buttons and chattering away at each other. They hadn’t hooked a single ring, but that clearly wasn’t the point.
While I was at it I dried my hair and wandered the living room, straightening up the house. When I checked the clock, it was nine at night.
If I put a little effort in now, I might actually get them into bed.
I rapped on the playroom door.
“All right, time to wrap it up and go to sleep.”
“Luca, press the button faster—like this!”
“Ee-ah!”
Neither of them so much as glanced my way.
I strode over and snatched the game up. Both pairs of eyes tracked it into the air.
“Daddyyy!”
“Ah! Ah!”
Reni scrambled to his feet, latched onto my leg, and stretched both hands toward the toy. Luca hauled himself up on my other leg and glared up at me with a sulky little face.
Aigoo. I was getting a preview of just how little these two were going to listen once they got bigger.
Without a word, I carefully lifted the leg Reni was clinging to and started walking. He figured out the game in an instant and hung on, giggling. Luca’s eyes went round; he tensed up, then understood—“hang onto Daddy!”—and burst into laughter of his own.
Both of them stuck to me like burrs. All that good feeding was finally paying off.
Once we made it to the master bedroom, I tossed the game onto the far side of the bed. Reni let go of my leg, scrambled up the little step stool, and snatched it back. Luca crawled up after his brother and flopped down beside him.
I lay on my side next to them and watched them play. Give it about twenty minutes and their heads would start to droop. Then I could guide each of them into place, keep talking softly, and let them mumble half-hearted answers until they drifted off.
“….”
I jolted awake. Soft light from the night-light washed over two kids sleeping soundly beside me.
Don’t tell me I fell asleep first. Again?
Feeling faintly absurd, I sat up slowly and shook my head.
“….”
Come to think of it—who turned off the room light?
My eyes landed on the picture book under the light switch. Reni must have done it.
Even half-dazed, I couldn’t help a quiet laugh.
I watched their faces for a while under the glow that brightened and dimmed like breathing starlight. The game was still clutched in Luca’s hand—maybe, at the very end, Reni had given the toy to his little brother.
They’d put themselves to bed in their own spots. Looking at them, I felt a small swell of pride.
A little older, and now they even sleep well. Good boys. My sons.
I tucked their blankets snugly around them, then reached for my phone out of habit to check the time.
Barely past ten.
Whether I fought them to sleep or conked out first myself, the result was about the same.
Bzzzt.
I was settling back down when a messenger notification buzzed. Greg.
…What kind of text was that supposed to be? Had he been drinking?
I almost ignored it, bracing for whatever nonsense was coming—then a prickle of unease made me answer.
Sleep vanished in an instant.
I sat bolt upright and asked what had happened.
A few hours earlier, he said, he’d gotten a call that Rachel’s contractions had started. He’d raced back to her place and brought her straight to the hospital.
Hadn’t he said she still had about two weeks? Was something wrong?
When I asked, Greg went silent for a long time. When he finally replied, the news was that it wasn’t a serious situation.
He added that he probably should have waited until morning to message me, and apologized if he’d woken me up. He’d just been too rattled—and of all days, no one else had been home.
How panicked must he have been to reach out to me first? Fortunately the rest of the family had arrived by now, he said, so he was all right.
Me showing up wouldn’t have helped much anyway, and the kids made it hard to leave. Still, I told him to call whenever he needed anything, then lay back down.
After that I only half-slept, dozing in fits and starts. By the time morning came, there was still no word that the baby had been born.
Was she really okay? I hid my worry as best I could, fed the kids, dropped Reni at kindergarten, and headed into work.
When I told Cassandra the whole story, her face tightened with concern too—but she still said it would be fine.
“First births are never easy. It took me a full twenty-four hours to have Charlie.”
“Should we head to the hospital anyway?”
I asked because I couldn’t decide, but Cassandra shook her head.
“We’re not immediate family. There’s nothing we could really do there, and she already has people with her. If we showed up, Rachel might feel grateful—and also burdened.”
She had a point, so we simply waited. Then Greg called.
“Hello?”
He couldn’t even answer my greeting. The sound of him crying made my heart plummet—until the words that followed pulled a long breath of relief out of me.
“She’s so tiny and wrinkly. But she’s beautiful.”
The baby had just come into the world, he said. He’d cried so hard the nurses had temporarily kicked him out of the room; Rachel’s mother was with her now.
I thought I heard Greg’s mother saying something in the background. I could more or less guess what she was thinking. Both of their mothers were probably still stuck on the idea that their kids had just had a kid.
Either way, I could finally unclench.
Cassandra and I traded a look of pure relief, and I asked after Rachel.
“Yeah. My girl looks exhausted, but the doctor says she’s fine. Healthy.”
We talked a little longer. I congratulated him again and hung up—he had to be completely overwhelmed.
Not long after, another text came through.
I couldn’t help a short, disbelieving laugh. Picturing Rachel ready to march into the office tomorrow if anyone would let her, I typed back.
I sent it and turned back to my work with a lighter heart. Then Cassandra told me to ask about the baby’s name, so I messaged again. The reply came a little later.
It was a beautiful name. I wondered how soon we’d get to meet her.
Cassandra read the message over my shoulder and smiled brightly.
“I can already see exactly what kind of dad Greg’s going to be.”