Meet Sophie

 

Contains spoilers for Lord Have Mercy

Meet Sophie

 

 

Ash tilted his head to one side and narrowed his eyes as he regarded the pink-swaddled baby in Ava’s arms. When his lips pursed, and his little jaw worked side-to-side, he looked hilariously like Ghost. Ghost himself stood behind the chair where Ash sat perched on his knees at the side of the bed, arms folded, a glimpse of Ash’s future self.

“What’s the verdict?” Ava asked, finally, when the silence had stretched so far that Maggie was trying to stifle a chuckle behind her hand.

Ash studied his new niece a moment longer, then proclaimed, “She looks weird.”

“Asher Teague!” Maggie scolded.

Unrepentant, Ash said, “She’s all red. And her face is all…” He smushed his own nose with his thumb. “She looks like Mrs. Cook’s dog.”

Leah’s mom had recently rescued a half-pug, half-chihuahua puppy named Lemon Drop.

“Ash, that’s the rudest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say,” Maggie said.

But Ava was fighting a grin. “That’s because she’s only a few hours old,” she told her little brother. “Newborns always look a little like weird dogs.”

Ghost said, “My old man always used to say that all babies look like Winston Churchill.”

Maggie sighed, long-suffering. When Ava sent her an amused glance, she winked.

“Well,” Maggie said, “I think she’s beautiful.”

And she was. Sophie Jade Lécuyer was born at two-oh-three in the morning on a Wednesday in January, almost a year after her Uncle Alex had turned up before a craft festival in Knoxville and dropped an FBI-sized bomb on their family. Ava’s labor had started around midnight with back pain, and things had moved quickly after that. They’d dropped the kids off with Aidan and Sam on their way to the hospital. Mercy had been in the room with her, just as he’d been with Remy, and Cal, and Millie. The nurse had put her bloody and squirming and screaming into his huge hands, gentle and reverent as he cupped their fourth baby in his palms and beamed down at her, eyes glimmering with a film of tears.

He'd left to go pick up the kids an hour ago, and she expected him back any minute. In the meantime, Ash reached out, much slower and more careful than his blunt observations would have suggested, and touched the back of Sophie’s tiny hand with the tip of his finger.

“Oh,” he said, surprised. “She’s soft.”

Ghost laid a hand on his shoulder. “Which is why you shouldn’t be touching her.”

“No, it’s okay,” Ava said. “Just be careful.” She caught Ash’s gaze, sent him a meaningful look, and he nodded. He was a brat, because he was Ghost’s son after all, but he was sweet underneath, when he wanted to be. And Ghost, to his credit, was trying to be a present father figure this time around, dedicating whole afternoons to father/son outings and time spent in the garage, breaking him into car and bike mechanics at an early age.

Ava was settled enough in her life, in her family, to feel proud of her dad; to be grateful he was stepping up, even if he’d struggled with Aidan, and with her.

A bright young voice, the words muffled but the tone unmistakably excited, sounded out in the hallway, and Ava smiled and adjusted Sophie in her arms. A moment later, the handle turned, the door swung open, and in poured her other three kids, Cal in the lead, bouncing, waving his arms, and chattering excitedly.

“…with my Transformers, if she wants to, but not Optimus Prime, because he’s my extra special favorite, and she’s just a baby, so she might break him, and I wouldn’t—”

“Cal, Cal, Cal,” Mercy said, laughing quietly as he stepped into the room and pushed the door to. “What did we talk about on the ride over?”

Cal, his pale hair sticking up at wild angles, his cheeks flushed with eagerness, was making a beeline for the bed, gaze fixed on Sophie. Ghost turned and caught him around the shoulders; swung him into a halt and smoothed his hair down with his free hand.

“Whoa, bud, slow your roll. Your dad’s talking to you.”

Ash, still perched in the chair, shot a wary look over his shoulder toward Cal. “You’re being too loud,” he said, in that frosty, devastating way that kids scolded one another, more soul-crushing than any adult-delivered reprimand.

Cal blinked, bewildered, and turned to Mercy.

Mercy, who could laugh while he pulled a man’s teeth from his head with pliers, and who harbored nothing but fond patience for his children. He settled his hands on his hips and said to Cal, “Remember how we talked about Sophie being just a little baby? And how we ought to be quiet so we don’t upset her? How we have to be careful with her?”

Cal sucked on his lip, contrite. “Yes.”

Millie crept up to the side of the bed, eyes big with wonder. She rested both small hands on the bedrail, and peered down into her new sister’s face. “Hi, Sophie,” she whispered.

Even exhausted, and sore, and ready for the nap of the century, Ava’s insides turned to warm, soft caramel.

Sophie yawned, and Millie smiled.

Cal, much calmer now, came to stand beside Millie. “Can I touch her?”

“Gently,” Ava said, rearranging the baby so she was closer to them.

Cal and Millie both wound up sitting on the bed, peppering her with questions and carefully running their fingertips over Sophie’s blanket-covered toes.

Remy, Ava noticed, sat down in a chair at the edge of the room and watched them, silent and attentive, unsmiling.

Maggie had expressed several times now that she was worried about Remy. He’s always been a stoic little thing, she’d said just two weeks ago, but he hardly says two words these days.

In truth, Ava was worried, too, but only a little. Remy was a thoughtful boy, and his trials on the road and in New Orleans had driven him deeper behind his exterior walls. He was more cautious, more serious; he’d grown up, swiftly and out of necessity. Everyone else saw his withdrawal…but Ava saw him at home. The consideration he put into his household chores, into the way he looked after his brother and sister.

He'd been changed. They all had. And they were learning how to go on in life after that change, together.

When Cal started to get bored and squirmy, Ghost and Maggie took him, Millie, and Ash down to the hospital cafeteria to get something to eat. Maggie came to kiss Ava, and then Sophie on the forehead before they left. Ghost, Ava saw with a surge of warmth, clapped Mercy on the shoulder and murmured something low that made Mercy smile.

When they were gone, Ava said, “Remy, baby, come here.”

He did, right away, and quickly, like he’d been waiting for the moment. His serious gaze landed on Sophie, who’d cracked open her eyes and begun to squirm. She would need to eat soon, but first, Ava said, “Do you want to hold her?”

He glanced up at her face, as though checking to see if she was sure. She hadn’t let the other kids hold her, and she could tell, subtle though the shift in his expression was, that he was honored. That he felt trusted, and that it meant a great deal to him. “Yes, please.”

He climbed up to sit on the side of the bed, and Mercy came over to help Ava sit up higher and make the transfer, his hands big, and warm, and bolstering where they touched Ava’s back, shoulder, arm, and took Sophie’s small weight so she didn’t have to strain.

“Support her head,” Mercy instructed, as he settled Sophie in Remy’s lap. “There you go, just like that. Good job.” Each line of his face was etched with pride as he watched the two of them.

For Remy’s part, he looked awestruck. It was an understated look on him, a delicate widening of his eyes; the faintest twitch of his lower lip as he exhaled slowly through his mouth. Mercy was so demonstrative, his energy bigger even than his physical form, filling rooms, pouring sunlight and Southern charm into every interaction.

Remy would never be like that, and Ava thought the contrast between them was the thing that had Maggie worried. That she, and maybe everyone, expected Remy to become the life of the party, like his dad; to become the storyteller, the Big Man.

But Remy, Ava thought, was going to get the chance that Mercy never had: the chance to be a quiet, thoughtful boy who became a quiet, thoughtful man, with no need for showmanship. Tragedy had turned Mercy boisterous as a survival mechanism; camouflage for the darkness that lay along his bones like steel plates. Remy would have that same violence; he’d inherited a double dose of it. But he also had Mercy’s poet soul, that sweet, homeschooled spirit that didn’t need to prove itself to anyone.

And he’d faced an ordeal, but not a tragedy.

Ava leaned back against the pillows and caught Mercy’s gaze. She could tell with a look that he was thinking the same thing she was: they’d gone into the swamp in search of one baby, and limped out of it, battered by triumphant, with two.

Remy lifted his head, and he still wasn’t smiling, but his face—still rounded with puppy fat, his cheeks smooth and hairless—was incredibly soft. He said, “She looks just like my baby pictures.”

Ava’s eyes stung.

“She does.” Mercy laid a hand on Remy’s head, a benediction, a silent thank you. “Just like them.”