Читать книгу The Changeling - Victor LaValle - Страница 26

THERE IN A stalled A train in the bowels of the earth, Emma bled and bore down. Apollo called out the two commands Kim had told him were always appropriate, Slow down. Just breathe. Apollo focused on nothing but his wife and their child. When Emma arched her back and grunted, he pressed his thumbs into the small of her back, just above the tailbone, until her back went straight again. When she bled and pushed harder, he pressed her thigh and said, Slow down. Just breathe. When he saw the baby crowning, he had a moment of confusion. There was the baby’s head, but it looked like it was wrapped in bubble tape. The amniotic sac hadn’t burst yet, and it served now as a thin layer between the baby and Emma’s pelvic bone. For all the agony she might be feeling, this little miracle—that her water didn’t break right away—was what spared her just enough pain to survive this.

Apollo watched his hands stretched out now, ready to catch their child. He felt like a witness and a participant. Their child teetered between his mother and the world; in one place and another; alive and in that ether of the womb. Apollo felt as though he, too, balanced on this threshold. Its head nearly out but body still hidden, his child seemed like an emissary of the divine.

“Can you see his head?” Emma asked.

Apollo tried to answer but only stammered.

Then Emma’s water broke, and she cooed with relief, and their child slipped right out, and Apollo Kagwa caught the baby before it touched the floor of the train.

“It’s a boy,” Apollo said.

“A boy,” Emma whispered.

Emma leaned forward into the woman. The woman kissed Emma on the top of her head. Emma had to stay on her knees for a few minutes more until the placenta passed.

This meant that for a short while Apollo remained alone with his son. Apollo unbuttoned his shirt so he could hold the boy directly against his skin. The baby didn’t cry, didn’t flutter his eyes yet, only opened and closed his tiny mouth. Apollo watched his son take his gasping, first breaths. He watched that little face for what seemed like quite a while, an hour or an eternity.

“Can we call him Brian?” Apollo croaked. He hadn’t meant to ask that right now, at the moment of birth, hadn’t thought he’d ever want to name his son after his missing father. The question, the desire, simply slipped out; it was as if it had been hiding—biding time on his tongue for years.

“I like that name,” Emma finally said, turning now, hands open for her child.

Apollo brought his cheek to the baby’s.

“Hello, Brian,” he whispered. “I’m so happy to meet you.”