Sweet Children Come Out And Play

Delphine awoke with a start, “Billie!” she let out a muffled scream. Billie shot up from his chair in the corner of the room.

“Delphine?!”

Delphine looked around to where he was and relaxed a little.

“Delphine, what’s wrong?” he rushed to her side.

Some of the pain was also coming back to her. “Billie, I’m sorry.” She could not see him very well as it was pitch black outside and a thin aura of light only glowed from a night light from somewhere in the room.. “I guess it was a dream. That’s all.”

“Oh good,” he sighed, “you scared me.” He touched her hair. “Do you need anything?”

“No, no I’ll be fine.”

“What was it about?”

“What?”

“The dream?”

“Oh, it was nothing.”

“Well, you screamed. It must have been something.” She had also screamed his name. Then a happy thought came to his head. ‘She needs you. No she doesn’t. She screamed your name though. She must have meant it if it was a dream.’

Delphine looked at her hands, sitting up in her bed. Billie curled an arm around her. “It was just that, well, it was about what happened I think, but, umm… he shot you instead.” Billie’s heart beat a little faster for a second, ‘No, it’s just silly. That’s not going to happen,’ he thought. “Then there was something about a pink elephant and everyone had a mustache which makes no sense, but that was that was pretty damn scary too.”

“That’s, that’s just silly. It won’t happen. That’s over now.” He smoothed a wisp of hair away from her eyes and around her ear. “It’s fine. This whole thing is going to be fine.”

“I know,” she sniffed, pausing to look at him. Then she ducked her head and Billie caught her in his arms, holding her close. He kissed the top of her head and rocked her back and forth just slightly.

“Billie, after all this, you know, Alex too – and someone is always getting hurt in this neighborhood – I don’t really feel safe here anymore. I mean, it’s such a good price and its fine for me, but I don’t think it will be safe for the baby.”

Billie didn’t say anything for a moment. “I was sort of wondering about the same thing. The only thing is, I love this city.”

“I do too.”

“I know, maybe we could move out by the beach. It’s not too far away. We can still use Lookout studio even.”

Delphine smiled and the idea grew on her. She had always wanted to live by the beach. And this way she could go to Chocolate all she wanted too. “I like that.”

“I’ll look it up. We’ll do something soon.”
~
Billie walked back into the hospital room again with lunch. He went out to get sandwiches at TOGO’S. Much better than the hospital food they had both been eating for the last two days. That twenty minutes was the longest he had been out of the hospital in a week.

Finally, everyone else was able to go home, well, except Delphine and Billie. And just because they could go home, never meant anyone really did. There was always someone in the room. Delphine’s mom had just left after her thirteenth visit practically. She sobbed again and left. Delphine hated that. It made her feel so guilty. And depressed.

“Hey baby,” Billie Joe pushed open the door with his shoulder and a sandwich in each hand. Delphine was sitting up in bed. He was glad to see that. She had been flipping aimless channels since he had left and twiddling her thumbs. She had been awake for just two days in this hospital and was already dieing to go home.

“Hi, oh, thank you! Real food.” Delphine unwrapped her turkey and avocado sandwich and took a big bite. “I am starving.” She had everything on her sandwich as usual (except pickles – pickles just aren’t made for sandwiches as far as she was concerned. On the side yes, but inside a hamburger no. Anyway, continue).

“Me too,” he hadn’t eaten much in the last week either. Not exactly his fault.

As they ate and watched All My Children, Delphine’s mother’s old favorite soap opera – as there was nothing else on TV (sadly, Delphine knew all of the names of the characters still), Delphine started thinking. She would have to get an ultrasound to make sure everything was all right with the baby in a few days. That means they would have the chance to see whether the baby was a boy or a girl. She had planed on not knowing until the baby was born so it would be a surprise, but after this turn of events, she was not so sure. “So, Billie, we have to think about names for the baby.”

“That’s right. I thought a little bit about it.”

“Oh good! What have you got so far?”

“Well…you go first.”

“Ok, fine. If it’s a boy, I was thinking Jack. That’s the only boy name I’ve got so far. What were you thinking?”

“Well, I like Jack now that you mention it. I also had Jake or Joey.”

“I like those too. All J’s!”

“Yep.”

“Oh, for Jack or Joey – no Jackson or Joseph. Just plain Jack or Joey.”

“Like Billie!”

“Yes, like Billie.”

“I like that. Ok, girls?”

“I was thinking of Leia or Adrienne.”

Billie thought a moment, “I like those. Yeah. Ha! Like Princess Leia!” he teased.

“Yeah, I watched Star Wars too many times,” she threw her hands up with a shrug.

“No, I like it!” he laughed, “I did that too. And Adrienne. That’s a really pretty name. I like it. Damn, I like em’ both.”

“Now I wish I knew what the baby is. Then we could just be able to focus on one name and not be sad when we don’t get to use the other.”

“We could. Hey, if it’s a boy, we should make his middle name Danger. You know. Then he can say, ‘Danger is my middle name’ and it is!” Billie half expected Delphine to burst out laughing like anyone else would do and say that was stupid. That’s what he would have done.

Instead she said, “Hmm…that’s a cute idea.” She looked serious too.

“Really? You would go for that?”

“Why not?” she laughed. “Actually, I kind of like it. Danger. He’s goanna grow up and think we were on drugs or something when we decided his name.”

“Ha! Yeah, well, there are kids named Sunshine and Sunflower who grow up saying ‘my stupid hippie parents.’ Ours are going to grow up and say ‘my stupid punk parents.’ Personally, I think that’s something to be proud of.”

Delphine laughed again, “Very true. They’re going to no matter what we name them anyway. Hm…ya know, we plan on having more kids so there will be room for more names.” Then she grabbed a notebook off the side table and started scribbling down the list of names. “Right. Girls – Leia, Adrienne. Boys – Jack, Joey, Jake. Oh, and Danger for middle names. Let’s think of more middle names.”

“Ok, for the girls, how about yours.”

“Elizabeth?”

“Yeah, it’s pretty.”

“Aww, thank you Billie. Ok,” Delphine wrote it down just in case. She really did like her middle name. It’s hard to like your first name because you hear it and use it so much, but she never minded Elizabeth. “Ok, other names. Let’s think of something kind of funky, so we can embarrass them just a little bit but they like it.”

“Skywalker!”

“That’s not a middle name and we already have Leia.”

“Candy.”

“That makes her sound like a whore, Billie.”

“Ok, fine.”

“How about Cat?”

“Ok, but not like Catherine right?”

“Nope, just Cat.”

“Cool. That’s good, write that down.”

“Wait, isn’t that also a pin-up name.”

“Umm…I don’t know. It’s cute, we’re writing it down anyway.” Billie kissed her cheek.
~
Billie sat by Delphine’s side holding her hand and biting his fingernails on the other. She was in the middle of the ultrasound. Delphine lay on her back, shirt pulled up and the cold clear jelly stuff (she still had no clue what it was) spread over her stomach. Then the screen flashed on showing the baby. “There it is,” the nurse said cheerily. They were both a little nervous. This would determine whether or not the baby was all right from the accident. Well, no accident, but nevertheless. They still just weren’t sure about wanting to know if the baby was a boy or a girl.

As the nurse pointed out the head, the body and the little arms of the baby, Delphine could not stop smiling. Billie gapped at the screen. But then he felt a little odd. Sort of queasy. “Umm…Delphine. I-”

“Billie!” Delphine said as she realized what was happening.

Billie felt sideways off the chair and onto the hard ground with a thump. “Oh!” the nurse sprung up and shook him. Within a few seconds, Billie popped up with a scared look.
“Whoa, what the fuck happened?”

“Ouch. Billie, are you ok?” Delphine was laughing.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he stood up fast, almost knocking into the nurse who was looking seriously worried. That made him really light-headed, and he slumped back down on the chair.

“I think you fainted,” Delphine smiled.

“Shit.”

“Umm,” the nurse got up and sat back down next to Delphine. “It’s all right. Happens to more than a few guys. Now, let’s see.” She looked back to the screen; still glancing over every few seconds to make sure he was all right though.. After a few moments of studying it, she spoke again. “Well, I can’t see anything wrong with the ultrasound. I think it is safe to say the baby is fine and healthy. The doctor will look over this later. So, before I go any further, would you like to know the sex of your baby?”

“Well, we originally didn’t want to, but…I guess things happened and now I’m not sure.” Delphine looked over to Billie “Hey, Billie? Billie,” she tapped his leg. “You ok?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah I’m fine.” He looked a bit pale but was holding up.

“Do we want to know what the baby is?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

“But I don’t either.”

“But, I don’t know – well, if you want to I will. Or I’ll wait. Either one.”

“Would you know for sure?” she asked the nurse.

“I couldn’t be 100% ever, but I haven’t been wrong yet. I would bet my life on this one.”

“So you can already see what it is?”

“Yep.”

“Well, that’s not fair. If you know then we should know. Or do we want to know?”

“If we did, we could all stop calling it ‘it’,” Billie pointed out.

“That’s true. And we could also buy the right clothes for it and decorate its room-”

“Yep, and stop calling it it. Makes it sound like a thing and not a person.”

“You just called it it!”

“Well what do I call HIM or HER then? You see the problem.”

“Ok fine,” Delphine turned to the nurse, “We want to know.”

“All right. If you say so. You’re sure?”

“Yes.”