I think I've mentioned before about how characters can take a well-planned story idea and drag it into unexpected directions. I originally intended this to be entirely from Anna's perspective, but other characters kept nosing their way in until I really had no choice but to make adjustments for them. I still like the way it came out, though be warned: the ending is incredibly fluffy, sappy sweetness. If it weren't for that, I'd call this a S6 prediction/hope.
The story itself is in response to one of Terrijane's challenges, in which she asked for birthday stories, and since someone shared a picture on Tumblr of what Terrie would like for her birthday, I opened my story with that. Happy Belated Birthday, Terrie!
FIRST BIRTHDAY
"Good morning, Mrs. Bates." His whisper brushed over her ear like velvet against burlap, soft, but with that raspy growl she relished as being for her ears alone. She kept her eyes closed as he spooned himself around her, his right hand splaying out over her impossibly huge belly. At just over eight months pregnant, Anna was uncertain just how far she wanted her husband to continue with his early morning caress, but she was more than happy to settle back into his embrace and appreciate his warmth and security.
"Still sleeping?" he murmured, his hand drifting lower. "I guess I'll have to try harder." His palm ghosted across the underside of her belly. Anna had a brief flash of how that large hand would soon cradle their child. As his fingers caressed her more intimately, she soon abandoned all thoughts of children, except for how they came to be in the first place. She squirmed and stretched slightly into his sure touch, but kept her eyes closed and her face impassive.
"Mrs. Bates," he muttered, frustration a clear undertone, "this simply won't do." His hand quickly retreated up and settled on her hip where he began to graze a particularly ticklish spot. She held her resolve until his lips began to nibble just under her earlobe, another extremely sensitive location.
"I'm awake," she said with a hearty chuckle as he continued the onslaught. "I'm awake!" she squealed even louder as his other hand slipped underneath her and attacked her ribs as well. "Stop, please stop," she wheezed, breathless with laughter. She twisted into his chest and then away, wrapping the covers around her body as she rolled to the edge of the bed.
"And morning it is!" John said, rolling off the mattress. She watched him lumber to his feet, favoring his right knee as always. As his eyes met hers she basked in the smile that erupted across his face as sure as the dawn itself. His gaze shifted to the table beside the bed that held a small clock and his smile descended into a cheeky smirk she loved just as much.
"Is that truly the time?" he asked. "You are far too good for me, Mrs. Bates, keeping me in bed so late in the day." He turned, clutching his dressing gown that had been draped across the end of the bed. "At this rate, His Lordship will be up and about before I even set foot out the door."
Anna slipped out of the blankets and wrestled into her own robe as John made his way to the wash room across the narrow hallway. She followed him, enjoying her new found entertainment of watching him prepare himself for the day. She rested herself heavily against the rim of the bath tub as he splashed water on his face and neck.
"What are your plans for today?" he asked, spreading lather across his cheeks.
"Well . . ." Anna was taken aback. Surely he couldn't have forgotten. But then, they had been so busy lately, getting ready for the baby, selling the London house, adjusting to him going to work alone in the mornings for the last few weeks, perhaps he hadn't realized the day. "I don't . . . I don't have any real plans," she stammered. "More like . . . expectations?"
"What do you expect then?" John scraped the stubble from his chin, looking at the ceiling as he did so. Anna wondered if perhaps he really had forgotten. He never had before. In fact, the last two years, as they had rebuilt their life following the business with Mr. Green, he had been extremely attentive. But even before that, her birthday had always been a singular holiday to celebrate between them.
"Oh, well," Anna struggled on uncertainly, "I expect that I'll come up to the house later in the morning and visit with Mrs. Hughes for a while. And this is still your half-day, isn't it?"
"Hopefully," John replied, grunting as he wiped the last of the lather from his cheeks. "Mr. Carson mentioned last night that he wanted to discuss some upcoming events. So I may be at the house for longer than I thought."
Anna followed him back into their bedroom, confused that he had failed to even mention her birthday, but nevertheless admiring the view as he dressed for the day. So many different layers to a man's clothes, she mused. Each piece fit with the next just so. Rather like putting a jigsaw puzzle together. Dressing a woman was more like draping a window or arranging flowers in a vase – the layers mattered, but there was more room for variation. Like fitting a key into a lock, she thought, just as John hooked his watch chain onto his waistcoat.
Sometime later, adrift without a set pattern, a rhythm to her day, Anna wandered aimlessly from one room to the next. She searched the drawers in the cupboard in the corner, behind the dishes stacked neatly in the kitchen, underneath the photos on the mantelpiece, before she realized she was actively looking for some acknowledgment from John. Most years on her birthday he began the day's celebration with a card "hidden" somewhere in plain sight since they had moved to the cottage, more often furtively slipped into her pocket or mixed in with the post in the years before their marriage. But there was nothing, no card, no note, no recognition of the day at all.
She made her way upstairs to the nursery. Certainly nothing so grand as to be deserving of the name, nothing like the child paradise the Crawley grandchildren enjoyed, but it was the room their baby would soon occupy. Anna ran her hand across the rails of the crib in the corner and across the top of the rocking chair they had brought from the London house. Of course, the baby would sleep in its cradle in their room for several months, but this room would be his or hers until they were ready to take the next step in their family journey. With the sale of the house complete, they were now ready to begin searching for the hotel they had dreamed of so many years ago.
Did John still nurture that dream? Anna wondered. They had mentioned it once or twice throughout the pregnancy, but both had agreed to wait to take any further steps forward once they learned that she had fallen. The safe and healthy delivery of their child had been their most important dream to make come true. But when the offer had come in on the house, it was simply too good to wait upon. Then again, perhaps his lapse in memory meant she no longer quite held John's affections the way she used to. No, she thought, recalling the way he had woken her just that morning, John still desires me. I think. And yet, he had practically run from the cottage this morning with not even a word as to when or even if he would visit throughout the day. That was not like him. Ever since she had left service several weeks previously, he had made a point of walking home to check in on her through the day or walking her home if she came to the big house to visit.
She crossed the hall to their bedroom and examined herself in the full length mirror. "You are huge, Anna Bates," she said aloud. "Do you hear me, Baby Bates?" she asked as she rubbed her hands over her protruding belly. "We are huge. Probably even too huge for your father to pick us up any more." Anna felt a tear pricking at the corner of her eye.
"This is ridiculous, Anna May Bates!" she shook her finger at her reflection. "Pregnant women get overly emotional; everyone knows that. You're blowing this all out of proportion." She ran her hands over her belly again as the baby kicked her ribs harder than ever. "Just because Daddy forgot my birthday, it does not mean that he doesn't love me anymore."
The baby kicked again and she sat back on the bed with a huff. Wincing, she ran her hand across the bottom of her rib cage, arching back to ease the constriction. "No! Not again!" she cried as her body gradually lay back, unable to sit straight, completely against her will. She huffed again, trying in vain to sit up. "Oh, for heaven's sake!" she cried, lurching her gravid body upward, only to collapse back on the bed. She loved the new life growing within her, but she absolutely hated the ungainliness she had experienced the last few weeks. She found herself looking forward to the birth for more reasons than just finally meeting her child.
She rocked her body from side to side and finally flipped into an unladylike roll to the end of the bed. Blowing out another deep whoosh of air as the baby seemed to stretch again, she staggered up. "Not too wrinkled, for all of that," she said, checking herself in the mirror again. "Shall we go see Mrs. Hughes, little man?" The baby did not respond, evidently finished with his calisthenics for the moment. "She will likely remember that it's my birthday. And maybe we'll get to see Daddy for a few minutes."
The walk to the big house took longer with each passing day. Today, Anna felt even more out of breath, no doubt due to her flopping around on the bed. She found herself pausing far more frequently than of late even. She couldn't quite seem to catch her breath. Her back ached and she had a stitch in her right side just where the baby had been kicking her.
"Only a bit further," she spoke to the baby, though why he needed encouragement she couldn't say. "Soon we'll be in Mrs. Hughes' sitting room with a nice cup of tea and a scone or two for you, little man." Breathless still, Anna wheezed out a chuckle at her nickname for the baby. Despite numerous old wives' insistences from friends and even Lady Mary that she was carrying a girl, Anna just knew the baby was a boy.
"Oh, my dearest love," John had said months before when she told him her conviction about the baby's gender, "boy or girl, purple or green, it makes no difference. He, or she, is our child, our child." He had held her tight in his embrace. "Besides," he added, pulling back to look her in the eye and give her a lopsided smirk, "I'm sure we'll have several of each before too much more time passes."
"'Several of each,'" Anna gasped as she resumed trudging toward the abbey. "That's if I survive this one."
Anna knew she must look a sight as she quietly waddled through the service courtyard. She had stumbled on a stone in the road and her hat had slid off her head. She had tried to lean down to retrieve it, but she simply could not bend at the waist anymore. And stooping was completely out of the question. At least she hadn't actually tripped and fallen; she likely would have sat on the side of the road until John or Mr. Chirk came home later in the day. The wind had come up, however, and caught wisps of her hair and swirled them in every direction possible. She had never felt quite so bedraggled in her life. Well, she had, of course, but she preferred not to think about that time, it was past, and the future, once it could be birthed, would be so much brighter. But like that time, she now hoped she did not run into John during her visit. He had, of course, seen her at her least put together first thing in the mornings, but even he had never seen her quite like this. Taking the steps one at a time, she huffed her way into the corridor.
"What happened to you?" Thomas sneered, sauntering out of the butler's pantry. "Looks like you lost a fight with a mad chicken," he observed.
"And good morning to you too, Mr. Barrow," she said tightly, still struggling to catch her breath. Her right hand fluttered from her chest to her stomach while her left was planted firmly against the small of her back.
"Oh, Anna," Mrs. Patmore exclaimed as she saw her from the kitchen, "come and sit down. You look as though you've had a fright."
"I'm sure you mean I look a fright, Mrs. Patmore," she said, a bit more jovially as she drew in a deep breath. She sidled into the kitchen, staying off to the side as maids and hall boys scurried through. Anna marveled that only a few weeks ago she had fit seamlessly into the flow of traffic here, now she felt almost an outsider.
"You look lovely as ever," Mrs. Hughes said, striding regally through the door, her keys jangling cheerfully. "But do sit down, dear. You look as though you need a rest."
"Actually, Mrs. Hughes," Anna explained, "I think I may need to lie down." She ran her hand across the top of her belly, which felt as though it were quivering like Mrs. Patmore's Charlotte Russe. "I think the baby may be coming."
"Oh, my!" Mrs. Patmore fanned her hand in front of her face. "That will be a new one for all of us, won't it?"
"What is new for all of us?" Carson asked as he entered the room. He glanced at Anna critically, but with some sympathy. "Mrs. Bates, are you quite all right?" He took a half step toward her.
"Anna is going into labor," Mrs. Hughes stated flatly.
"In our kitchen?" he exclaimed, aghast. His brows shot up and he scowled at Mrs. Hughes as though demanding an explanation appear in the air above her head.
"I'm really not sure," Anna offered. She took a step forward, placing her hand on the work counter in the center for support. Mr. Carson took a cautious step back.
Mrs. Hughes glided toward Mr. Carson's side. Anna could just barely make out the words she spoke to him in very low tones. "She's having a baby, you old booby, not a mealy-eyed monster. And we will help her however we can. So you will either help or get out of the way."
"Oh, well, carry on then," Carson intoned, turning smartly on his heel and edging closer toward the door.
"Mr. Carson," Anna called after him, heaving for breath. "Is Mr. Bates nearby? He will want to know."
"Mr. Bates is in Ripon with His Lordship," Carson informed her. He bounced slightly on his feet and his eyes darted about the kitchen, as though he expected Anna to quite literally explode any moment. "They are expected back after luncheon. Then he will leave for his half-day."
"But I thought that you . . . that he said . . ." Anna's words tried vainly to chase down her thoughts about Mr. Carson having demands on John's time this afternoon. Had John lied to her?
Mrs. Hughes tsked at Mr. Carson and took Anna's arm. "Mr. Carson," she began in an eerily calm, slow voice, "will you please call for Mrs. Worth, the midwife? I'll help Anna upstairs."
Anna clutched at Mrs. Hughes for support as her entire midsection seemed to move in a different direction than the rest of her. "And . . ." she paused for a breath, "and Dr. Clarkson, please? He said that there could be . . . complications, having a first child at my age."
Carson found his shoes fascinating. "Yes, of course, just . . . just . . .only . . ." He shook his head and waved them weakly toward the stairwell.
"Men," Mrs. Hughes shook her head. "Please send Mrs. Worth and Dr. Clarkson upstairs when they arrive," she said in Mrs. Patmore's general direction. "I'll take Anna to my room." She wrapped her arm around Anna's waist for greater support.
John Bates was a satisfied man. There was little doubt in his mind that Anna would be completely surprised by the evening he had planned for her. He would have liked to have taken her out to eat in a nice restaurant, maybe even an attempt at dancing, but he knew she wasn't quite feeling her usual self. Next year, when the baby was old enough to leave for a few hours, he would take her out on the town, he determined. But this year, a night of pampering was just what she needed. Even more so, he was certain, after he had purposely ignored even a mention of her special day this morning.
He whistled as he unlocked the front door, looking around cautiously as he set his bundles down on the table in the entryway. "Anna?" he called out. No answer, just what he needed. Most likely she had gone to visit with Mrs. Hughes and was probably midway through her third cup by now. If she took time for a catch up with Mrs. Patmore and Daisy, he should have plenty of time to get ready.
Three hours later, the flowers were neatly arranged in the vase on the table, said table was laid for tea with an assortment of sandwiches and sliced fruit, the chocolate cake from the bakery in town was topped with ripe late summer strawberries, the pillows atop her new low footstool were plumped, a new book was laid open at her spot on the settee, and her lavender-scented bath water was growing cold. John paced the sitting room nervously, wondering just where his wife could have wandered off to.
Anna groaned, straining her neck to try and see the clock on Mrs. Hughes' desk across the room. She remembered her water breaking somewhere in the middle of the absurdly long climb up the stairs – How has John managed the climb all these years? – then all but collapsing onto the housekeeper's narrow bunk – I used to sleep on one just like this – and sometime later the midwife and Dr. Clarkson had both arrived. Although the pain of her contractions ebbed and flowed, her foremost sensory perceptions were the sound of her own moans reverberating in her ears like endless crashing waves, and the increasingly sore throat as a result of producing those moans. It had been hours, she was certain, though just how many?
"Has there been . . ." she gasped as she clutched tightly to Mrs. Hughes' hand, "has there been any word of . . . Mr. Bates?"
"Don't fret, my dear." The older woman squeezed her hand. "Mrs. Patmore will send word when he arrives. Though, of course, you don't want him here. You're doing very well." Anna noticed her exchange a look with the midwife.
"Am I doing well, Mrs. Worth?" she asked, worried that there had been no progress for what had surely been several hours.
"You and baby are both doing well, Anna," she replied as she covered Anna's lower half with a thin cotton sheet. "This baby is coming today, but in its own time." She ran her hands across Anna's belly, poking and prodding. Anna watched her face for clues as to how she thought the birth was really going, but except for a flash of a questioning lift of an eyebrow, the woman was serenely unexpressive.
"Dr. Clarkson said there could be complications," she paused for a breath, "due to my age. If we need him . . ."
"Dr. Clarkson knows that we have everything under control," the midwife assured her. "If he was concerned, he would not have left."
"We can ring him again if there's a problem, Anna," Mrs. Hughes added.
Anna drew in another deep breath and grimaced as the pain, at once dull and excruciatingly sharp, crept over her again. "Lady Sybil," she ground out, shaking her head.
"Don't fret, my dear," Mrs. Hughes repeated. Anna wished she felt comforted.
Carson responded to the ring from the library gratefully. With every servant in the house dawdling in the servants' hall waiting for word on Mrs. Bates' progress, he mentally shuddered, the only peace to be had was upstairs. He returned Lady Mary's welcoming nod as he entered the room.
"So what do you think, Papa?" she asked, returning her attention to some plans she held out before her.
"I wonder-" Lord Grantham began, only to be interrupted by Carson's near splutter.
"M-m-my Lord?" he clamped his lips down to stop the embarrassing stammer. "I apologize," he continued, glaring at Andrew who stood impassively by the far door, "I was not informed that you had already returned, my Lord."
"Hours ago, Carson," the earl answered. "Is there some problem?"
"No, my lord, certainly not," he assured. "It is only that . . . that Mr. Bates was needed below."
"It's Bates' half-day, Carson," Lord Grantham replied breezily. "I'm sure he's at home with his wife by now."
"I am sure he is not," Carson murmured. "But that is not a problem for Your Lordship. I will-"
"Is there some problem, Carson?" Lady Mary repeated, her tone demanding an answer.
Carson cringed internally, though his discomfort was only visible to those who knew him well. Lady Mary was such a one. "For heaven's sake, Carson! What is going on?"
He deflated under her scrutiny, though again, only those who knew him would have noticed the change in his demeanor. He took comfort from the fact that young Andrew would not have perceived the difference.
"Mrs. Bates is currently giving birth in Mrs. Hughes' room." He winced, quite visibly this time, at the look of shock on both his employers' faces. "Anna has asked for Mr. Bates, apparently several times, but I was under the impression he remained in Ripon with Your Lordship."
Lady Mary had stood and was rounding on Carson. "My maid is giving birth and no one thought to tell me? I have certainly not been in Ripon all day."
"My lady, I didn't think-"
"No, you most certainly did not!" she all but spat. "I apologize, Carson." She regained her equilibrium quickly. "Anna is . . . well, Anna is Anna and I would like to be kept informed, please. And I'd like to see her . . . after, of course."
"Of course, my lady."
"And find Bates. We can't deny the man the right to see his child once it's born." A flash of regret washed over her face. Even Carson might not have noticed had he not been looking right at her.
"Of course, my lady," he spoke in softened tones. "Andrew," he called as he strode past the footman and out the door, confident the young man would follow.
"Run down to the Bateses' cottage," he ordered. "And I do mean run. Bring him back here as quickly as you can."
As Andrew darted into the service staircase, Carson glanced around the saloon. "Why are all the women in this house so set against me?" he muttered to the air.
"It's a mystery, Carson," Lord Grantham murmured, standing beside him. The two men exchanged a brief but commiserating look.
"A mystery we really have no part of, my lord," Carson added.
"Indeed," Grantham agreed. He clapped Carson lightly on the shoulder before continuing. "But we're long overdue for a happy birth in this house, so keep us posted."
Bates was truly out of breath as he trailed Andrew through the door. To say he had been shocked at the young man's news would have been an understatement. Anna wasn't due for another two or three weeks, both the midwife and Dr. Clarkson had assured them. He had followed the younger man as quickly as he was able. Had he not known the path so very well, he likely would have tripped and fallen more than once, such was his haste.
He knew full well the midwife would never let him sit by Anna's side as the baby was born, and if he were brutally honest with himself, he knew he could not bear to be a witness to Anna experiencing such pain. It would be hard enough standing outside the door hearing it. Still, he had determined privately that if he could manage it, he would sit at her side through the birth as some small compensation for not having been there for her when she truly needed him, to prevent Green's attack or at least comfort and restore her afterward. Compensation for her or for himself, he hadn't yet determined.
He eyed the stairs with more trepidation than he had in years. Anna's near nightly massages of his knee had rendered him far more fit than he had been when he first struggled up that staircase, but his veritable sprint across the estate had left him winded. Shrugging out of his coat, he draped it over the banister and set his hat carefully atop, wasting no time on the niceties of properly hanging them. With one hand on the rail and the other on the wall, he lurched himself up the first two steps.
"There you are, Mr. Bates!" Mrs. Patmore called from behind him. "Mr. Carson said he'd sent Andrew for you. I've a nice tray laid out for you in the servants' hall." She waved toward the doorway as she wiped a hand on her apron.
"I want to check on Anna first," Bates said, heaving in a breath. "Thank you, Mrs. Patmore," he added quickly with a nod and short smile.
"Ah, Mr. Bates." Mr. Carson joined the cook at the foot of the stairs. "Come on through. Miss Baxter and Daisy have been making regular reports. I'm told we'll know something soon."
"Thank you, Mr. Carson," Bates held his overwhelming need to race to Anna's side in check. "But I really would like to see her for myself."
"I assure you, Mr. Bates," Carson's tone was stentorian, "you are the last person the ladies need in that room right now." Bates caught a brief expression of disdain flash across the butler's features. Seldom had he felt so socially distanced from the man. They were nearly of an age, and yet, and yet, convention be damned, he knew he needed to be at Anna's side.
"And I assure you, Mr. Carson," he said with force, but still very politely, "I am the only person Anna truly needs in that room right now." Before anyone else could naysay him, Bates heaved himself up to the first landing and turned toward the next with as much speed as his knee had left.
"I can see most of the top of baby's head, Anna," Mrs. Worth spoke in calm, soothing tones. "One or two more good, strong pushes and we'll have him."
"I've been pushing good and strong for hours!" Anna wailed. How did the woman stay so serene, she wondered. They were all drenched in sweat in the attic room. Mrs. Hughes had long ago opened the small window in hopes of a cooling breeze, but the wind had long since died out. Taking in the window, Anna noticed the sky was darkening.
"Has here been any word of Mr. Bates?" she asked again. "Surely he was back from Ripon long ago?" She sucked in another breath, and another, bracing herself for a push that would somehow be strong enough to satisfy Mrs. Worth.
"Would you like me to check downstairs, Anna?" Miss Baxter asked, patting her hand. "Or wait until we've finished?" Miss Baxter and Daisy had taken it in turns to sit at her left side while Mrs. Hughes rarely budged from her right. Mrs. Worth had moved Anna herself into several different birthing positions throughout the lengthening day. At this point, Anna lay on her side, facing Miss Baxter. Mrs. Hughes was gently rubbing her back.
"We?" Anna demanded. Her face crumpled in apology at her rudeness. "Yes, please, find him!"
Anna groaned, pushing the sound out as forcefully as she ground the babe out beneath her. The midwife pushed her right leg further forward, impossibly so, Anna thought, and brought her hands near to catch the baby's head.
"Good, Anna, very good," she said, and Anna thought she heard a trace of emotion in the woman's voice. Could it be joy? Please, let it be joy, Anna prayed as she pushed so hard she felt she must give birth to her own heart and lungs as well as her child.
And suddenly she wasn't pushing anymore. And while there was still pain, and her entire body now quivered like loose gelatin, the midwife's next words erased everything but the joy.
"Congratulations, Anna. You have a son."
Anna turned and shared a smile with Mrs. Hughes. She reached her arms toward her baby, her son, trying to see him properly through her own shaking legs, the sheets draped across her and the midwife's apron that billowed out as she bent over the child.
"Please, can I hold him?" she asked plaintively.
"Of course," Mrs. Worth replied. "Let me just cut the cord."
Anna sighed as the midwife placed him in her arms. "Aren't you just the best birthday present ever?" she cooed as she traced her son's eyes and nose with a gentle touch.
Bates jostled the handle in the door between the men's and women's corridors. Locked, of course. Well, he and Anna had breached this barrier before. They could certainly do so again. Shaking the handle forcefully as though he could unlock it by sheer will, he failed to notice the shadow on the glass. The door opened. Absurdly, he expected to somehow see Anna as the door opened, holding out a hand to him in conspiratorial welcome. But it was Miss Baxter, who seemed just as startled to see him.
"Oh, Mr. Bates, there you are," she said, recovering her natural aplomb more quickly than he did. "Anna's been asking for you."
Her vindication of his comments to the others below restored him after the long climb. It was frustratingly obvious, however, that she still stood in the doorway, blocking his way to his wife. The frustration was just as obvious in his long-suffering sigh.
"May I, Miss Baxter?" he waved a hand toward the small gap between her shoulder and the doorpost.
"Oh! Oh, yes, certainly," she stuttered, not at all certain. "Old habits and all that, I suppose." She backed away from the doorway slightly, but not nearly far enough for him to enter without brushing against her.
He reined his frustration in yet again, offering her a tight smile. "Miss Baxter, are you going to make me knock you down? I need to see my wife."
Scarcely had she moved far enough back than Bates surged through the door and rapped his cane smartly on Mrs. Hughes' door. He retained enough decorum to not barge his way in; it was the housekeeper's most private space after all. The lack of noise from the other side of the door was worrisome. It had only registered as the sharp sounds of his cane striking the wood faded away. Had the worst happened?
"Anna? Anna!" he threw open the door and rushed through, barely conscious of the fact that he very nearly had knocked the midwife over as she moved to open the door for him.
"Hello, Mr. Bates," Anna said smugly from where she sat on Mrs. Hughes' bed. Bates was transfixed. Anna herself was covered with a sheen of sweat, her hair was limp and horribly tangled, and her face was red and splotchy. She had never looked so beautiful. She positively glowed as her gaze turned from him to the squirming bundle in her arms.
Anna laughed as her great, lumbering bear of a husband charged through the door. He was marvelous, she decided, even out of breath with his hair all out of place. And then her eyes met his. She could see layers of worry and frustration fade away like fog rolling back before the sun. He smiled and it was the sun.
"Would you like to meet your son?" she asked after she greeted him, feeling oddly proud of herself. As he stumbled from his trance she turned one leg, in hopes of easing another wave of pain that was creeping across her middle.
"We have a son?" he asked, dumbfounded. He took the place Miss Baxter had earlier occupied and drew back a corner of the blanket the baby was wrapped in.
Anna gasped, seeing them both together, her husband and her son, and suddenly her love for them both welled up and doubled. They were perfect, they were both just so, so perfect. John dropped the lightest of kisses on the baby's forehead and then reached for her, planting a more firm, but no less gentle kiss on her lips.
"You are perfect. And you were right," he said.
"Well," Mrs. Hughes said uncomfortably as she stood, "I'll leave you now. You can stay as long as you need to, Anna . . ."
"Not just yet, Mrs. Hughes," the midwife stopped her with a hand to her arm.
Anna shifted and winced, the pain reaching its earlier intensity again.
"Mr. Bates," Mrs. Worth addressed him, "perhaps you should step back outside now. We're not quite finished here."
Bates looked from one woman to the next, not wanting to leave Anna regardless of what was happening, and slightly alarmed. Mrs. Hughes sat back at Anna's other side. He took some comfort in the aura of calm that both older women exuded, but the painful look on Anna's face still worried him.
"John," she whispered to him, "it's just the afterbirth. Take the baby for a moment, will you?"
Startled at the wave of emotion that washed over him as Anna placed their child in his arms, Bates missed the midwife's response to Anna's statement. He was overwhelmed by how small their son was and how . . . how right it felt to hold him. Bates' mind flashed back to the first time he had held Anna's hand, the first time he had kissed her, the first time they had walked together into their cottage. As the boy squirmed in his arms, Bates tightened his hold and relished the feeling of home, of family. When the boy, his boy! opened his eyes he was even more flummoxed. His mother's eyes stared back at him from this grandson she would never know.
He looked up to share this wondrous observation with Anna, only to find her convulsed in pain. He searched to make eye contact with the midwife, but she was bent low over Anna's nether regions.
"That's it, Anna," he heard her say. "The second always comes more quickly. Big brother has cleared the way."
"The second?" Bates asked the room, confused and no less alarmed. He glanced around. The only one who would meet his gaze was Miss Baxter, who stood at the still open door of the room.
"Congratulations, Mr. Bates," she said softly from the corner.
Bates nodded and turned back to look at Anna. She was breathing hard and shaking. She flipped on her side to face him, her hands balled into fists. He wondered how she had survived hours upon hours of this pain. She cried out, something between a shriek and a groan. He held the baby closer still to him, recalling the old tales his mother recounted when he was a boy of mad fair folk dragging men to their deaths in the other world. He saw liquid drain across the sheets beneath her and Anna moaned louder, though he wondered how that were possible.
He cradled his right hand around the baby's head in some hope of protecting either his hearing or his infant memory of his mother in such distress, Bates wasn't really certain which.
"Is there anything I can do, love?" he asked Anna as her right leg was pushed up impossibly close to him.
"You've already done it!" she wailed as her right fist came down on his thigh. He grimaced. He had not expected to be able to actually share her pain, only support her through it somehow, but he supposed he did deserve it. She flailed both arms and legs and her fist came down again, right above his knee. He screamed, very nearly drowning out her cries, but not those of his son, who was now yowling in his ear.
And then Anna collapsed, her arm draped across both his knees, her hand twitching up to touch their blanket-wrapped boy.
"Well done, Anna!" the midwife crowed from the end of the bed. "Well done, indeed."
"Oh, Anna," Mrs. Hughes crooned, "he's got a little sister!"
"There are two of them?" Bates asked, reeling from the excruciating pain in his knee as much as he was dumbfounded by this unanticipated double blessing.
"Shall I share the good news?" Baxter asked. Bates wasn't sure at whom she was directing her question. He couldn't think beyond the feeling of his son in his arms and the sight of the midwife placing his daughter –his daughter, his dream of seeing a childlike version of Anna - into Anna's. Anna had shifted to sit and hold the baby, the new baby, clearly enraptured.
Anna nodded and Mrs. Hughes said, "Please do, Miss Baxter. And let Mr. Carson know I'll be down shortly." She rubbed Anna's arm and trailed her hand along the baby's leg. "Congratulations to you both," she said softly.
Much later, after the midwife and Mrs. Hughes had cleaned both infants and mother, after they had changed the bed sheets, after what seemed a never ending stream of servants and family members traipsing through to wish them well and admire their children, after both she and John had counted both of the babies' fingers and toes, eyes and ears, after they had traded the infants back and forth from one parent's embrace to the other more times than she could count, after John had stretched his leg up on the edge of the bed in some relief of the pain she had unwittingly inflicted on him, after arrangements had been made for them all to be driven home in the car in the morning, after Mrs. Hughes had settled into an empty room for the night, Anna leaned against her husband's shoulder as they each held an infant.
She looked across the room and noticed the time – 11:50. Her birthday was almost over. There had still been no acknowledgment from John, but it had certainly been her best birthday ever.
"Well, Mr. Bates," she said, extremely tired but still able to interject a bit of cheek, "here we sit, with our children all around us. A dream come true."
"I almost can't believe it's real," he replied. "I sit here thinking I'm going to wake up any moment and you'll be walking through the door and I'll surprise you with your birthday tea." He leaned his head on top of hers and wrapped his right arm around her. He held one of the babies in his left, she had forgotten which one. Anna sighed, utterly relaxed and utterly comfortable, despite some lingering twitches across her middle.
"Wait," she ordered, drawing away from him slightly, "'birthday tea'?"
As he told her of the elaborate plans he had made to spoil and pamper her, Anna felt tears pricking at her eyes yet again today. Only this time she didn't feel forgotten or frustrated or foolish, only very much loved and cherished. "The food will be spoiled, of course, but a lavender bath sounds lovely if you won't mind warming it up for me tomorrow. And you can read my new book to me while I'm awake nursing through the night." She looked at him expectantly.
"Tomorrow and every day and night thereafter," he vowed. "Happy Birthday, Anna," he added, leaning in to place a soft kiss at the corner of her lips.
And Happy Birthday to you," he whispered, nuzzling the forehead of the child she held. "And to you, too," he murmured, drawing his finger over the nose of the infant in his arms.
He looked at her, as though inviting her into a memory with him. "It may have been your birthday," he shifted the child he held a bit higher to indicate all three birthdays, "but in my whole life, I never thought that I could be as happy as I am in this moment."
"And this is only the beginning, Mr. Bates," she drew his head back down to her for a more lingering kiss as they jointly cradled their children between them. "Only the beginning."
Note #2: Yes, I left them nameless. I'm afraid you'll have to cope with that. After all, the story was really about Anna. I do have an idea for another story that could fit in this little "sub-universe," so to speak, so you may yet hear my name ideas.
Now, be a dear and leave an actual review, won't you please? Favorites are grand, but an actual review is like a virtual hug.