My Happiness

Disclaimer: Looking forward to Shadow Hearts 3 – From the New World, I can only claim the idea of this story. Sadly, Koudelka and Halley belong to someone else.

The pain was growing, coming like a wave and rolling over me, gripping me in a vise before letting me scream it out. Lizzie was holding my hand, gripping it painfully, a cool cloth wiping my face as the contractions eased and I panted, sweat pouring down my face, trickling into the hollow of my throat and pooling there.

"There's a good girl," Lizzie said, her coarse voice a rough caress, her rough hands a soothing comfort. The other girls in the brothel were busy, and the pub downstairs noisy with customers. But Lizzie was here with me and I knew we'd be fine. If only the pains would stop.

Another wave was building, cramping my guts and I grit my teeth, my face contorting in pain and Lizzie admonished me to breathe.

"Let it go girl, breathe. If'n ya stay all tight like that you'll never get it out. Come on, breathe for me."

And so I breathed, gasping in each painful breath as if it were my last, as if I were drowning in pain. And again the contraction took me, the explosion of pain from my innards washing me in a river of agony. How had women stood this pain through the centuries, I wondered? How could I manage this?

He had pushed his way into me with fire and passion, his hardness filling me and carrying me to heights of pleasure and pain. I would have stayed, pierced by his spear if I thought either of us could stand each other for longer than it took to think about it. Edward. Damn him! Damn him for doing this to me!

I screamed again, my voice raw and my throat sore from repeated screams of pain.

"I can't do this," I panted. "I can't do this, oh God, Lizzie, ah!"

Lizzie wiped my face with a wet cloth, her level voice a soothing drone. Below, in the pub, I could hear the clank of dishes and the sudden shout of drunken voices rising above the usual din. There was a crash below and Lizzie, a frown creasing her already wrinkled face, rose from the chair next to me.

"What are they doing down there?" she growled. "Sharon! Sharon, come watch Koudelka," she called and disappeared down the dim upstairs hallway. I lay there, my knees up, my swollen belly a mountain of flesh before me, and closed my eyes, feeling the strong hands as they held me, caressed me, and tickled the flesh between my legs; feeling the breath breathing over me, the warm wetness as his mouth suckled my breasts, feeling again his hardness as it entered me, filling me and bringing me such pleasure. Edward. Damn it, Edward. I could not get him from my mind. He had done this, filling my belly with his seed, sailing away to America and leaving me, screaming my lungs out as another contraction shook me.

Sharon was beside me, holding my hand, her small voice barely above a whisper. I ignored her, feeling only the grinding pain, the tearing beneath me.

"Oh god, it's coming, Sharon, he's coming!" My scream was a long, protracted wail of pain and terror and anger that reverberated in my ears and shattered the window glass, broke the walls of the nearby buildings and shot the stars in their heavens. In reality, none of that happened. Sharon told me later that a chair lifted from the end of the bed, smashing against the far wall, and items swept along the dresser top, crashing to the floor to pile up in broken shards against the bedpost, while, in the hall, the dust had finally settled as piles of boxes and stuff from the attic had suddenly arrived, crashing through to pile up in a mountain of debris just down the hall and nearly blocking the stairs. Sharon admitted to terror at these things, but then Lizzie had returned and all I remembered was the wall of pain, the river of blood and my voice, raw and alien to my ears, cursing in a hundred tongues and wailing with the first slap to my bottom.

I awoke to a light pressure on my belly, a soft bundle lying across me, and the warmth of blankets and the smell of fresh soap. Lizzie had washed and cleaned up the linen and me and – looking down at my belly – the little red bundle in the faded yellow blanket. Trembling, I took one hand from beneath the covers, my mind a terror of what it would find, and flipped back one corner. Face pinched, eyes closed in slumber, face tinged red but fading to a soft peachy flesh, was a baby. I reached in and touched the little fist clutched at his mouth ... astonished I knew it was a boy! My boy, my baby. I felt myself trembling with terror, with excitement and, belatedly I realized, with anxiety. This was so new, so different. There was now someone else with me, not just the memories, not just the voices.

"So child, you're awake?" Lizzie asked, peeking in from the hall. I grinned at her and looked down at the baby again.

"Mine, huh?"

Lizzie's laugh was a rolling chuckle that started at her bosom.

"Yes child. He's yours. I brought ye some soup."

Propped up in bed, I sipped the broth in silence and looked down at the bundle of life resting on me and I marveled at the sensations that flooded me. Yes, the terror had receded, banked now with the realization that it was more a fear of tomorrow – a new mouth to feed. And yes, anxiety over the care and feeding of a baby. But that other feeling, that warm feeling that seemed to settle with the soup at my heart, that one puzzled me the most.

"He's so small," I finally said, setting aside my empty bowl.

"Aye, well he'll grow, they always do. Have ya thought of a name for him?" she asked, helping me to settle him in my arms, letting me hold him for the first time.

Startled I looked up at Lizzie and shook my head. Edward. No, James... oh please! Patrick, Eric, Tadhg my little poet or Bogdan – my own gift from God... a hundred other names flooded through me; names of the living and names of the dead and none of them, not one, seemed to fit the bundle of love lying so peacefully in my arms. I bent closer, breathing in his warm, baby smell and kissed his head through the blanket. With my eyes closed, and his warm weight in my arms, I felt good for the first time in my life. I felt complete, holding in my arms the only thing that mattered in this life; the one who loved me.

Warm tears burned behind my eyelids and then spilled over, splashing down onto the baby's head and when I opened my eyes, the lights were blurry, scintillating brilliants of rainbow colors.

"Ha-..." my voice caught in my throat. "Hal," I said. "Ha – Halley."

Lizzie nodded. "It's a good name. He'll grow into it and make something of it."

Yes, I thought. He'll be the light in my life. The one I love, the one who loves me. My son, Halley.