A baby girl. Quincy called everyone in the family to spread the word, and that night he posted the film on Facebook so everyone could see his daughter on their own computers. The next morning, he got Ceara up at the crack of dawn.
“Now that we know it’s a girl, we gotta get ready!” he told her.
“Quincy,” she said patiently, “ye’re daft, me man. We already are ready for ten babes. ’Tis a wonder to me that any other mum can find so much as a shift in the stores, ye’ve bought so much.”
“Yes, but it’s all yellow and white and green. I want pink! I want to go shopping for my daughter,” Quincy insisted. “And, oh, man, we need to think of a name.”
“Ach, na until the birth,” Ceara informed him. “’Tis the way in me family.”
* * *
Ceara spent a lot of time when she was alone at the house watching the ultrasound video of her and Quincy’s little girl. She couldn’t grasp the concept of an ultrasound—how a woman had rubbed her belly with warm gel and then had been able to take pictures, moving pictures, of Ceara’s baby while it was still inside her. Pictures alone, of which Ceara had taken many with her cell phone, were mystery enough. In her time, ’twould be such a strange and inexplicable thing that the picture taker would be suspected of possessing evil powers. Not even the druids whom Ceara had known in her beloved Ireland had been able to capture images of people or things to display on a screen.
When Ceara wasn’t watching her daughter’s grainy image, she spent hours in what Quincy called the nursery, which was now almost completely furnished. She loved touching the dainty lace on the hood of the bassinet. Holding to her cheek the wee clothing in the drawers brought tears to her eyes. Quincy was unstoppable in shops, filling a cart faster than Ceara could blink. If she just paused over an outfit, or one of those strange pretties called mobiles, Quincy tossed it in the cart, and when they reached what people in this century called “checkout,” he never hesitated to hand over his plastic credit card, which he’d explained to her was coded with special numbers so the charges went against his account. Ceara had used her own credit card while shopping with the hens, but at the time, she hadn’t quite understood how it took the place of actual money.
For Ceara, pregnancy was a beautiful experience. She would never forget first feeling her daughter move within her womb. Or that fabulous night when Quincy finally felt his wee girl kick. She’d smile for the rest of her days remembering his stunned expression. He’d laughed and said he was signing her up for soccer. Ceara had nary a clue what soccer might be, but ’twas pleased she felt to see her husband’s eyes glow with joy and pride.
Morning sickness hadn’t been one of Ceara’s favorite things, but she enjoyed all other aspects of pregnancy except one: Quincy’s insistence that she never, absolutely
never
, use her gifts. ’Twas difficult to obey her husband’s order, but Ceara tried, learning to light candles and evening fires with the long-stemmed starter, and never allowing herself to flap her hand to change the weather. ’Twas fer the good of the babe, she reminded herself. Quincy said that if using her gifts was a physical drain on her, it might also be taxing on their baby’s tiny body. Ceara would do
nothing
to endanger her babe, and after growing so weak from stopping and restarting the snowstorm the day of their horseback ride, she knew her husband was right. Ceara had been with child even then, and surely her daughter must have felt the awful weakness that Ceara had experienced.
* * *
Watching his wife’s belly swell. Seeing her start to develop that glow so common to pregnant women. When Ceara was in the early days of her sixth month, Quincy got on his cell, organized a hen party for the ladies at his house, and then called to arms his father and all his brothers for a good, old-fashioned guy get-together with a pony keg of fine draft in Clint’s arena, the keg ready to tap when anybody got the urge.
Frank, who wasn’t a beer man, stuck to his usual J and Cs. Sipping from a big red plastic cup, he studied Quincy over the rim. “I know you’re pregnant, but what the hell are we celebratin’ tonight? Exactly, I mean. A set of twins they didn’t see in the first ultrasound, or the end of mornin’ barf detail?”
Quincy, on only his first beer, took a long swig. Clint had brought in white plastic lawn chairs and set them in a circle on the arena sand. Occasionally a horse whickered or snorted, which was the perfect live music for any Harrigan man. It was totally a guy party, no fuss, no muss. A few bags of chips were all they needed to make it complete, and if a little dirt got into the mix, nobody gave a damn.
“No twins. I’m celebrating the
waddle
.”
“The
what
?” Parker asked.
“Just because you aren’t pregnant yet don’t mean Quincy can’t celebrate the
waddle
,” Frank said, lifting his cup in a toast. “Your mama.” He closed his eyes, clearly reminiscing, and smiled. “Yep, it was along about six months. Started bowin’ her back and plantin’ a hand just above her fanny, walkin’ like a sailor in rough seas. Never was she more beautiful than when she was carryin’ my babies.” When Frank lifted his lashes, a tear spilled over onto his weathered cheek. “God, how I adored that woman.”
Clint shifted on his chair as if fire ants had invaded his boxers. “You’ve got Dee Dee now, Dad. I mean, we all
loved
Mama, but it’s sort of like you still think of her in the present tense.”
“True love, the kind that warms the marrow of your bones, it ain’t never over,” Frank replied. He narrowed an eye at his eldest son. “You thinkin’ I’m bein’ disloyal to my sweet Dee Dee or somethin’?”
Clint switched knees to prop up a boot. He cleared his throat. “I’m not saying that, Dad. It just sort of—” He broke off and looked to his brothers for help. Nobody raised his hand. “Well, you’ve remarried now. Seems to me like you should let the dead rest and live in the present. For Dee Dee’s sake, I mean. It can’t be easy for her, knowing your heart still belongs to our mother.”
Frank chuckled. “Spoken by a young fart still wet behind his ears. Dee Dee knew when we married that I’d never stop lovin’ your mama. And I do mean never. The heart is big enough and has plenty of corners to love many people, and Dee Dee understands that. She keeps a picture of your mama—the one I always kept on my nightstand—right up on our mantel, bold as brass, along with pictures of all you kids. She’s not threatened by Emily or jealous of my love for her memory. At our age, we’ve loved and we’ve lost, but we’re smart enough to know that ain’t the end of it. Took me a lot of years to understand that. Otherwise I might’ve married Dee Dee when all of you kids was at home and still such a pain in the ass. Could’ve saved myself a lot of money, not havin’ to pay her wages all them years.”
Quincy couldn’t imagine ever loving any woman but Ceara, and he knew all his brothers felt the same way about their wives.
Zach, always the one who spoke first and thought later, said, “What’re you sayin’, Pop, that women are kind of like
dogs
? Shit, no,
really
? You love one, but when it dies, you can go out and find a replacement?” Zach squeezed the bridge of his nose and blinked. “I didn’t mean that exactly the way it came out. I mean, I know you loved Mama more than you ever would a dog, and that you love Dee Dee a whole lot more, too. I just—”
“Need to stop talkin’ before you dig yourself such a deep hole you can’t drag your ass out of it,” Frank finished for him. Then he chuckled, his way of letting Zach know he wasn’t pissed. “Women and dogs ain’t on the same plane.”
Parker, already three beers in, interjected. “I don’t know about that. Not all of them, for sure. My Rainie is a rare gem, but before I met her, I kissed plenty of dogs. Didn’t have a real dog back then—the canine version, I mean—but if I had, I would have liked it a lot better than some of the gals I dated. Mojo is a great bed companion. Only off to the side or at the foot, because I’ve got my Rainie, but in a pinch, he’d be a fine cuddler on a cold winter night. Before Rainie, I’d gone out with the lady I still think of as Claws.” Parker crooked one hand in the air. “I mean, acrylic nails so long and sharp, she could have gutted a steer.”
Clint got a swallow of ale down the wrong pipe. When he caught his breath, he said, “I hear you. Right before I met Loni I went out with the Giggler.”
“The
what
?” Quincy asked.
“The Giggler.” Clint grinned. “She sounded like a sheep baaing. Drove me clear over the edge. Nice enough lady, I guess, but I never could get past that laugh of hers.”
Zach chimed in. “That’s better than the Silent Farter.”
It was Quincy’s turn to choke on his beer. “You’re kidding.”
“Nope,” Zach said, waving a hand in the air. “She let out blue smoke that made my eyes tear up; I kid you not.”
“I dated a gal once,” Tucker inserted, “who blew bubbles in her cheek as I laid one on her.” He shook his head and shuddered. “I don’t know how she accomplished it, but hearing the pop when I kissed her was a major turnoff for me.”
Quincy didn’t know how his waddle celebration had ended up as a walk down memory lane for everybody. “Hey, guys, this is
my
party. I bought the pony keg.”
Clint laughed. “I can make a few toasts to the waddle, Quincy. Loni was at her most beautiful during the last few months of pregnancy. Carrying my baby, her tummy so swollen she couldn’t find a comfortable position to sit, and she got leg and belly cramps at night. I used to massage her all over with olive oil. Best damned preventative for stretch marks you’ll ever come across. Dee Dee told me to do it.”
Parker held up a hand. “More than I want to know, bro. What happens behind our bedroom doors stays behind our bedroom doors, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Oh, yeah?” Zach never learned and stuck his foot in his mouth again by saying, “So how come I know all about how much you like Mr. Purple?”
* * *
The following evening, Quincy took Ceara to the Saturday vigil Mass in Latin, which had become his wife’s weekend preference for worship. She claimed that hearing the liturgy in Latin made her feel more at home, because it was similar to the Mass she’d grown up attending in Ireland. Over the last month, they’d also started to go to some of the weekday morning celebrations, which Father Mike also offered in Latin especially for his more elderly parishioners, who sorely missed the Masses of their childhood.
Ceara, who loved hearing Father Mike’s Irish brogue, sat through the homilies with a beatific smile on her glowing face, asked to stay after simply to sit in the presence of the Eucharist, and told Quincy every time they drove back to the ranch that the old-fashioned Masses made her feel close to home and the
old
ways.
“’Tis still the same Christ, ne’er mind the language,” she’d say, “but the Latin—ah, Quincy, hearing the Latin touches me heart.” Then she always dimpled both cheeks at him, a sure sign to Quincy that she was happy beyond words. “In me time, every Mass anywhere in the world was said in Latin. ’Tis a
dead
language, ye ken, so it ne’er changes. At home, ye can travel to a foreign land, attend Mass, and except for the homily, ye can follow along without confusion.”
Quincy’s father was an old-school Catholic who often lamented the changes in the Mass that had come about after Vatican II. Frank claimed the Church had made a huge mistake in allowing the liturgy to be said in country-specific languages, because now world travelers could no longer follow along if they didn’t speak the local tongue. Quincy could understand Frank’s point, but having been raised hearing the Mass in English, he wasn’t sure he wanted to revert back.
“ ’Tis good fer the babe, do ye na think, to sit all quiet in the church with Mum and Da, so peaceful and close to Jesus?” Ceara said.
Quincy never even tried to argue the point. He felt certain that whatever made Ceara feel at peace would also have a calming effect on their baby. Attending weekday Masses cut into his stable hours, but he had Pauline to oversee things in his absence, and both Pierce and Bingo were bucking to be the future foreman, so they weren’t slackers, either. With such dedicated, horse-smart people in charge, Quincy could afford to take extra time off to make his wife happy.
Before driving home that particular Saturday night, Quincy pushed the movable console back so Ceara could sit beside him with a seat belt stretched almost to the max across her swollen belly. She spoke softly of the Mass with her cheek pressed to his shoulder. “’Tis good worshiping on Saturdays, ye ken. But sometimes I’d still like to go on Sundays.”
Quincy was surprised to hear that. “Really? I thought you preferred the Latin liturgy.”
“I do,” she replied. “But when it is Sunday here, it is also Sunday in Ireland, and it makes me feel close to me loved ones when I know I’m receiving the Eucharist on the same day that they are.” She turned her head slightly to smile up at him. “’Tis lovely knowing that, ye ken?”
The yearning Quincy heard in Ceara’s voice made his heart hurt for her. He would have moved heaven and earth to make her happy, but closing the gap between her century and his was impossible. “Tomorrow let’s go shopping for a crib, top-of-the-line, the finest made.”
She nuzzled his sleeve. “’Twill be a long while afore our babe is big enough fer a crib, Quincy.”
“Point taken, but won’t it be fun to shop for one? Picturing her in it?” He searched for something to say about cribs that would make her stop missing her family. “Dad loves to tell about the time he went up to check on me during my nap—hell, how old was I?—almost two, I guess, because I was in a crib by then. His mum and da were visiting . . .” Quincy paused, realizing that he was starting to echo Ceara’s speech patterns in many ways, but after he considered for a moment, he decided he also parroted his dad occasionally, using incorrect English simply because he’d grown up hearing it. Maybe it was good for Ceara to hear bits and snatches of her time, little echoes of how her family spoke. “They were Irish, ye ken. Me grandmother, she had a brogue as thick and lovely as yours. And Dad was hoping to cart me downstairs to show me off.” Quincy smiled at the memory—well, not
really
a memory, but over the years it had come to seem like one, because he’d been told the story so many times. “Anyhow, us boys all shared the same room way back then. It was before Dad built a bigger house. Mama kept harmless things in my crib for me to play with, but apparently I was far more interested in Clint’s finger paint. Da found me having a fine old time with a Tupperware bowl and a plastic baby spoon, stirring up a delightful concoction of paint and
eating
it.”