It was a hard sell, talking Ronan into living part-time in the US. But in the end his love for me swayed him. As much as I do, he longs to create a true family from our love for one another. That dream’s about to come to fruition. If the agony burning my loins is any indication, it can’t come soon enough.
“Ahhhhh!”
The midwife glances up at me. “Just one more push, Savie. Yer can do it!”
I bear down, putting every single cell in my body behind my efforts. It burns, the blazing agony of a million fires, and Ronan says words I’ve been desperate to hear. “I can see his head.”
Ignoring his wishful thinking about the sex of our unborn child, I focus on the serious face between my legs. Sobbing now, I look down and watch the midwife turn our baby before she says, “Now ‘tis time to push out the shoulders. Yer almost there, yer are.”
Inhaling deeply, I bear down, and the baby slides out in a rush of amniotic fluid and wonder. As if a flip has switched, the intense pain abates, and I leave the memory of it behind as if it’s been nothing but a bad dream.
My heart thunders in my chest until I hear a wail. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I open my arms and the midwife puts the bright red baby on my naked chest.
“’Tis a girl.”
Ronan laughs and cries, so many emotions on his face. “Seems our daughter has yer lungs. She’s caterwaulin’ just like yer did when first we met.”
I no longer want to strike him, but that doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven him yet for getting me in this predicament. “And she has your inability to remain still,” I say, watching the squirming infant try to settle herself into a comfortable position.
“’Tis the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen,” Caris says, running a fingertip across the baby’s thick shock of dark hair. Blue eyes peer up at me. Her father’s eyes. “What are yer going to call her?”
“Her name’s Delaney. Delaney Helen,” I add, allowing my daughter to grip my finger. A burst of love so deep and strong overtakes my body, and I feel I’m going to explode if I don’t express it. I lean down and kiss her forehead, overcome with emotion. My tears fall until she finally stops crying and settles.
“Ach, that’s a pretty name. It fits her, it does,” Caris says. “I think ‘tis time we give yer both some time alone. As a family.”
A family. My family.
I never thought it would happen, but I’m so glad it did. When my bus broke down on the side of a gravel, Irish roadside, fate stepped in and took over, sending the love of my life to rescue me. It’s like a song.
A solstice song.
And it’s the most beautiful song I’ve ever written.
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Solstice Song by Colleen Charles ©2017 All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Colleen Charles loves reading and writing stories that entertain and sweep the reader away from their everyday life.
Irish Slang Glossary
Bag o’ swhag – Very good
Ballsch – Rubbish
Banjaxed – State of disrepair
Bogger – Person from the countryside
Bombay Shitehawk – General colorful insult
Boreen – A rural Irish road
Cacks – Underwear
Chancer – A person who pushes their luck
Chubbed Up – An erection
Cocktrough – A woman with a sloppy vagina
Doing A Line – Having an affair
Eejit – Someone of reduced intellectual capacity
Flaming – Intoxicated
Flange – Vagina
Flute – Penis
Fuck Face – A person who behaves in an unfavorable manner
Gee – Vagina
Geebag – Unpopular female
Giblets – Female genitals
Gyppo – A dirty itinerant
Horned Up – Being aroused
Horse It In – To be sexually ravaged
Knock The Hole Off – To have intercourse with
Lack – Girlfriend
Langer – Penis
Loosebit – A woman
Manky – Unclean or dirty
Mucksavage – Someone from outside Dublin
Muckshites – Country folk
Neddy – Fool
Pikey – Member of the travelling community
Piss Artist – Alcoholic
Relax The Cacks – Calm down
Savage – An expression of satisfaction
Scaldy – Tea
Schnozzlewoppers – Cash
Scunders – Male underwear
Shanks Pony – On foot
Shite The Bed – Expression of surprise
Shitehawk – Anyone unpleasant or untrustworthy
Slapper – An easy lay
Stall The Ball – Wait a moment
Steamboats – Seriously inebriated
Stinker’s Bridge – The skin joining the anus and the ball sack
Thicko – Intellectually challenged as well as lazy
Throw It In – Have sexual intercourse
Titmickey – Secretly touching someone with your penis in public
Townie – City dweller