by Hart, Staci
My phone buzzed again. A shot of adrenaline followed.
Lily: How far are you?
I couldn’t breathe, my heart thudding painfully.
Six blocks, I typed back. Fucking traffic.
The cab edged forward a couple of feet, as if to underscore my anxiety.
Lily: She’s close. She’s trying to hang on for you, but she’s not going to make it much longer.
Fear gripped me. I pulled my wallet out, flipped through the bills, barely seeing. “This is close enough,” I said, shoving two fifties through the divider window.
“Good luck, man,” the cabbie said, smiling. “Congratulations!”
I was too worried to smile, too afraid to feel joy. “Thanks,” I said as I popped open the door and bolted.
My feet ate up six blocks in an Olympic sprint. The pedestrians existed only as obstacles between me and Rose and my baby.
Baby.
I imagined her in labor, flashing images built, using television shows as the total of my reference. Sure, Lily and Maggie had had babies, but I was never there when it happened. Although I’d heard the stories. When you got three women together who were either pregnant or had babies, it was inevitable. I knew far more about mucus plugs than I’d ever wanted to be subjected to.
But hearing and seeing were two different things.
I wished I hadn’t gone to work. I wished I’d been there when her water broke, in the cab, wheeling her into her room. I wished I were there right now, holding her hand, telling her it was going to be okay.
Instead, I slammed into a guy by accident, spinning off of him as I regained my footing. I tossed a half-assed apology over my shoulder and kept going, my focus single, determined, and sharp with urgency.
When I turned the corner and saw the hospital, relief washed over me, and I found a well of reserved energy, picking up my pace. I bolted through the doors, scanning for the elevators, reaching them just as they opened. I mashed the button for the fourth floor and leaned against the cold steel wall, breath sawing in and out of my chest, my face and arms and chest and legs damp with sweat. I grabbed the hem of my T-shirt and dragged it across my face, leaving a smudge of deeper black on black.
Hurry, hurry, hurry.
When the doors opened again, I sprinted out, following the detailed instructions Lily had texted me and I’d subsequently memorized.
I heard Rose before I saw her, the moan of pain and exertion hitting me in a deep, primal part of me, one that had me ready to rip a door off its hinges or separate a man’s arms from his body. Action. It inspired action and a final rush of adrenaline so blindingly powerful that it made me feel superhuman.
I burst through the door, taking in the scene in a split second that stretched on as I cataloged everything. Lily on one side of Rose, holding her leg, a nurse on the other. Dr. Quan between her legs, blocking the juncture from my view. And Rose. My Rose, her hair in a knot on top of her head, strands plastered to her sweating pink face.
Our eyes connected, plucking a string in my chest, the one always connected to her.
“Patrick,” she rasped, her voice gone, the single word so thick with relief and love and surrender that I nearly broke, my shaking knees barely keeping me standing.
“I’m here,” I said as I flew across the room to her, not stopping until her face was in my hands and turned up to mine as she cried.
“I didn’t think you’d make it. I was so scared, and I tried to wait, but I couldn’t wait. But you’re here. You’re here.” The muscles in her face contracted, tears spilling, mingling with the sweat glistening on her cheeks.
“I’m here, Rosie. I’m here, babe. I love you. I’m sorry, so sorry. I’ve been running and trying to get here, but everything was wrong and all I could think was that you were alone and I wasn’t here and, my God, I love you. I love you.” I stopped the tumbling words by occupying my lips with hers, kissing her, breathing her, my gratitude to the universe that I’d made it in time bone deep.
She broke away with a hiss, her face tightening again, eyes slit and hand on her belly. “Here it comes,” she said, and something in her voice shifted in determination.
The nurse handed me her leg. “Hold her just like this. Take her weight when she pushes.”
I did as I’d been told, holding the hook of her knee with worry on my face and mind and heart.
“Don’t worry, Dad. You’re gonna be fine.” Her smile was comforting, as was her hand on my shoulder.
Dad.
I didn’t have time to contemplate the word before Rose’s breath sped, and she leaned forward. And then she didn’t breathe at all. Tension and anticipation hung in the air, thick and heavy, touching everything in the room.
“All right, Rose,” Dr. Chan said with authority. “Ready? Push.”
Her eyes pinched shut, her face squeezing, her legs drawing in as she drew her torso up. And her unbreathing silence split into a grunt that broke into an open-mouthed cry of effort and strain.
“That’s it, Rosie,” the doctor said. “Keep going.”
“Come on, babe,” I said, watching her face. “Come on. Push, baby. Push.”
She broke to take a breath, a heaving, desperate, noisy affair before she bore down again with absolute focus. Her cry rose, her chin tipped down, body curving in on itself, her cheeks painfully red.
Without warning, she went limp, flopping back on the bed with her eyes still closed, panting. She opened her eyes only by a millimeter and met mine.
“Did I do it?” she rasped. “Is she here?”
Dr. Quan smiled. “I’ve got her head. One more time, Rose. One more time, and you get to meet your baby.”
Her breath shuddered, tears spilling down her cheeks. Before I realized what I was doing, her cheek was in my palm, my lips against hers.
“One more time,” I said as I helped her sit.
She nodded, her eyes glazed and exhausted. Her thigh was in one of my hands, her hand in the other, clamping mine with bone-crushing force.
“One more time.”
“Here we go,” the doctor said. “Push!”
Her determination was back, her focus deep and intense and the most incredible thing I’d ever seen in all my days.
She pushed. She pushed with everything in her with a resolute roar of intention and purpose and willpower. And as her cry died, another joined in, this one small and sharp and angry.
Rose collapsed, sobbing tears of joy and fatigue, her gaze swinging drunkenly across the room. “My baby. Where’s my baby?”
Dr. Quan stood, smiling, with our baby’s head on one hand and her bottom in the other, holding her up for display. “Congratulations. She’s beautiful.”
Emotion gripped my throat, pricked my nose, welled my eyes with tears at the sight. It didn’t matter that her eyes were closed, her face scrunched in anger and discomfort as she wiggled in the doctor’s arms. It didn’t matter that she was covered in viscous goop and sheening with some substance that made her look white and ashen.
Never in my life had I seen something so perfect.
The nurses went to work, clipping her cord, wiping her off, slapping her feet. And, as we watched, stunned and crying, they brought her around and laid her on Rose’s chest.
I leaned in, bringing my face to Rose’s until we were nearly cheek to cheek, peering into our baby’s face as she rooted and cried in a shuddering series of breaths.
“No, don’t cry, baby,” Rose said as her own tears fell, the words rough and thick. “Shh, don’t cry. I’m sorry. Don’t cry. I know it was hard, but Mama’s here. Mama’s here.”
I pressed a kiss to Rose’s temple, closing my eyes, forcing tears from my lids to roll down my face. “You did it, babe,” I whispered, my eyes on her profile as she looked at our daughter. “You did so good. She’s perfect. You’re perfect.”
“It’s our b-baby,” she said as she cried. “Look at what we made. I’ve never … I didn’t know …”
And then she turned to look at me,
and all I could do was kiss her.
A moment later, the nurse took the baby to wash her and clean her up properly. Rose watched her walk away with longing coloring every feature in her face.
Dr. Quan stepped back between Rose’s legs and reached for her belly. Her hand sank in the now-soft flesh, and when she pressed, Rose flinched, raising her torso.
“Ow, ow!” She shot the doctor a betrayed look.
“I know it’s uncomfortable, but there’s one last thing to do while they’re finishing up with the baby. Feel the contraction?”
She nodded, still looking pissed.
“I’m going to push like this every time, and in a minute, I’m going to have you push again.”
Her chin quivered. “More pushing?”
The doctor smiled encouragingly. “It won’t be hard. Promise.” She mashed Rose’s stomach again.
“Ow!”
“Do either of you want to see it?” she asked.
“No,” we answered at the same time without hesitation or enthusiasm.
She chuckled. “Understood.”
“You didn’t tell me about this,” Rose accused Lily, who looked sheepish.
“I didn’t want to freak you out.”
Rose scoffed. “Said the girl who told me all about the state of her perineum and the wonders of Dermoplast.”
Lily shrugged. “Dermoplast is a scientific miracle, and so are those ice packs that go in your mesh panties. You’ll find out soon enough.”
Rose turned to me, her eyes wide. “Will you stay with the baby? I don’t want her to be alone.”
I kissed her salty forehead. “All right.”
I hated letting her go, but when I turned to the back of the room where a couple of nurses were huddled, my worry and fear dimmed and disappeared.
All that was left was awe and love.
I stopped just outside of their bustling, curious and uncertain. One of the nurses noticed me and smiled, stepping out of the way so I could see.
“Well, come here, Dad. Don’t be shy.”
A tingling of anticipation bloomed from the center of my chest and spread as I took the steps that brought me to her side. She lay in a curved plastic tray, her tiny fists balled and arms and legs bicycling. She hadn’t stopped crying. Cleaned up and bathed, she was even more brilliant, her dark hair downy and her skin purple, almost as if it were bruised.
“Six pounds, twelve ounces,” one of the nurses said, and the other wrote it down. The first nurse supplied a thin measuring tape and ran it along the length of the baby’s body. “Nineteen inches.”
The tiny knit cap they put on her head had a little bow in front made of the same fabric. She had on the tiniest diaper I’d ever seen with a little notch cut out in the waist where the yellow clip on her umbilical cord could lie, unobstructed.
She picked the baby up. “Come here, Dad. Let me show you how to swaddle her.”
We took a step down the counter where a blanket waited, folded into a triangle with the long side on top.
“Lay her down like this,” she instructed, “with her shoulders just below the top.” The baby wriggled, her fists swinging like a prizefighter. “Fold the bottom up around her feet,” she said as she took the bottom point and brought it up to the baby’s middle. “Then, hold her arm down and pull this side tight. Roll her and tuck it in.” She moved expertly, and I tried to repeat the steps in my head, sure I’d never get it. “Then the other side.” She pulled the final point of the triangle over the baby and tucked it tightly under her before picking her up.
The baby’s mouth was a gummy pink O, her little face scrunched.
“You ready?” the nurse asked expectantly, the baby in her arms angled at me.
I swallowed to force the lump in my throat down, but it bobbed back up. I nodded.
She stepped toward me, and I found my empty arms mirroring hers in anticipation. She lifted the baby, and for a brief moment, we both held her in the transfer before her arms slipped away and disappeared.
The bundle in the circle of my arms was solid and warm, so small, so delicate. The only motion the blanket allowed was the small swivel of her tiny face.
“Shh,” I said, nervously adjusting her.
But then she just clicked into my arms, her head in the bend of my elbow and her bottom in my palm, my other arm wrapped protectively around her, her head resting in the curve of my hand. She fit perfectly, the length of her body exactly the length of my arms and hands.
She was mine. My baby.
“Hello,” I said softly.
At the sound of my voice, her crying died, her mouth closing and lips together, thin and dainty, the bow at the top exaggerated and prominent. Her eyes, which had been clamped shut, blinked open with aching slowness. Her irises, which were deep and dark, nearly filled her heavy lids. For a moment, she stared at me, her pupils unmoving, her body still and quiet. And the two of us were caught in a stretch of frozen time as we regarded each other.
She broke the connection with a yawn that stretched her round face out long, her eyes pinching close again. They didn’t open again, her lids soft and relaxed, and she drew in a breath and let out the most delicate sigh.
My heart, I realized, was in my hands, in every eyelash and every strand of hair on her head. With every breath in and out of her miniature lungs, I understood that she was a part of me and separate from me. And, with profound clarity, I understood the depths and lengths I would go to to make her happy, to love her, to keep her safe.
And then I felt Rose’s eyes and looked up to meet them for a long moment of connection. It had always been her. It would always be her. Us. Three of us. Our universe had expanded to include another, and my purpose had focused down to my love for them.
“Come on,” I said to my daughter. “Let’s go see your mama.”
14
Cheers To That
Rose
A cry tore out of Stella when the cold wipe in Patrick’s hand met her bottom.
“Shh,” Patrick soothed. “I know it’s cold. I’ll be fast.”
She didn’t seem to believe him. So he took to humming “Blackbird” by The Beatles.
Within three seconds, she was quiet, her eyes sleepily blinking open.
My insides liquefied. He lifted her bottom with a tug of her ankles, moving the dirty diaper as I slipped a new one in its place. He went to work fastening it, and I tore open a little alcohol wipe to clean off her belly button, which ended her peace with an angry squeal.
“Way to go, Mama,” Patrick said with a smirk in my direction.
I couldn’t hide my slight pout. “I think she likes you better.”
“Let’s reassess when she’s hungry,” he answered as he pulled her nightgown down to cover up her pedaling feet.
I watched him pick her up and rest her against his chest, her little bottom in one of his big, tattooed hands, his other splayed across her back, fingers cupping the back of her head. He bounced gently. She stopped crying almost immediately.
I couldn’t even be mad. Not with the sight of him with our baby, humming softly in the late morning sunshine.
Before yesterday, I couldn’t imagine any of it, not really, not beyond a fantasy or daydream. But now, it was so natural, I couldn’t remember a single moment of my life that wasn’t this, the joining of two people to create a third. I didn’t know what it was like to only care for myself. I had been his before I was hers. But I was both of theirs—always.
I’d been made to love them.
I turned for the hospital bed, brushing my tears away before he could see.
“Knock, knock!” Lily’s voice sounded from the doorway, and behind her were a parade of balloons and smiling faces.
A comforting hum of greetings and laughter and congratulations filled the room, filled my lungs and heart as they all filed in. Hazel held a bouquet of balloons that trailed behind her as she ran in.
“Wosie! I bwought bawoons!” She thrust them in my direction, and I laughed, taking them
from her.
“Wow, Hazel, you’re pretty strong. I can’t believe you didn’t float away.”
She giggled and blushed.
Lily reached over her, Jackson on her hip, to pull me into an awkward hug that was everything I needed. “Hey, babe. You look so good.” She leaned back to look at me and cup my cheek. “How’s Stella?”
“She’s with her favorite parent,” I joked.
Patrick made a face. I couldn’t help but smile at the sight of West at Patrick’s side, peering into the baby’s sleeping face. He brushed a finger across her dark hair, his eyes alight, and when he looked up at Patrick, they shared a look that was beyond what my female sensibilities could understand.
Maggie appeared at Lily’s side with a bouquet of peonies and greenery as Andrew wound himself around her legs with Hazel on his heels. His curly blond hair caught the sunlight, and he made a track around Maggie’s swollen belly as he edged away from Hazel, who was talking a thousand miles a minute about ponies and how he was going to buy her one.
Maggie laughed and rested her hand on Andrew’s golden crown. “Congratulations, Rosie. I’m just so happy for you two,” she beamed.
Cooper materialized behind her, smirking and holding up a flat pink cardboard box. “Brought ya something.”
My salivary glands exploded in my mouth. “Cupcakes or donuts?”
“Cupcakes,” he said, as if it were obvious. “Like we’d cheap out on you.”
I put my hands up in surrender. “Hey, at this point, I’d be happy with anything that wasn’t pudding and cafeteria food. I’m not picky.”
A laugh rumbled through the room, and as it died, everyone gravitated toward Patrick and Stella.
He bounced her, turning sideways to display her to the crowd. “Meet Stella, everybody.”
Hazel clutched West’s shirt as she angled up on her tiptoes to see. He picked her up, bringing her closer.
“Oh, Daddy, she’s so tiny, just wike Jack-Jack.” Her face lit up with joy. “Can I howd him? I wove babies!” She cooed at him, aahing and oohing.