Page 44 of His Human Rebel
“He’s perfect,” Rake agrees.
We name him Gavin Flagstone.
I spent a whole twenty-four hours underneath that surgery shield for wound closure and rest.
The baby stayed in an incubator. He was perfectly fine, but Gavin did have what they called pneumonia, because of a tiny bit of embryonic fluid in his lungs.
When I woke up the next day, I understood why that time under the surgery shield was so important. The surgery wounds were completely healed. And now it's a week later, and I'm walking around almost feeling like myself again.
The rains were still awful and we had to be careful when we returned to the house, but we were able to pack up the cats in the cage and our bags and the baby, and make it back unscathed.
And now we are back home, in the same bed and rooms as before but this time with a new baby. The nursery is next door. Completely set up. Lucy and Mica helped me with that, which is wonderful. Gryce double-checked that I was stocked with every imaginable baby supply before we were in lock down.
Rake watches in amazement as I breastfeed. Gavin has blue eyes and the beginning of what I think is going to be blond hair. I've been learning how to pump extra breastmilk and save it so Rake can feed the baby too. And because it's the two of us both here and I’ve learned that my new husband wants to be fully part of the raising of this baby. He changes diapers. He holds the baby and feeds the baby. He still cares for the cats. He’s…a full partner.
It's wonderful having Rake here with my every minute of every day when we first take the baby home. I’ve been lucky that I’ve healed up so quickly, but learning how to breastfeed is hard and getting used to the baby’s sleep rhythms is hard too. It’s good to not be doing this alone and it’s time for the both of us to bond with our new baby.
I look at him while he’s holding Gavin with such care, thinking how much I love this man. I want to say the words out loud but for some reason they are still stuck inside.
Yes, I married him and therefore I’m tied to him for life, but I find myself still holding back. We haven’t had actual sex yet with penetration. And I haven’t said I love him.
There are so many variables I’m still uncertain about.
I’m just a very deliberative person when it comes to relationships.
My mom married my dad after a whirlwind courtship only to discover that he was a narcissist and was cheating on her for most of their five-year marriage. And I have no relationship with my father, as if he’d never had a daughter. It’s so strange to me. My mother has said that she didn’t see any of that coming, and that she fully thought my dad loved the both of us and that he’d be a good father and husband. But it didn’t turn out that way long term.
I believe Rake is a good father and his family will be kind to Gavin, but what if I’m wrong?
And then Rake does something cute, like insisting on changing Gavin’s diaper, or wanting the baby to nap with him in his arms…and my worries temporarily melt away.
“Okay,” I tell him. “I'm recording this. This is live for your mom. Are you ready?”
He rolls his eyes. “Yes.”
And I turn on the screen and hit record because everyone wants to see the new baby, but no one can come and visit yet because of lockdown.
My mother wants to come too, but she has to wait until the season ends.
Coco and Boots are being cute, running around the room and getting into the recording too.
I put down the screen and we go downstairs. We eat food from the food dispenser. And then we go back upstairs to watch lots of shows. “You're right, I tell him, this is like a long vacation.”
“Exactly. It's only time pure I get time off because we have all the animals sheltered elsewhere. I can't even get to them. We stock up everything that they need. Everything is on shutdown. Everyone is on lockdown. We can't go anywhere to visit anyone. I can't work.”
“You can't Yeah.”
“And so instead we rest.”
“Does everybody stay at home?”
“All Hyrrokin have the legal right to choose who they're going to be in lockdown with meaning you can't be forced into a lockdown. That's illegal, because that's like prison. So that was established long ago, in ancient times. You have chosen to be here during lockdown with me and I have chosen to be with you. It would be illegal for me to force you to stay here on lockdown with me.”
“Ah, I get it.”
“I usually stay with family. And, yeah, I used to stay at the main house, and now I stay here. That's it. But it has become popular to do lockdown in vacation destinations. There are places that pop up that exist just for people to luxuriously ride out the rainy season. There are ultra rich people who hate the rainy season and instead will book an intergalactic cruise of the Nebula on a luxury spaceship which lasts a month and be completely off planet during rainy season. The Fire Lord spends his rainy season in his mansion. The Queen locks down in her own royal estate. There are even public shelters. No one is left out. Erid’s job as Sheriff is to make sure of that to the best of his abilities, everyone has a place, so that when the rains first start, hopefully there is no one left with nowhere to go, so then we can all just go into lockdown and ride it in comfort and safety. That's the goal.”
I rest on the bed next to him, listening to the rains, with our sleeping baby between us, perfectly content and soon, my eyes close too.