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It was dawn on the second day and with each passing hour, Trevor Belmont is filled with panic. Having slept poorly and forgetting to eat, he is borderline hysterical by the time the sunlight poured over the hills. What had they been thinking? How could he have risked her? Sypha wanted children too, he reminded himself. We both understood it was our duty to the church. But God, please, please don’t take her from me. He was only too aware that childbirth was a risky, terrifying thing that often ended in death.
He knew it was sinful to think such things, to believe that his will could circumvent the will of God, but he wished he could take it all back now. He wished that they had never listened to Brotherhood’s talks of duty, obligation and safe-guarding the future of God’s kingdom. He wished that he had overridden his desire to please Sypha and have the family she wanted. But above all, if someone had to die to allow their child into the world, he begged God that it would be him.
Sypha was his only friend. The only person who ever cared for him, and treated him with respect. Who listened to him and told him that he was more than just a weapon for God. If she died, what would he do? There was no possibility that another person would care for him the way she did. The fact that she even cared for him as a friend, much less loved him as one, was unbelievable. Losing something so precious was unfathomable. No child was worth that!
All his fears about fatherhood had exploded. What if she died and the child lived? God have mercy, what an utter nightmare. He already knew he would be completely inadequate as a father; after all, he was a failure in every other respect. He had been counting on Sypha to help counter balance that, and tell him what he needed to do. It wasn’t her responsibility, he knew that, but he also knew that he had no fucking idea what to do. Sypha was always so assured, so knowledgeable, and he was so lucky to have her. What if she died?
Trevor had already wept. He had no more tears to give. When the first messenger had come to tell him Sypha was in labor, he’d immediately gone to the chapel and spoke to the Father. God had never spoken to him, but he felt comforted. Trevor always felt comforted by God. After all the Father had always given him more than he deserved. Despite being abandoned by his parents, he’d been given a home with the Brotherhood. Despite being useless, slow, and stupid, he’d been trained, molded into something that could serve. Despite being unlovable, he’d been given Sypha to be his wife and be his friend.
Sypha. Sypha. If not for me God, for I am not worthy, please, please, for her, he begged silently, hands clasped tightly in prayer. There was no woman who was more faithful, or more devoted to God, than his wife. When the second messenger had come, they had told him that it wasn’t going well, and Sypha was exhausted. They had suggested that he pray. Trevor had knelt until his knees bruised. When he couldn’t kneel any longer, he had forced himself to remain until his lower body went numb.
When he’d woken on his side, he was horrified and certain that his lapse would mean the loss of everything he held most precious. He’d been right. The last messenger had come, and said that the child was turned. That the child was caught in the birth canal, and both babe and mother were struggling. Trevor’s temper had been completely swamped with his horror and fear. The man had been lucky to escape with his life, and Father Timothy had shouted at him that blood was not to be spilt in the house of the Lord. Trevor was deeply shamed of his lapse, but helpless to do anything but beg forgiveness.
“Trevor,” Father Timothy called to him softly. Trevor turned and saw the Father standing with another man. The messenger. Dear God, please, please, Trevor thought, feeling his gorge rise with terror. “Your child is born. Sypha lives. You must go to her now.”
Trevor staggered and caught himself on the pew. “She lives,” he croaked out, his voice rough from lack of water and whispered prayers.
Father Timothy’s voice was kind and soft, “Yes Trevor, as does your child. Everyone lives. It is a miracle.” Trevor can only nod, and before he understood what he was doing, he had run down the aisle, past the Father and the messenger, out into the bright daylight and down the path toward the center of the Brotherhood’s barracks. His heart pounded, his breath came in hard gasps. People watch him with amusement and concern.
Trevor only stopped for a single moment and not because he wanted to. When he reached the path to his door, he passed the apple tree that he had planted for Sypha on the day that they were wed, and his long, brown hair snarled in the low branch. It yanked him back and held him. Unwilling to break the branch, as Sypha loved this tree, he withdrew a silver dagger and sliced the strands away unthinkingly. Dropping the blade with a clatter on the stone, he tore through the door like a man possessed and paused. This was his home, but it was choked with the scent of Sypha’s fear, her blood, and her pain. Sypha!
“Trevor, you must be calm,” came the voice of Rebecca, the local midwife. She was a woman that he’d only come to know as Sypha’s quickening had progressed. Rebecca sounded tranquil, if not a little tired. “Sypha has been through much, but she is alive and she will stay that way. If she stays calm, rested, and is cared for properly.”
Trevor fought to process the words as he turned to the woman. He trembled with adrenaline. Calm, I must be calm, I must be calm for Sypha, he told himself. She is alive and she will stay that way, if I am calm. “I will do whatever I need to so that she stays alive and with me,” he rasped out between his gasps for air and control.
Rebecca’s smile was gentle and understanding. “I know Trevor. Everyone in the barracks knows your love for her. You are the one husband I do not doubt will dote on their wife. She is lucky to have you.”
Trevor immediately rejected that. He is lucky to have Sypha. She was burdened with him, but accepted it with grace and infinite kindness. She was a miracle and he will care for her in whatever way possible, but he must see her. “Where is she, Rebecca? I need to see her,” he asked.
Rebecca nodded and pointed him to their bedroom. Trevor’s hands shook as he parted the curtain and his knees went weak. “Sypha, praise be to God! Oh, thank you God.” He thought he didn’t have any tears left, but they tumbled down as her lovely lashes rimmed with deep red fluttered open and blue eyes met his.
“Trevor, don’t cry. I am alright. God watched over me,” she smiled at him. He only saw the paleness of her skin, the fragile, deep shadows under her eyes, and the wince as she shifted on the bed.
“Don’t move; don’t talk, if it hurts,” he told her, panic edging the words. He carefully approached the bed. The blanket that he thought she’d crumpled up for warmth across her chest shifted and the tiniest wail piped out, as clear and indignant as a songbird whose breakfast has been thwarted. Trevor froze. The child. By the gates of heaven, that was their child, he thought numbly. In his panic over Sypha, he had completely forgotten that there was also a child.
“Come here Trevor, and meet your son,” Sypha said softly, her tone filled with great joy. He couldn’t breathe. There was something building inside of his chest and working its way into his throat that refused to allow him to respond. But his feet knew what to do. Trevor found himself at the head of their bed, gazing down at a small, pinched face that was red and grumpy, with a shock of dark, reddish hair.
This is our child, he thought, the thing closing his throat moving up steadily now. Sypha moved the babe’s mouth to her nipple, and the child struggled to nurse. This is the babe that my wife fought to bring into this world, the son that will call me father and ask to hold my hand. This is the fragile creature that needs me and doesn’t know I am nothing and will never have to know that, if only I can get this right. I love him. I love him so much. I don’t know what to do with this, I love him so much, and thank you God. Thank you for continuing to bless my life in ways I cannot possibly understand. Thank you for giving me the privilege of having a family I can never deserve, but will never take for granted. Thank you for allowing me to have such beauty in my life.
The thing in his throat burst out into his mouth, and Trevor could breath. Breathe deep the possibility of being more than he’d ever imagined. Of having a love so unconditional and true that it staggered him. Of being the father that he never knew and always wanted.
Sypha looked up at him and said, “I was thinking...if you liked it of course, that we might call him Simon. For some reason it just—”
Trevor was nodding like his life depended on it. “Yes, Sypha,” he told her. “By God, yes. You fought to bring Simon into this world, just like Simon carried the cross for our Lord. Simon is a beautiful, perfect name. He is perfect. You are perfect. Thank you. I love you.” Trevor knelt, knees screaming from the abuse of the last 48 hours, and he didn’t feel it at all.
He carefully, gently kissed the cheek of his dear friend and wife, and delicately used one finger to push the blanket back to peer at his son, as the babe worked to suckle at Sypha’s breast.
“Simon,” he whispered reverently. “Blessed be, my son. I love you.”
---
When I heard you sing
It felt like a christening
A baptism at the back of the bar
I fell under your spell
You sang my life so well
As your voice quivers with each line you deliver
I hear the orchestra as I stand in awe
I felt so close to the Lord
-'The Star of Bethnal Green,' Bear's Den