After Forever Ends (58 page)

I was hot and cranky and not at all in the mood to have a baby.

Oliver shook himself to full consciousness. “I was dreaming about the dog,” He said absently, “He was driving a car in the Grand Prix.”

I was hot and cranky and not at all in the mood for him to make me laugh, either, but I couldn’t help it at that one, “Come on let’s get going then! Get up!”

Ana arrived ten minutes later as if it were noon, hair done and dressed to the nines. “You go on now and have your baby!” She said like she was sending us off for a private supper, “I’ll pop by in the morning to check on you!”

I knew it wouldn’t be long by the time we made it to the hospital, “Take me straight to delivery,” I told the nurse as soon as they put me in a bed, “This is my third child and I’m not playing about this!”

“Let me check your…”

“Now, you listen to me, Miss!” I reached out to grab her by the jacket, but I stopped myself, “I’m telling you, you can check whatever you like, but if I miss my epidural because you want to argue, I’ll do you for it!”

“All right,” She slipped on a glove, “Lie back, please. Well,” She yanked off the glove, “You’re right! It’s off to delivery for you!”

“I want my epidural.”

“That should not be a problem.” She unlocked the bed and gave it a shove.

Oliver was grinning as we hurried down the hall. I tried to glare at him, but it was impossible, “A baby, Sil!” He was dancing around like a kid, “Want to bet a quid it’s another boy?”

“You’re on,” I smiled quickly and looked away as another contraction washed over me.

I remember what I was thinking more during that delivery than the other two. I was thinking about my poor sister believing that she killed our mother and practically killing herself out of guilt during the birth of her own babies. I was thinking about Carolena and Natalie and Antonia and Elizabeth and how they’d all be doing this one day. I was thinking about the Lord and the Lady and wondering how many boon they’d had over the years. And I was thinking how odd it was that I somehow knew without question that this was the last baby Oliver and I would ever have and how that was perfectly fine with me. I had this feeling that this little baby was going to make our family complete. I remembered the Lady’s words when she asked the wind to make me sleep, “By the power of three!” Three was a magical number and I knew in my heart that our number of babies was up.

“Oliver, I love you,” I gave a great push.

“I love you, too, Sil.”

“This is it,” I grunted, “Muffin Magic, Sweetheart!”

“You’re the best!” He swore.

I put my chin to my chest and pushed with all I had. A few seconds later, a baby cried.

“You owe me a quid!” Oliver jumped up and down in place, “I can see! It’s a boy!”

“A boy!” I lie back and smiled. It was the best bet I ever lost. “A wee little muffin man!” The doctor laid him in my arms. “My goodness, he has the biggest cheeks I’ve ever seen!”

“He’s a chipmunk!” Oliver grinned, “We’ve had a monkey, a James Bond clone and now a chipmunk! We’re so bloody lucky!”

“Oh, he’s very handsome! Look at him!”

“His tongue’s all stuck out!”

“He’s still lovely.”

“Aye, he is.”

Not as many people gathered around us that time. Sandra sent another bear and a note saying that she’d reschedule our get together for the following year. Lance phoned in his congrats and gave us the details on his upcoming wedding. He said he’d be by in a day or two to check on us. Penny sent flowers and best wishes. Merlyn was in Sweden on business, but he promised to call later that evening.

Ana and Edmond came to see us while Alexander and Lucy looked after the children. There were just too many and the twin girls were too small at that point to bring them in. When they left, Alex and Lucy came out and stayed for an hour or so. I was too tired to be very talkative. Lucy asked if she could come to the cabin with Nattie, Annie and Bess during the days while Alexander was at work and Nigel went off to school.

“You’re calling them Annie and Bess? How precious!”

“They are,” My sister’s eyes filled. “I’m so glad they’re healthy. Annie gave us such a scare when she was first born.”

“Don’t be silly about asking if they can come out!” I told her, “I’d like it more if we built on a few more rooms and you all moved back in, but I know you need your family to yourself. Just remember how much I love you all, Sissy. Please know that there will never be a moment that you cannot come to me for anything.”

“Same here, Silvia. I hope I can be half the mother that you are.”

“Trust yourself, Lucy. Have faith and you’ll be just fine.”

“I love you so much!” My sister hugged me, “Thank you for what you did for me when I was having my babies. I don’t know what happened. Something snapped inside me. I was so frightened I just completely lost my head. I don’t remember a lot of it, but I must have been a nightmare.”

“Don’t be sorry about it!” I waved my hand at her, “That crap hurts!”

Alexander sat in a corner with the baby propped in his hands, speaking quietly to him in Welsh about things I couldn’t hear. Oliver was beside him, adding to the conversation here and there. They were both grinning and sniggering like outlaws.

“You better watch what you’re telling that sweet little boy,” Lucy warned, “Both of you! Send him off in the wrong direction and his mother will have your heads on a plate!”

“Lucy!” Alexander protested, “I’m hurt!”

“Yeah!” Oliver added, looking stricken, “Me, too!”

“We were telling him about helping ladies across the road!”

“And holding doors open for old people!”

“Oh, stop your lies!”

“She doesn’t believe us, Oliver!”

“No, Alex, I’m afraid she doesn’t trust us at all!”

I sat there and giggled at the three of them.

The truth was that I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life and I was relieved when they decided it was time to go. Oliver went down to the cafeteria to grab a bite while I took a long, hot shower. When I came back to my room, Ollie was sitting in a chair. “They took the baby down to the nursery,” He told me, standing to help me into the bed, “They had to do a couple of tests, nothing to worry about.”

“Come lay with me,” I pushed to the side, “Hold me. I need to be close to you.”

“Of course, Silvia,” He kicked off his shoes, “My pleasure.”

We lay together for a long time in silence. After an hour or so, the nurse brought our new son, “I suppose you want this little guy?” She was an American girl with large teeth and a wonderful smile, “He’s a cutie patootie!”

“Yes, please,” I reached for him and received him into my arms, “Thank you so much.”

“If you need anything, just buzz!” She told us, “Congratulations, Doctor Dickinson! He really is beautiful.”

“Thank you, Jeanne,” Oliver smiled down at our son, “I think so, too.”

She gave me a wink and hurried out of the room.

“Oliver,” I whispered, “It’s time to do our thing.”

Oliver took our son from me and laid him between us. We sat for a long time and said nothing. We just admired that beautiful little boy.

“He has no name,” I said finally.

“I know. We hadn’t decided on what to call a boy.”

“He doesn’t look like a Simon, does he?”

“No, he does not. I know a Simon anyway and he’s a dick.”

“We could give him a mighty, manly name. Like Spike.”

Oliver laughed. Our little unnamed son squirmed a bit, but decided that sleep was more important than complaining. “No, Spike is a bit Spartan in my book.”

“You think so, Sweetie? I mean, Spike Dickinson would command some respect at school. ‘Oh, look out, Mates! Here comes Spike Dickinson …oooooh, he’s very rough!’”

“Yes, yes, it’s a very intimidating thing to be called Spike, but I am thinking something a bit more subtle as not to frighten the other children,” Oliver stared at his son for a long moment, “I am thinking that I’d like to name him after by grandpaddy if you have no objection.”

“You never told me his name. Everyone calls him W.D.”

“It was Warren.”

“Now that’s a lovely name, isn’t it?” I looked at the baby, “Warren.”

“It’s all right then?”

“It’s better than that! I think it’s a brilliant name! He’ll have loads of friends with a name like Warren. ‘Look, Mates, here comes Warren Dickinson!’ No one will fear him and no one will make fun of him either, not like if we’d called him a sissy name like Patsy Dickinson.”

Oliver laughed and kissed me on the head. We were quiet again for a time. He was thoughtful when he spoke again, “It’s not all up to us this time. Have you thought about that?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not on our own anymore. It’s not just us. This one’s got a brother and a sister older than him. And cousins, too. And he’s got his Auntie and his Uncle and his grandparents. It’s not just up to you and me to teach him.”

“But we will.”

“We will. We’ll teach him all we know.”

“There are things about the wood only you can show him. There are secrets there that only you know.”

“Well, you, too, Love! You’ll show him your tree and how to be friends with it.”

“I will. And you can teach him to skip rocks on the pond.”

“And what the difference is between a lake and a pond, too,” He told me and I giggled. “Cause you can’t teach him that since you don’t know.”

“We’ll teach him how to have fun. Oh, Warren, you have no idea how much fun we have and now we have you to chase, too!”

“He has no idea how happy he’s going to be.”

“He has no idea how much we love him.”

“But one day he’ll know.”

“Because we’ll show him.”

“Each and every day, Warren,” Oliver’s hand looked positively huge as he caressed the baby’s head, “We’ll show you how much we love you.”

“And we’ll love you always and forever…”

“To bits…”

“And that’s our promise, Little Muffin Man. That’s our very first and most unbreakable promise to you.”

“It is…”

I wanted to stay up and look at our new son for a while longer, but I was so tired my eyes were closing on their own.

“Sil,” Oliver whispered, “Stop fighting sleep.. We’ll both be here when you wake up.”

“Thank you, Oliver,” I nuzzled my head under his chin.

“No, thank you, Sweetheart.” He kissed my hair.

I closed my eyes and I fell asleep thinking about what a lonely child I had been growing up with a father who didn’t have enough love to pay me attention and then sent me off to boarding school where only my physical needs were met. None of my children would ever know that kind of life. They’d never know it because one happy day I ended up at a place called Bennington and a handsome, good natured, rebellious young man had hit me in the head with a rubber ball. He’d made all my dreams come true, that Oliver Dickinson had. Now I had him and his parents and his brother and my sister and seven fantastic children who had filled every inch of my life and every corner of my heart. My life was worth living because of all of them.

My last thought before I fell asleep was that it was Oliver who had made it all possible.

With the addition of our Warren, or “Little Renny” as he was soon to be called, since neither Gryffin nor Natalie could say his name, it seemed that our family was complete. Oliver and I brought him home as naturally as if he’d always been part of us and set about doing what we did each day with his welcome addition. In a way that the other children hadn’t seemed, Warren wasn’t new to us. We were experienced by then. We knew his sounds, we could discern the motions he made with his head and his little hands. Warren was a communicator, too, a noise maker from the moment go. He’d sit in his chair and smile, clicking his tongue and cooing. Or he’d bang his toys on plastic bowls like it was the greatest thing on Earth. Warren was a pretty baby, too. Long limbed and strong at birth, he had gorgeous brown eyes, but they weren’t like his dad’s. They were large and round, a polished topaz colour with odd flecks of green and gold. They were the kind of eyes that caught you when you least expected them to and kept you there, waiting, staring into them. Like his brother and sister before him, he was a happy little chap, except unlike either of them, he wasn’t the independent sort. Warren needed to be close, he needed touch. He was so glued to anybody who seemed to want to hold on to him that it was difficult to get anything done when I didn‘t have a willing volunteer available to relieve me of him. It was only a few weeks after he was born that Oliver bought me a sling contraption to wrap him in and I spent most of our first six months together with Ren strapped to my belly as I went about my business in the wood. I thought that Gryffin might be jealous about this, but if he was he never expressed it. His only concern was that his little brother wasn’t big enough to play with yet and that he wanted to know when he would be.

“He’s very boring, Mummy,” Gryff told me one day peering at his brother in the pram as we were strolling down the sidewalk in Newtown. “He can’t walk and he can’t talk. He’s not good for much.”

I didn’t stifle my laugh, “He’s just a wee bairn, Gryff! He’ll be on his feet in no time!”

“That’s your best friend there in that pram!” Oliver told him, “Honestly, he’s the one who’s going to have your back for the rest of your life!”

“Like you and Uncle Xan?”

“Just like me and Uncle Xan,” Ollie rubbed his son’s head, “When the chips are down, I’ll tell you, your brother’s the only one who’ll be there for you!”

“What about Carolena?” Gryff asked quite seriously.

“Oh, her, too,” I assured him, “Count on that as well.”

We raised them like that. Not just our three, but the seven of them. We raised them all with the belief that in the end it was only the seven of them and that they had a duty to take care of each other. There really was no differentiation between who was brother and sister and who was cousin. All of them were Dickinson’s. All of us were Dickinson’s. We were, in a very real sense, an army.

“Dickinson’s take care of Dickinson’s,” Alexander used to say, “Family is a holy obligation.”