“Sing the song,” I demanded.
“Which one?” he asked.
“The one you sang to me when I first arrived, that night by the fire.”
“The one about—”
“Sing now!” I growled, feeling trapped in my body and more than ready for the baby to get the hell out.
As I pushed and groaned and rested in between, my husband did as I asked, his words sweet and slow and slurry with a song from his boyhood. My mind seemed to go elsewhere, to linger on the ceiling with the smoke from the fire, and I remembered what it was like, waking up here, naked, feeling lost and a million miles from home. Criminy had been there from the start, caring for me, giving me whatever I needed. When my locket had been stolen, he’d taken me on the journey to get it back, even knowing that the locket alone gave me the power to leave him forever and return to Earth.
But he’d helped me get it back. Alone in the dark on the wild moors, he’d sung me this song. For the past six years, he’d been the ideal partner, supporting me while challenging me, taking care of me and everyone in the caravan, and keeping life lively and fun.
I turned to tell him how much I loved him, but what came out of my mouth was “You did this to me!”
“Well, in fairness, you were an equal participant,” he said, a hand still massaging my back, as I’d threatened to murder him if he stopped. “I’ve heard having a baby is like sneezing out of your nethers.”
“Maybe if I kick your junk, it’ll be like having a baby, too.”
“Now, Tish,” Mel said, ever the peacekeeper. “We’re all here for you, chérie. Your husband means well . . .”
“But all men are fools when their wives are hurting,” Bea finished for her, with a fond smile. “Women, too.”
“Did you scream when you were giving birth?” I asked her between pushes.
“I bit people,” Bea admitted. “Many, many people.”
“That sounds helpful. Bring me someone to bite. Ungh!”
Bea peeked under my chemise, well away from my teeth, and observed, “The baby is crowning. Black hair. Like both of you.”
I knew what “crowning” meant: I was close. So I buckled down and pushed, screaming so loudly that I’m sure every human in the audience outside considered hopping back onto their bus and hightailing it back to the safety and surety of the city walls.
It was the worst pain I’ve ever known, and I was rewarded with a slick plop, and then Criminy held up for my inspection a tiny purple person with curly black hair. The first thing she did was stare at me with eyes the color of pencil lead, and the second thing she did was open up her tiny rosebud mouth and scream, even louder than I had.
“She’s got your voice,” Criminy said.
“And your flair for drama,” I added, taking the bundle wrapped in a piece of patchwork quilt and cuddling her close to my chest.
We named our daughter Felicia. It was Criminy’s idea, and when I pressed him, he showed me an old lamp of pierced tin and told me the story of his first encounter with a ghost, when a dark-haired fortune-telling child had told him that his love waited in another world. Me. Caravan records told him the child’s name was Felicia, and that her mother’s name had been Letitia. My name.
I went with it, but not for the fancy or the history. Because it felt right. And because whatever “Felicia” meant in Sang, it meant happiness in my world. I’d been unhappy on Earth, and when I’d first arrived on Sang, I’d still wanted to go back. But I’d found true happiness here, and I didn’t miss a single thing about my own world and time—except perhaps for online shopping and Milky Way bars. Everything else? Meh. I had what I needed.
Felicia was what old ladies call “a good baby” when what they really mean is “not horribly fussy or inconvenient.” At least, until her first fangs came in, which is when we stopped our nursing relationship cold turkey. Criminy was as marvelous a father as I’d always assumed he would be, and nothing delighted me so much as him plopping Felicia into a baby sling and doing his rounds with her strapped to his chest or, later, peeping over his shoulder as she rode on his back.
A few years later, once she’d mostly learned what “no” meant and I’d returned to eight hours of sleep a night, I came up pregnant a second time, with a son. This time, I had recognized my fertility and welcomed the moment Criminy looked at me with wide, wondrous eyes and said, “There. Do you smell that? That’s another little Stain for the wagon.” We named him Anton, after Crim’s childhood friend, our old tailor. Our third was another daughter, and we named her Ruby, mostly because a ruby had brought me to this world but maybe a little for the grandmother I’d known and loved on Earth.