“Mike is holding her, and she’s still crying as though she never intends to stop.” Pouring herself another cup of coffee, Blair sat down with Kane to continue their silent vigil.
When they first heard Samantha’s voice raised in anger, both Blair and Kane jumped and looked at each other. Samantha’s voice became louder, then they heard her start to curse, curse so creatively that Kane raised his eyebrows in admiration.
When the first dish smashed overhead, Blair got up, as though to go upstairs and put a stop to this nonsense, but Kane put his hand over hers and halted her.
The shouting, the cursing, the sound of dishes crashing and shattering, and what had to be furniture being tossed about went on for over an hour. During that time they heard the words father, Richard, sex was mentioned often, Doc, and Half Hand.
Just when Blair was beginning to think that Samantha was never going to stop, there was a sudden silence, and she and Kane looked upward, wondering what was happening now.
After a while Mike came down the stairs, and Blair had never seen him look so awful, but there was happiness behind the black circles underneath his eyes. “She’s going to be all right now,” he said, taking the stool vacated by his brother, who had his hand on Mike’s shoulder. “She’s sleeping.”
Seeing the skepticism on Blair’s face, Mike took her hand and squeezed it. “Really, she’s okay. Pour me a brandy and a big glass of milk for Sam, will you? I’m going to wake her up and tell her something.”
At those words, he exchanged looks with his twin, neither of them needing words to know what Mike was going to tell Sam.
With the brandy and the milk on a tray, Mike went upstairs to Sam where she lay exhausted on her bed. The living room was a mess, and in the rest of the apartment she’d broken a great many things that had been chosen for her father, for at last she had been able to scream her rage at him for deserting her after her mother died and for practically forcing her to marry a man like her ex-husband.
Setting the tray on the bedside table, Mike woke her, took her in his arms, and told her that people die and people are born and that’s what life is all about.
“Mike,” Samantha said tiredly, “what are you talking about?”
“Babies,” he said. “New life replacing the old.” When she still looked puzzled, he placed his hands on her stomach. “You’re carrying a new life, a life that will replace Maxie and your mother and your father and your granddad Cal.”
Samantha was so tired that she could hardly understand him, but when she did, she put her hands over his on her stomach. “Do you think so?” she said, trying to sound calm.
“I’m sure of it.” He wasn’t fooled by her apparent tranquility, for her heart was pounding against his arm. “In my family I’ve had enough experience with morning sickness that I know when a woman’s going to have a baby. I’ve held the heads of my pregnant sisters, cousins, aunts, even my mother when she was carrying Jilly. Samantha, my love, you’ve been having morning sickness for nearly a week now.”
She w
as stroking her stomach and Mike’s hand. “Do you think I might have twins?”
Mike kissed her ear. “Kane gave his wife twins on the first try and I wouldn’t want him to beat me, so I guess it has to be two of them, so drink your milk and make my kids healthy,” he said, handing the glass to her.
“Michael, I lo—”
He put his fingertips over her lips. “I know.” He didn’t want to hear the words, words that were in every book, on TV, everywhere you looked until the words had become common—and meaningless.
“By the way,” he said brightly, “are you planning to make my kids bastards?”
Smiling, she closed her eyes for a moment. “Mike, may I have a big wedding, a really very big, huge wedding?”
Mike was glad her eyes were closed so she couldn’t see his grimace. “One of those weddings where they pray a lot and talk about ‘uniting the love of these two fine young people’?”
Samantha opened her eyes, and the expression on her face matched his. “Heavens no! I want a cajun band and crawfish étouffé and enchiladas and lots of tequila and dancing that goes on for three days. I want lots of laughter and…and lots of children born nine months later.”
Mike was looking down at her with shining eyes. “I knew the first moment I met you that I loved you, I just had no idea how much.”
“Mike,” she said as she licked away a milk mustache, “how long can we continue to, you know, before it hurts the babies?”
“In the delivery room,” he said seriously as he ran his hand up her leg.
“Is that true?” Samantha asked, playing the ingenue.
He stretched out beside her. “Trust me, I know about these things.”
“Wouldn’t that, er, inconvenience the doctor?”
He was moving on top of her, running his hand down her side. “Naw, the doctor will be a relative, and they understand about my family.”