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The problem is traffic.
The problem is it’s four in the afternoon and everyone and their mother is out thinking that they’ve escaped early enough to avoid the home time traffic. The problem is someone up ahead is honking angrily every three seconds. The problem is some people can’t blare a horn politely.
The problem is they’re in a traffic jam.
The problem is Lardo’s in labour.
“I’m gonna have this baby in the car.”
Shitty looks calm and composed. His eyes are focused on the unmoving traffic ahead and his knees aren’t bouncing but you’ve only to look at the bone white knuckle grip he has on the steering wheel and his twitching moustache to see that he feels otherwise. That despite how he looks he is very aware of the active labour going on beside him and he is shitting himself.
The wheel leather squeaks under his hands.
“My darling, my queen, my reason for living,” he takes a thin breath, “please don’t because I don’t know how to deliver a fucking baby.”
Lardo flinches despite his even tone and her eyes flit to the rear view to check the backseat but of course it’s empty. Xuan is not bouncing impatiently in her car seat because she’s at Dex and Nursey’s probably drinking too much sugary juice and watching cartoons that are slightly too old for her. Shitty can swear all he likes now that they’re sponge of a two-year-old isn’t around. Truthfully Lardo wants to swear too but someone in this vehicle has to have their shit together.
She thought she had more time.
Honestly.
“I might crown in the car.” She tries to keep her voice light but Shitty shoots her a very dark look.
“No you are not.” He says firmly.
Traffic moves up a distracting couple of inches preventing her from voicing just what exactly she thinks of that ridiculous command. Lardo sees Shitty loosen on thumb and it hovers over the centre of the wheel.
“Don’t.” She warns. “It’s not helping the guy up there, it’s not gonna help us.”
“You are literally having a baby in this car.” A bead of sweat rolls down his forehead. Lardo reaches out to wipe it away and despite the tension in his body he leans into her touch. Shitty will always lean into her caress as she would lean into his.
“Chill dude we’ll get there.” Except channelling Nursey doesn’t help her to actually feel chill. In fact, she feels quite panicked because she really doesn’t want to have a baby in the car. Firstly, because contrary to what they’ve seen on TV, having a baby is a mite more complicated and Shitty is a very talented man but he’s not a doctor – the man can’t even cook scrambled eggs for God’s sake let alone deliver the product of a fertilised one – and secondly the bodily fluids would ruin the upholstery.
“I know it doesn’t help to point it out but I feel like I should,” Shitty grits, “this wouldn’t be happening if you’d paid attention to the contractions instead of doing that fucking painting.”
Lardo knows this is true but honestly, truly and honestly, she thought she had more time. It’s not her fault pregnancy makes her so inspired. It’s way better than eating bizarre food combinations or being sick all the time. Lardo gets pregnant and creativity is pouring forth from her body like a tap turned on full. She would be an idiot to let all that potential go to waste, so yes she may have favoured getting that last bit of colour down rather than note how far apart her contractions were getting. Besides this is her second baby and the second is supposed to be a breeze. Her first certainly was. Xuan was born with minimal fuss, very quickly and with a funny half smile on her face. Lardo was sure the story would be the same this time round.
She realises now as she pants in the car that this was ridiculously, wildly stupid. With every contraction (five minutes apart!) she is reminded of how fucking arrogant it was to ignore her bodies ample warning that it was time to get her ass to hospital.
Unfortunately for Shitty, however, Lardo’s in a lot of pain and she’s scared and even if they called an ambulance it would be stuck a hundred cars behind them. With every second they don’t move Lardo is further convinced that she’s going to have to do this alone and it’s terrifying, which is why when she answers it’s more of a screech than the sharp retort that would have ordinarily sufficed.
“That fucking painting is a fucking commission,” Their toddler is not here so she’s letting a litany of cathartic curses go, “and I’m getting paid a fuck tonne of money for it.”
“We don’t need the money!”
And it’s a testament to how stressed he is that he even let something like that slip past his lips.
But labouring Lardo is in control now and she has no time for his bullshit. “Have you met me?! Oh fuck!” A contraction steals her breath.
All the hostility in the air vanishes.
“Lards you okay?”
It takes her a minute to find enough air in her lungs to exhale a hay, “I’m okay.”
Shitty grasps her hand and she squeezes it hard. He goes white, something cracks. “I’m sorry.” He says.
She nods because she knows he is but also because she’s having another contraction and must pant like a dog.
When it came to carrying their first child Shitty made sure they were the most well informed terrified parents to be. Lardo, refusing to feed into his paranoia took on the role of the zen parent. Shitty worried so much he gave himself stress ulcers so to balance them out Lardo refused to worry about anything. Come their second she thought he’d mellow the hell out but he didn’t. He went and dug up those articles, gave himself a hair whitening refresher course on pre and post pregnancy complications and then stared at the ceiling for two hours with their daughter held tight in his arms.
“I’m freaking out.” She says in a small voice all hope of appearing calm for the sake of the man quietly freaking out beside her, gone. The simple confession does make her feel a little better though as confessions of weakness around loved ones are pro to do, but it doesn’t last long because her body is still trying to expel the human being inside of her.
The cape of calm that Lardo usually wears for him is now crumpled in the foot well, she’s gritting her teeth through every wave of pain, she really wants to push and is desperately trying not to, and she wants to cry. She always took comfort in thinking that if women could give birth in caves thousands of years ago then it meant her body would know what to do. The downside of that being that when your body really wanted to do something you had to contend with a thousand years’ worth of evolutionary stubbornness. Her body wanted to push damn the situation and consequences.
Shitty takes both hands off the wheel and encases hers. “Lards look at me. Larissa.” Lardo looks into those bright green eyes, tries to lose herself in the spring colour of them, tries to remember what it was like when they first met, how beautiful he was…even with the blossoming Tom Selleck pornstache. “You’re going to be okay? Okay? We’re not far from the hospital turn off now and we’re surrounded by people who could get help if, if we need it. Don’t be afraid. I’m here and I’m not going to leave you. You won’t do this by yourself.” He kisses her knuckles.
Lardo nods, tears roll down her cheeks.
Reluctantly he lets go of her hand and takes the wheel. One contraction later traffic starts to move.
They spend the next three minutes in silence. Lardo’s busy trying not to moan every time she contracts and Shitty’s too busy trying not to lay on the horn, throw up and scream all at the same time.
“Shitty?”
The honking stops cars around them start to roll forwards as traffic eases up.
“Shitty?”
Eyes glued to the road he replies, “Yes my love?”
“I need to push.”
Shitty does a double take at the puffy red faced woman who’s taken his wife’s place. “What? No! No, no, no don’t push! Traffic’s moving baby we’re almost home fucking free!”
“Shitty!” Lardo screams, “I have to fucking push!”
“Argh!” He screams.
“Argh!” She screams.
“Shit shit shit.”
There’s an angry blare of the horn and Lardo sags sideways into the centre console. The car stops abruptly and then Shitty’s out of the car. For a frightening delirious second she thinks he’s run off but the minute he throws open her door she realises how utterly absurd such a fear is. It’s Shitty she’s talking about here. Her husband. The man who waited nearly four years for her in college. He’d never leave her especially not when she is valiantly trying to not give birth to their child in the car by the side of the road.
“Okay baby.” He gasps, “We’re having a mother fucking baby.”
They’re going to have a baby by the side of the road.
“Noooo,” she whines, “Not here.” But really protests at this point are hopeless.
“Lards my universe, my sweet sweet duckling, my entire reason for existing- “
She finds it in her to roll her eyes at him.
“We’re having a baby by the side of the road. It’ll be a glorious anecdote for when we go to Providence.” He grins but it’s strained and it’s only when she really concentrates on looking at him that she reads the absolute terror on his face. He takes a deep summoning breath. “I can do this.”
“Well,” she pants (one, two, three, four) “you’ve read enough books.”
Shitty lets out a nervous burst of laughter. “Yeah I did didn’t I?”
He helps her out of the car and together they very very slowly make it to the back where Lardo tries to settle into the seat. Despite the panic and the pain she still has the presence of mind to be embarrassed about having her feet and her ass hanging out. Sure, she’s trying to push a human out but she was hoping to do it with some dignity, surrounded by doctors who look at people’s undercarriages all day, not home time motorists.
“Okay, okay, okay. So I guess just push when you need to huh? Oh fuck! I gotta wash my hands.”
“Glove compartment!”
No parent travels anywhere without hand sanitiser.
Shitty dives forwards yanking open the compartment and pouring way too much gel on his hands. “Ooh Watermelon.”
She wants to laugh she really does but all she’s got in her is a groan. Baby Knight two is ready to come out and they are pissed at being held in so long.
By her feet Shitty chants, “Oh shit oh shit oh shit. Okay I need to catch it.”
“Don’t drop the baby!”
“Right,” Shitty pushes his sweat slick hair back, “rule number one just like with the first.”
Then Lardo loses all ability to do anything except accept that it’s time to push. Fingers of one hand curled around the headrest and the other digging into the seat she grits her molars, bears down and with the next contraction rides the wave pushing and pushing until she has to break for air.
As she raggedly sucks in oxygen voices gather around them.
“Oh my god is she-?”
“Someone call 911!”
“You got this! Come on baby!” Shitty sounds like he’s cheering at a game. “Come on Lards keep pushing! Go go go!”
Ignoring the crowd situated at the business end of this marvellous and cringe worthy display of the miracle of birth she pushes and pushes until she can’t push anymore.
“I see the head!” Shitty’s voice has gone up an octave, his eyes saucer wide stare down between her legs. “Oh fuck. Oh Jesus fucking fuck! You beautiful little bastard yes!”
“Stop,” Lardo wheezes, “Swearing in front of the baby.”
“One more push Lards you fucking beauty.”
Lardo takes a deep breath.
Shitty laughs, high and manic, “They’re out! They’re out!”
Lardo’s arms and legs feel like jelly as she cranes herself forwards. “Are they okay?”
The air is still, all sucked in by the crowd around them. Shitty’s face is frozen halfway between heart bursting joy and heart stopping terror.
A long loud wail pierces the bubble of silence. “Oh my God.” He breathes. “Oh my fucking God. It’s a boy. We have a boy!”
Lardo sobs. In relief, in joy, in pain. She cries when Shitty cuts the cord (thank you gathering strangers), she cries when he places their son on her chest and kisses her cheek, his own face soaked. “Oh man.” He cries against her skin, “Oh man.”
In the distance a siren wails.
***
Half an hour later Shitty, eyes still round as dinner plates, sits beside her in the ambulance. He wasn’t kidding about them being close to the turn off ramp, the ambulance might have been here sooner but the incident ahead is only just clearing. In her arms a tiny pink faced infant with downy dark hair makes breathy sounds against her skin. When she places her lips against his head she inhales that impossible to describe scent of new baby, despite being delivered by a man whose hands were covered in watermelon scented anti bac gel.
“Oh man.” Said man breathes, smoothing a hand over his sweaty hair. There’s a smudge of blood on his forearm and a mix of that and placenta on his shirt. “I can’t believe that just happened.” They both take a moment to disbelieve it together. “What’s the Vietnamese word for surprise?”
Lardo slides him a look. “You do realise my mom speaks French right?”
“Yeah but you said you wanted to give the kids Vietnamese names.”
She did say that.
“Google it.” She says. Her mother grew up in a French speaking orphanage. She speaks Vietnamese a little but she was educated in French. Lardo grew up learning French not Vietnamese. She doesn’t know the word for surprise.
Shitty shows her the screen which reads sự ngạc nhiên’ – surprise. He then youtubes how to pronounce it.
“I don’t think we can name our kid something that we can’t find a direct translation for.”
Shitty hums his agreement. Then as if struck by lightning he says, “What about Vinh?”
“Vinh?”
“It means glory or glorious. I think this birth was pretty fucking glorious don’t you?”
“Language.” She warns mildly, chewing over the name.
“We could call him Vinnie for short and then my grandfather would be able to pronounce it.”
Lardo snickers. His grandfather falters over Xuan’s name all the time. If he wasn’t so old and they didn’t visit so infrequently she’d be annoyed by how he uses his age as an excuse for what is just a wilful racist refusal to learn how to say a name that he won’t find in his bible.
“I like it. Vinh. Glory.”
“Wait until we tell Bitty about this.” Shitty beams down excitedly at them. “He is gonna fucking die.”
Lardo cups her palm protectively around their son’s tiny head and scowls, “Language, Shits.”
* * *
Bitty’s face fills up the phone screen “Oh my god honey are you okay?”
Thankfully Lardo’s shirt was not covered in placenta and other assorted birth goos so there was no need for a washed out pastel hospital gown but she does look like a woman who belongs in a hospital bed. Gone is the pregnancy glow of before and in its place is the post birth sag.
“I’m fine bits.” She smiles pepped up by some juice after the event. “Us women are very resilient.”
“Well I know that,” he tuts, “but you gave birth in a lay by! You’re trending on Twitter!”
Lardo jolts forward horrified, “I am?”
“Uh huh. Someone filmed you.”
She cringes.
“Nothing graphic!” Bitty rushes to reassure her. “Just your face all sweaty and- well actually you have the same expression Jack does when he’s playing against the Rangers.”
“I have Jacks angry hockey face when I’m in labour?”
“Or,” says a voice from the doorway, “Jack has your labour face when he’s playing hockey. Hi guys.” Nursey sweeps into the room followed by Dex who has a squirming Xuan in his arms. She wriggles and wriggles until he lets her slide down and then she’s climbing up on the end of the bed tucking herself under Lardo’s arm and staring at the screen.
“Hey cutie.” Bitty waves.
Xuan waves shyly then buries her face in Lardo’s side. Her daughter has a very big crush on their itty Bitty.
“She still has excellent taste I see.” He teases.
Lardo sweeps some hair back from Xuan’s face. “Holsters still lobbying hard. He told her he’d get her a p u p p y for her birthday.”
Bitty gasps theatrically, “He did not!”
“Swear to God. He’s not allowed obviously, two rabbits, a gerbil and the hens is enough.”
Bitty grins. “So where is he?” He leans forwards as if he could see round the screen. She turns the phone exposing Shitty holding the baby between two cooing former hockey players. “He’s so tiny.”
“You didn’t see Xuan either did you?” He shakes his head. “They’re so little but only for, like, five minutes. In a week he’ll be a fatty.”
Bitty laughs, “Hey you.”
Everyone is expressly forbidden from using his nickname since Xuan has started to parrot them all.
“Hey Bits. Meet Vinh.” Shitty’s grin stretches his moustache out.
“How are you?”
“My man,” he gushes, “I delivered my son by the side of the road. These hands of mine pulled him from his mother’s womb- “
“Dude stop.” Will grimaces.
“Into the light of day.”
“In front of a crowd of gawping strangers.” Nursey adds as if Lardo’s going to ever be able to forget it.
Shitty ignores them, “I am fan-fu- fantastic.”
“I’m so glad. Jack says hi and congratulations – I think he was tearing up. He’s at practice but he’s gonna call when he gets back. I can’t believe you gave birth by the side of the road. Lards that’s awfully spectacular of you.”
She shrugs and smiles ruefully, “And I wanted to be so low key.”
“Blame the painting.” Shitty says in a baby voice as he’s looking down at their son.
Bits frowns quizzically. “What painting? The commission?” She nods. “Wait isn’t that the one you’re doing for Thirdy and his wife?”
She grins guiltily.
“Oh my god I’ve got to tell Jack.” His hands move rapidly on the phone. A second later it trills “Ha ha he says he’s gonna give Thirdy so much sh- junk over it. Really increase your chances of a bonus.”
“It wasn’t his fault. I was super inspired.” Bitty nods familiar with how inspired Lardo gets when she’s expecting.
“You know Lards I knew you were stupid determined when you had us pretend to be the judging body of graduate art students and you practiced your audition for the studio space in front of us, but to ignore labour in favour of painting?” Will makes a face, “I mean I’m impressed but also confounded.”
“Classic Tango.” Nursey smiles wryly.
They all share a fond smile in remembrance of their constantly questioning team mate. Vinh makes a hiccupping noise and all the boys melt.
“So,” Bitty says after their moment, leaning forwards on his counter with a wide sunshine smile, “what kind of pie am I making?”