Christopher Ransom: The Birthing House

Conrad wound his way through the back hall, making the S-turn through the library, into the front hallway. The creaking floorboards were a new sound, allowing him to birth one final clear thought for the day.

This is a healing place. This is home.

Conrad waded into the moonlight pooling on the new queen-sized bed - another purchase, this one more deserved - he'd made without her input. The ceiling fan was whirring, the dogs were curled into their crates on the floor, and Jo was waiting for him on top of the new sheets. She was without a top, wearing only loose fitting boxers (his), which were somehow better than if she were naked. That she had gone halfway without prematurely forfeiting the under garment was a gesture that made him feel understood. The arc of her hips rose off the bed like the fender of a Jaguar and his blood awakened.

With his blood, his hopes.

No longer content, Conrad stretched out, not caring what funny tent shape his penis made as it unfolded like a miniature welcome banner. He rolled to one side, facing her. She smelled of earth and lavender and something otherwise herbal - new scents for her in this new place. Her belly was nearly flat except for the smallest of rolls just above the waistband, and he loved this, too. He called it her little chile relleno and she would slap him, but it didn't bother her, not really. Her hips were womanly wide, but with her height she remained sleek, especially when prone, like now. She stood a little over six feet to his five-nine. His fingers grazed her fine brown navel hairs. Her eyes gleamed under heavy lids, glassy and black as mountain ponds at midnight.

It was a beginning, and he was a man who loved beginnings more than middles or endings.

'Come,' Jo said. Or maybe Con , half of his name.

'Hm?'

'. . . not ready.'

'Not what?' His hand found the elastic rim of her waistband, then moved into the open front of his boxer shorts on her.

'. . . about behbee,' she murmured.

'What, Baby?'

Not baby. Upper case, Baby. A nickname he used.

'. . . owin me the behbee . . . be-ah-eye,' she mumbled, which sounded like was going to be all right.

'Of course,' he said, like it was his idea too. He had no idea.

'. . . bee woul' go a father.'

We should go farther.

He pushed one, then two fingers lower to her mound, but her legs were crossed and he swerved off course, touching only her thigh. Just her thigh, but soft was soft and his excitement ratcheted up another notch.

'- not ready,' she squeaked, rolling away.

Shit. Might not have been sleeping before, but was now. Snoring, too. Weird, he thought. Had she done this before? With the eyes open and the talking?

Should he let her sleep or try one more time?

Yes . . . no. He kissed her goodnight and rolled on his back, allowing the fan to push warm summer air over his fading, obedient hard-on. His mind dropped into that lower gear, the one that is not yet sleep but somehow dreaming already.

In the half-dream he was in the house, beside her, finding the wetness and sliding in not for the first time but as if they had been moving this way for minutes or an hour. He was all corded muscle and arched away, feeling her soak him in her own undulations. The movement was soothing, almost non-sexual, like being rocked in a crib.

Her grip on him strengthened and clenched, pushing back with legs and ass, drawing his ejaculate out in a sudden burst that ended too quickly, leaving him weak and sleepy all over again.

Drifting . . .

Until the dream, the same one or some new post-coital version, was split by the sound of crying. His body twitched itself awake, and he knew these were not Jo's tears. This was the noise a newborn makes after sucking in its first violent breath as it enters this violent world. It was a sound that had skipped mewling and launched straight into wailing, and it was coming from behind a wall or far away.

Faintly, under the baby's hacking shriek, there arose another sound. This one did sound like a woman, and he imagined the infant's mother, or the midwife, perhaps. This older cry in the dark was a trailing scream, as if something was pulling her away from her child and down a long corridor that narrowed to nothing.

Panicked, he rolled over to shake Jo - why hasn't she woken up and grabbed me? - and felt the cool stirring of air as she lifted off the bed. He could see only blackness, and with the drone of the fan he could not hear her feet padding on the wood floor. A flash of her silhouette in the doorway left a retinal echo, but the room was too dark to grasp any details. If he saw her at all, she was gone now.

To the bathroom, he thought. There she goes, carrying my seed. The semi-sleep-molestation and abrupt ending made him wince with guilt, but he did not seek her out in the ensuing silence. Exhausted from the day of unpacking (and tossed dream sex), Conrad decided the crying was but a fragment of the dream, a lingering audible planted by her words.

'. . . the behbee, the behbee . . .'

The crying returned once, quieter and farther away, until like a passing thunderstorm it faded to nothing.

He hovered on the edge of sleep.

Something's wrong .

He sat up and rubbed his eyes. She had not returned.

'Jo?'

She did not answer.

'Jo,' he said, louder. 'Baby, you okay?'

His eyes adjusted to the dark. The dogs were standing at the master bedroom door facing the hall, whining, tails stiff like the hairs on their shoulders. Conrad flattened his body and counted to ten. It's rational, he told himself. When something so unexplainable and real (the dogs made it real) as a crying baby in your childless home wakes you, it is normal to ignore it and go back to sleep. So back he went, as deep as a man can go, until he forgot all about the crying sounds and her cold departure, her absolute absence. He did not think again about the sleep-slouched shape he'd glimpsed through the window, fading into the house.

Even when, in the morning, waking to a half-empty bed, he padded downstairs and found her where he'd left her before he stepped out for a smoke at dusk, sleeping on the sofa.

Alone.

5

Well, not really alone. The dogs looked up at him but did not abandon their mistress. Jo was curled around a body pillow, arms above her head, eyes open but unmoving.

'Morning, kids,' he said. 'Morning, Mommy.'

Jo blinked and her mantis arms folded down. 'Coffee?'

After waiting for the pot to fill, Conrad brought her a cup the way she liked it - strong, with milk and a heap of non-dairy creamer. Had to have it both ways, did his wife.

She sat up and accepted the mug, leering at him over the steaming brew. 'Are you mad at me?'

'Why would I be?' He was thinking he should have made iced tea.

'I fell asleep on the couch.'

Conrad shrugged. 'Waiting makes it better, right?'

'We've been waiting a long time. You must be going out of your mind.'

'Yeah, it's funny. I think the move sort of tapped me out. All this work. It's good for us. I feel good.'

Jo sipped her coffee, unable or unwilling to pursue the topic of what was good for them now. He guessed she was going to do the safe thing and wait for him to bring it up, and that was fine. He could postpone that forever.

'So.' He heard a wet lapping sound and looked at the dogs. Luther was licking the small flap of skin where his balls used to be. 'What's on deck today?'

'I thought I'd do the unthinkable and go to Wal-Mart. We need trashcans, sponges. House stuff.'

'I have a little project going in the garage. Mind if I stay here?'

'Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting we have a garage.'

'The doors don't work. It's a mess.'

'Are you turning over a new leaf, becoming a handyman?'