He Missed the Delivery Room. I Married His Enemy Instead. novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: Who Is Niamh

Brigid throws Conall out and tells him to put it in writing; by morning Davis arrives with balloons, Gwyneth and a photographer, and reads the name on the bassinet.

For a second nobody in the room moved.

Then Niamh hiccupped against my collarbone.

"Get out," I said.

Conall Byrne didn't move.

He stood in my doorway, snow turning to water on his coat.

"You haven't heard the offer," he said.

"I heard it. You need a wife. I have a husband."

"You hung up on him."

So he'd been in the hallway long enough to hear that.

My mother stood up from her chair.

She is five foot two and once chased a man out of her church parking lot with an umbrella.

"My daughter is two hours out of labor," she said. "You'll leave."

He looked at her with real respect.

"Yes, ma'am."

He still didn't leave.

From the corner came a wet, rattling laugh.

Grandda had his oxygen tube hooked over one ear and his eyes bright as a boy's.

"Byrne," he said. "Which Byrne?"

"Conall, sir. The Southie Byrnes, on the docks."

Grandda smacked the arm of his chair.

"Your grandfather ran guns through Cork harbor in 1972 and paid for my cousin's funeral," he said. "Come in out of the door, lad. You're letting the draft at the baby."

"Grandda," I said.

"What? He has manners. Your husband had a tan."

Conall's mouth moved at one corner.

It wasn't quite a smile.

It looked like something he didn't use often.

"Mr. Byrne," I said.

I used the level voice, the one that clears a trauma bay.

"I have a two-hour-old daughter on my chest. I have stitches in places I won't describe. My husband is drinking champagne in Baltimore. I am not discussing marriage with a man I last saw with his ribs spread open."

"Fair," he said.

"So get out."

"I'll go."

He set the folder down on the foot of my bed anyway.

Gently, the way you put something down near a sleeping dog.

"Everything you need to know about Harborline is in there. Who voted. Who got paid. When."

"Take it with you."

"No."

He looked down at Niamh then.

His expression went very still and careful.

"She's beautiful, Doctor."

"She's furious."

"Same thing, in this family."

I didn't know which family he meant.

I didn't ask.

"If you want me to read a word you say," I told him, "put it in writing. Terms. Money. What you want and what I get. Not a speech in a doorway at two in the morning."

"In writing," he repeated.

"And not through one of your men. Through a lawyer with a license."

"You'll have it by the end of the week."

He nodded to my mother.

He nodded to Grandda, who saluted him with the oxygen tank.

Then he was gone, and the hallway was only a hallway again.

My hands were shaking under the blanket.

"Well," said Grandda. "I like him."

"You like everyone who's been arrested."

"Not everyone. Only the ones who got off."

My mother picked up the folder like it might be hot.

She put it on the windowsill beside her phone.

Her phone was still propped against the glass, the camera pointed at my bed.

"Is that still recording?" I asked.

"Since eight centimeters," she said. "Your father wanted to see the birth and he can't stand the sight of blood."

"Mam. That caught the phone call."

"I know what it caught." She turned the phone off and slipped it in her cardigan pocket. "I'm keeping it."

I didn't argue.

Niamh found my breast on her own.

I watched the snow over the harbor and did not sleep.

At nine in the morning the ward got loud.

I heard the balloons first.

They bumped the doorframe, a cluster of pink foil hearts with "IT'S A GIRL" in gold.

Davis came in under them, freshly shaved, in the same navy suit from the photo.

He looked rested.

He'd flown first class both ways.

"There she is," he said, loud enough for the hallway. "There are my girls."

Gwyneth came in behind him in cream cashmere, holding a gift bag.

Behind her came a young man with a camera on a strap and a lanyard that said WHITMARSH FOR SENATE.

"You brought a photographer," I said.

"Brig, don't." Davis was smiling for the lens. "It's a happy day."

"You brought her."

Gwyneth put a hand to her chest.

"I wanted to apologize in person. I know last night was hard on you. It was so hard on me, too."

The camera clicked.

Davis bent over the bassinet with his hands on his knees, the way men pose for campaign mailers.

He read the little card the nurses tape to the end.

His smile stayed on his face for one more second.

He straightened up and turned to me.

"Who is Niamh Sheehan?"

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