Dirty Little Secrets

--Danny--

It was the beginning of December. Twelve days from when Daisy will be here. D-Day as some call it. John was running around like a chicken with his head cut off. He couldn’t even tie a simple knot for the cover for the crib.

“John, I’m gonna need you to calm down,” I said. “Everything is going to be fine.”

“I’m just so nervous. Aren’t you nervous?”

“I would be pretty damn excited if I were you. You’re not the one who has to actually give birth.”

“Yeah but you’ll be squeezing the life out of my hand.”

“I’ll make sure it’s the left one so you can still have your right hand for yourself.”

“Ha!” He laughed falsely. “So funny Danny. Besides, I don’t need it with you around anyway.”

“Well I’ll make sure to change that.”

“You know you wouldn’t be able to resist me,” he said and started to raise up his shirt.

In the midst of laughing at John’s dorkiness, the doorbell rang and a bunch of excited voices bounced through the hallway. Jen knocked lightly on John’s double doors then peeked inside.

“Hey Danny, your mom’s here to see you.”

We walked out of his room together and she gave us hugs. “Hi Sweetheart I was just over here to see if you were doing okay.”

“Yep, we’re fine. Less than two weeks till the big day.”

“And make me twice a grandmother. You really are trying to kill me.”

Jen laughed and nudged my mom’s shoulder. “And I’m a first timer.”

Our moms started talking about what it was like to be a grandmother and John and I took that cue to leave the room.

The day before my due date was the release date for John’s band’s second EP. Why would someone decide this so soon to D-Day? Not really sure. I had been by myself all day and John was away with the rest of the band doing a press release. Jen and Papa John were watching over me to make sure I didn’t go into early labor.

A while ago, Ryan left the band as well and that completely devastated the guys but Jared gladly stepped in for the lead guitarist. I didn’t think anything would ever get done if John and Jared were in the same band. They’d be completely off the walls together all the time, but they seemed to work together just fine.

“Oh cool,” I said out loud while I was surfing the internet on Papa John’s laptop. Jen looked at me so I could tell her what I exclaimed about. “I have three hate pages on the internet. These girls have been in love with John since the first EP came out and found out about me and expressed their hatred for me. That’s awesome.”

Jen laughed and shook her head. “Don’t let them get to you. It’ll only get worse from here and if you let it bother you know, you won’t be able to handle it down the line.”

John burst through the door then and tossed a copy of the EP into each of our laps. “Is this supposed to be me?” I asked as he plopped down next to me.

“No. But it is uncanny, isn’t it?”

We went to sleep that night and as he draped his arm over me I thought about how the following day I would be a mother.

****

“I don’t feel anything,” I reassured him after he kept suggesting me to take me to the hospital.

“But it’s your due date!”

“Is it? Is it really? I completely forgot.”

He rolled his eyes at me and sat back down on the couch and over the next hour and a half, him and Jen would hover over me to see if I was having contractions.

“Danny, oh my gosh, we’re going to have to get that couch cleaned now,” John stated as I stared at him with a confused look on my face. “Mom, Danny peed her pants!”

Jen was on the other side of the house and before he finished calling out to her, she was in the room and ushering me out the door. “John, her water broke, she didn’t pee her pants! Now get her mom on the phone and tell her to meet us at the hospital!”

The next hour and a half of being prepped for labor passed by quickly but when I started to feel contractions, seconds felt like they stretched into hours.

“Is it possible if she breaks my hand?” John asked every time I got one.

“John, you’re fine,” Jen said to him.

“I feel like no one except Danny likes me.”

“I don’t like you right now,” I said through clenched teeth. My contraction passed as he looked at me with his mouth open. “You did this to me!”

“But you’ll like me later though, right?”

“I don’t know. We’ll see.”

My mom and Jen laughed at us then he kissed my forehead and whispered that he loved me in my ear.

“A year ago, did you picture yourselves here?” Jen asked.

“No. A year ago I thought I was going to fail out of college and blow my full ride. I was just worrying about making the right decisions and moving out on Darcy so I could focus myself.”

“A year ago, I was just wondering the next time I got to see Danny again. And getting the band back together.”

“And now here we are,” I said to him and lightly squeezed his hand.

“Here we are,” he echoed. “Moments away from being parents. I thought we’d get married first though.”

“Nothing’s wrong with doing things a little backwards. As long as we’re solid, I don’t see any harm in this.”

Before he could speak, the nurse came back in simultaneously the same time I had a contraction.

“That was about two minutes apart,” John observed.

“You’re getting closer, Ms. Nunn. I’ll come back in about half an hour with the doctor and you should be fully dilated. Did you want an epidural or an all-natural birth?”

“An epidural as soon as possible.”

“Alright, Ms. Nunn.”

After what seemed like days later, the doctor came in and told me I was ready to push. Jen held onto my hand tightly because for some odd reason, John wanted to see Daisy being born. I tried to tell him he was going to faint, but he assured me he wasn’t. My mom was also watching her being born. It felt like everyone was gathered around the TV watching the big game.

“Alright, last push, Danny, make it a good one!” The doctor coached and I did my last hoorah and immediately collapsed my head onto the bed from exhaustion as I heard her crying. Then there was a giant thud on the ground and Jen ran over to where John was on the ground. I tried to tell him.

Daisy was cleaned off and put in a blanket then they gave her to me as John came to. “She looks exactly like you,” I said through tears to John.

“She’s so beautiful,” he said then I pulled him towards me to kiss him. Even though I didn’t like him for making me go through such discomfort, the end result was worth it.

“Come look at your granddaughter,” I said to my mom and Jen. They cautiously walked over to us and as I handed her off, John kissed me again.

Daisy Skye O’Callaghan
December 12, 2007

****

The next day we were able to take Daisy home and everybody was coming over to John’s house to see her like it was freakin’ grand central station. First was Ethan, Megan, Garrett and Pat, then Jared, Eric and Kennedy (who were super ecstatic to see the new edition to their family), and John’s brothers were always coming in his room to see their niece, along with Papa John.

After a month, people stopped coming over and we were getting the hang of things with her and got on a system where I would tend to her during the day and he would get up with her in the middle of the night, even though I’d end up waking up anyway. Other than the screaming, crying, pooping and crying, Daisy was actually a blast to be around.

One day John and I were sitting on the floor with her and she was kicking her legs and giggling and it was at that moment I decided I never wanted to go back and do acting. Acting was overrated. She was gorgeous too. She looked like me, but also so much like John. I couldn’t wait to have more kids with him.

Every night this week, I would have the same dream. You know, the one where I was running towards John and he got swept away by a bunch of people. It became more vivid every night. It actually kind of startled me. I think my brain was trying to tell me something but I couldn’t figure out exactly what. All I knew was that I wasn’t going to like it.

But this night there was something different about the dream. John was still taken away by the sea of people but after he disappeared, someone was at the other end of the tunnel but I couldn’t make out who. I could just see their silhouette and they were tall and skinny and had long hair. And in this dream, since John was taken away, I was running the opposite direction towards this person and I was so happy to get there, but I couldn’t get close enough to see their face. For some reason, the person’s silhouette reminded me of Carlos.