Chapter 58: The Little One Makes A Splash

Mark

We were still watching the earth works when my phone rang.

“You better get here on the double!” Lydia screamed into my ear. “She’s gone into labor!”

Without so much as a second thought I slung Jenny over my shoulder and started to run. She was giggling madly as I ran along the paths of the moonscape around Senftenberg. I arrived at home twenty minutes later, completely knackered.

“What ... the...” I heaved, completely out of breath.

“In the car now!” Regina bellowed, holding the rear door of the Granada open for me. I bundled in, after getting Jenny off my shoulder and more or less throwing her into the car. Nadja was sitting in the front passenger seat, clearly in pain. Regina said something to her in Russian, and then she floored it.

Apparently she had prepared a helluva lot better than I had, because we were met by two police cars at the end of the street who drove in front of us with blue lights and sirens blaring. I learned that Nadja wasn’t the only one who could drive a car like her hair was on fire. Regina even drifted the huge thing through a roundabout giving it full opposite lock. We nearly lost Meri and Lydia several times, who were trying to follow us in Nadja’s Toyota. Jenny had an absolute ball though, cheering her mother for every outrageous piece of reckless driving.

Femke

I ran into the hospital, prepared to be at least three hours late, but apparently the guy in the sky had decided to put poor Nadja through the wringer. Jonjo had nearly killed ourselves blasting all the way from Groningen to the ass-end of East Germany in just four hours, and mind you, we had picked up Lydia’s sister in that time as well.

We heard the poor girl scream in pain but then she suddenly went quiet, which made my heart stop.

“The anesthetic for the C-section,” Lydia said and gave me a kiss to my cheek. For lack of anything better to do, I joined Mark and Jonjo in pacing the corridor back and forth.

The next twenty minutes were sheer torture until we heard the scream of a baby.

Lydia and Mark sank down to their knees and started crying. Jonjo and I sprang into action immediately. He took Mark into his arms and I did so with Lydia. Regina and Meri hugged each other, crying with joy as well. Little Jenny seemed to be the most level-headed. She ignored all the emotional displays and instead tried to find a way to see the baby.

“Who’s the one feeding the child?” the nurse asked coming out of the ward.

I had to chuckle when Regina practically threw off her shirt and bra right there in the waiting room. We weren’t exactly the only ones waiting for a child to arrive and many other expectant people watched the scene with amusement. We followed the nurse and watched the scene through the large window. They pushed a second bed next to Nadja’s. The little girl immediately latched on to Regina’s breast as soon as they had put her on her. She was suckling greedily.

Regina and Nadja kissed each other as they lovingly watched the little one have her first drink of her life. I normally wasn’t the type to weep easily, but I could feel the tears running down my cheeks.

Mark

“Fred! I thought you were lost or something,” I said when our favorite pilot finally picked up the phone for once, instead of his office lady.

“I just came back from Hungary, last night” he said. “We delivered a PC-12 to Europe across the whole effin’ length of Russia.”

“Who does something like that?” I asked.

“I think you know him,” Fred said. “Ian O’Connor, Bill O’Connor’s son.”

“So he’s flying again?” I asked elatedly.

“And how,” Fred confirmed. “The boy has less than five-thousand flying hours, but he handles planes like he’s never done anything else.”

“What’s he up to?” I asked. “He’s joining your business?”

“Other way round,” he told me. “He offered me the job as chief pilot at his airline. Jack is coming along too. We’re preparing to relocate to Germany. Doing transfer flights in little bird whackers was good fun for three years, but we’ve grown a bit weary of constantly putting our necks on the line.”

“Ian has his own airline?”

“He’s building it,” he explained. “For all I know he’s cavorting around Lake Balaton right now with that constantly naked girl of his, but he plans to start on September 1st, so if you want us to fly for you, I’m sure you can hash out a deal with him.”

“Ridiculously gorgeous, long black hair?” I asked with a chuckle.

“That’s the one,” Fred confirmed.

“That’ll be Sofia then,” I said. “And if you need help getting settled in Germany, give us a call, okay?”

“Will do,” he said. “But what did you call for in the first place?”

“Well, we would need someone to fly Lydia to Morocco next week for a marathon, but since you’re winding down your business...”

“Yeah, sorry pal, our AOC expires in three days, but listen, if you’re not opposed, we would take your plane for the flight to Germany. At least you’d have it at home until Jack and I are back on active duty.”

“Great idea, actually,” I agreed. “You have the keys anyway. If you could fly into Dresden, we’d sort out your transport from here. Where are you headed?”

“Wait, I have the name here somewhere,” Fred said and I heard rustling noises as he sorted out some papers. “A town called Emden? Haven’t we picked up you lot a few times there?”

“Yeah, you really should fly into Dresden,” I said with a chuckle. “My auntie lives in Emden and she’s here right now because I became a dad last night. She can give you a ride there.”

“Well, I never,” Fred said and laughed. “Congrats pal! Which one of your numerous ladies is the lucky one?”

“Nadja,” I said and my voice became thick with emotion.

“Well, keep a beer or twelve in the cooler for Jack and me in three day’s time. It’s something else when the first one arrives, isn’t it?”

“It sure is,” I agreed.

Lydia

This was a first. Normally Mark was the only man in our household, and now we had three of them strewn all over the living room furniture, snoring loudly.

Fred and Jack had delivered our plane on literally the last day their license was still valid and Mark had joined them in celebrating his fatherhood. Needless to say, the three of them had drained his entire beer reserves – nearly two crates of it!

“Jeez, and I thought Feli was the master-drinker in this house,” Regina said with a chuckle as our little one emptied one of her boobs greedily.”

“I haven’t seen him let his hair down like that for ages,” I agreed.

“He’ll be suffering like a dog in morning though,” Regina said. “The last time he got that soaked was when he saved me from being filled up during the topping-out ceremony of this house.”

“I’ve stolen three bottles from the crate,” Nadja added with a giggle. “That should help them with the headache in the morning.”

“What did the doctor say?” Regina asked her.

“It’s all healing nicely,” Nadja said. “Now we can all wear our c-section scars with pride.”

Regina and I chuckled.

“What did he say about training?” I asked her.

“No more restrictions,” Nadja said. “I want to get some training in on skating techniques. Perhaps, by January I can do my first ski race.”

“We’ll train together,” I said. “I won’t compete, but since I plan to continue being your coach, I need to learn it too.”

Nadja smiled at me happily and took a now thoroughly sated baby from Regina. With her gently patting Feli on the back we waited for the burp to come – and boy could that little girl belch.

“I wonder where she got that one from,” Regina quipped with an amused look at Mark.

Mark

Bea had to delay her drive home for an entire day. After our capers that night, Jack, Fred and I had been sick like puppies for the whole day.

When they finally set off towards Emden in a hire car, they had worked out that Bea was their designated contact in Germany in the first place. That meant she could literally deliver them to the doorstep of their new home. The students who had lived in our former half of the house had graduated and it would now be home to the families of Jack and Fred.

“You feeling better, daddy?” Jenny asked me and climbed into my lap, slinging her arms around me.

“Yeah, I’m better little one.”

“I’m no longer the little one,” she insisted with a giggle. “Feli is.”

I just smiled at her, still feeling a bit queasy. Apparently at age twenty-four hang-overs started to last more than one day.

“Daddy, will you show me how to drive a car?” she asked me.

“Jenny, you’re only ten, you won’t even reach the pedals,” I said. “Where did you get that idea from?”

“I can reach the pedals, if you sit behind me,” she insisted. “Matt reached them!”

“The boy from America you write emails to?” I asked.

She nodded giving me her most perfected pout. “His dad let him drive their car. I don’t want to fall behind.”

“We can’t have that,” I said. “But you have to wrangle the car keys from mommy Nadja, good luck with that.”

Jenny took off like greased lightning, and lightning came back not too much later.

“Jobanniy v rot! Chto sa durak polniy!” Nadja ranted and came stalking out into the driveway. “Have you lost your fucking mind, Mark? She’s ten!”

Granted, her harsh Russian swearing lost some of its edge, considering she was stark naked with an equally naked Regina pulling her back. “Nadja, Dura, you’re practically standing in the street!”

“What’s going on here,” Regina demanded once we were out of public view. “If you call Mark a cocksucker, you better have a good reason for that!”

“He wants to let Jenny drive my car,” Nadja lamented and threw her arms in the air.

Regina looked at me.

I raised my hands in surrender. “Bond let Matt drive their car and Jenny doesn’t want to miss out,” I explained with a sigh. “It’s not like we plan to win the Finland rally. She’ll hardly reach the pedals anyway, so a few times up and down the road in the old mines...”

Regina buried her face in her palms. “Jeez the two of them are ten and eleven and they already behave like a married couple. Mark, if you think you can handle it ... But if that car comes back with as much as a fucking dent on it, Nadja and I will have your guts for garters.”

“No pressure then,” I said dryly as Nadja handed me the keys. Considering that she was naked and obviously didn’t have any pockets on her, I wondered why she had brought them in the first place. Her rant seemed to have been more for the show than anything else.

I sat in the drivers seat with Jenny sitting between my legs. I was ready to grab the wheel if things went awry. That way she could just about reach the pedals and look out of the windscreen through the steering wheel.

“Okay, release the clutch slowly to get us going,” I explained.

She didn’t release the clutch slowly. Jenny yanked in the first gear, let go of the clutch and we took off like a bat out of hell, leaving fifty quid worth of rubber on the tarmac as she took off with screeching wheels. I realized I had been played big time when she ripped through the gears all the way to fifth until we were traveling at the speed of sound, or at least it felt like it.

Fucking hell, for all I had told Regina, Jenny would have won the Finland rally!

Regina

I inspected the car and although it was dirty up to the roof, after all the old mining area was mostly sand, there was no damage on it, but Jenny’s idiotic grin was enough for me to know things hadn’t gone quite the way Mark had planned. So much was obvious when he fainted. He just fell over like a board, landing face first in the dirt.

That really riled up Lydia and she grabbed Jenny so forcefully I had to separate them.

“What the hell happened?” I demanded of Jenny in a stern motherly tone I rarely used.

“I ... I got carried away,” she admitted and started to weep when realization set in that Mark was lying passed out on the ground.

“How carried away?” I demanded.

“Enough to empty a quarter of the tank,” Nadja said after looking into the car.

“You can race cars when you’re old enough,” I ranted. “Until then you stay the fuck away from them, and I don’t give a rat’s end if Matt is allowed to! I bet his father didn’t end up on the floor out cold! DO WE UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER?!”

Jenny ran away bawling and the next thing I knew was an almighty slap landing across my face with a furiously looking Meri staring me down.

“OTSTANJ’TE VSE!” Nadja shouted. “Sit down all of you!”

Lydia

Nobody said anything while Nadja silently wept as she cradled Mark’s head in her lap. For all our hysterics, none of us had paid any attention to the fact that he had been lying in the dirt, out cold. We all looked at each other guiltily.

“Shlyukhi vse miy,” Nadja ranted. “Kak budto on tolko sdesj’ chtobiy trachatj’ nas. Gordiye my devchonki eh? Reshaemsyia dela sdesj’ i seychas ili ya otvaliyu otsyuda!”