by Nina Lane
“Hey,” he whispers. “How are you?”
“Will I ever have this baby?”
He strokes my hair. “You will. I promise.”
I let my eyes close again. He never tells me something unless he means it. Unless he knows it.
I doze again. When I wake, my mouth is parched, and I have a horrible combination of hunger and nausea. I suck on ice chips and imagine a chocolate milkshake.
Dean sits beside the bed, paces the floor, and only leaves the room to get a cup of coffee. Dr. Nolan stops by intermittently to check on my progress. Twelve hours after I was first admitted, she looks up from another dilation check and smiles.
“Are you ready to have your baby, Liv?”
Dean is at my side in a flash. I tighten my hand on his and nod.
“I’m ready.”
Our son comes into the world after both months and a second. One minute ago, our family was me and Dean, and then—despite the months of pregnancy, the hours of labor that seemed endless, and the final flurry of activity—our boy arrives in what seems like no time at all.
The epidural continues to work its magic as I do everything I’m supposed to do. Even though I obey the nurses’ instructions about when to push, when to stop, when to breathe, it feels like part of me is floating above the bed, separate from the mechanics of giving birth but utterly secure in the knowledge that I’m doing everything right.
As always, Dean is a constant, steady presence at my side, his deep voice a stream of love and encouragement in my ear. He leaves me only to check on the progress of things between my legs, and he is as fascinated with that event as he has been with everything else.
My body strains with pressure, work, tension. I strain, sweat, grit my teeth, and push, push, push. Then, when I can hardly inhale another breath, Dr. Nolan looks up at me.
“One more, Liv,” she says. “That should do it.”
I close my eyes and push. My heart pounds. The pressure releases, a sudden lifting, and then a baby’s cry fills the air, my heart, my soul.
I open my eyes. Dr. Nolan holds up a damp, squirming baby boy, the umbilical cord still attaching him to me, and my breath stops in my throat. I stare at the baby, stunned, and then my son opens his eyes and looks right at me with eyes as black as night.
In that instant, I’m both lost and forever found.
I sink back against the pillows. Dr. Nolan hands the baby to one of the nurses, who says something about me needing to breastfeed right away, and there’s another bustle of activity and movement before Nicholas is wrapped in a blanket and placed in my arms.
He’s both weightless and heavy, like an anchor securing me to the earth. A brilliant, golden streamer of love and hope unfurls, hugging us both in a warm, protective embrace. Not until this moment have I more clearly understood the meaning of the word wonder.
“Shift him a little toward you.” Karen moves to my side, helping me get Nicholas to latch onto my breast. When he does, his eyes drift closed.
There’s a movement at my side. I turn to where Dean is sitting beside the bed, his gaze on Nicholas’s face. For a moment, I stare at my husband. His eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot, stubble covers his jaw, and his hair is a mess. He has never looked more beautiful.
Dean shifts his gaze to mine.
“Hi,” I whisper past the tightness in my throat.
He leans forward and puts a gentle hand on my head, pressing his lips to my forehead.
“I love you so much, Liv.” His voice is rough.
“I love you too, Dean.”
The words will never be enough to encompass everything we are to each other, but he and I both know all the secret nuances and intricacies that belong to us alone. And the rest of the world fades into the distance.
Dean and I look at the baby together. Nicholas’s face is pink and scrunched, his eyelashes long and dark against his cheeks, his little hands balled into fists. A sweet, fragrant scent wafts from him. A tuft of dark hair covers his head. As we watch, he starts to squirm. His eyes flutter open to reveal his midnight eyes.
“Hello, Nicholas,” I say softly.
He yawns. I glance at Dean with a smile. He’s looking at our son as if he’s never seen a baby before. His eyes are damp. He shifts his gaze to mine.
And then there just aren’t any words at all.
CHAPTER SIX
DEAN
AFTER THE NURSE TAKES NICHOLAS FOR testing, I leave Liv to rest and go outside for a few minutes. I stand on the sidewalk outside the hospital, breathing the cool evening air and trying to untangle everything I’ve been feeling for the past day.
My hand shakes as I pull out my cell and scroll my contacts, then press the phone to my ear. “Dad?”
“Dean?” His voice is wary, probably because I never call him when he’s still at work. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is fine,” I assure him. “Better than fine. I called to tell you Liv had the baby. A boy.”
There’s a stunned silence on the other end, as if my father hadn’t even known Liv was pregnant. I almost smile.
“Dad?”
He clears his throat. “That’s great news, Dean. I’m… how did it go?”
“It was rough for Liv, but no complications.” I take a breath. “He’s six and a half pounds. We named him Nicholas.”
“Nicholas West. Good name. Strong.”
“Yeah.” My throat is starting to close up. “So, uh, I’ll give you a call later, okay? I want to tell Mom too.”
“Congratulations, son.”
I end the call and dial my mother’s cell to tell her the news.
“Dean, I’m so happy for you.” Her voice thickens with emotion. “I’ll let Paige know and tell her you’ll call her when things settle down a bit.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
I hesitate for a second, not sure if I want to make my next request but knowing I’ll regret it if I don’t. If nothing else, my brother needs to know he has a nephew.
“Hey, you don’t happen to have Archer’s contact number, do you?” I ask my mother.
“I don’t know, dear,” she says, her tone edged with worry. “Last time he called me, he was in Texas, I think. Do you want me to try and find out where he’s staying?”
“Yeah. I’d like… well, I’d like for him to know about Nicholas.”
I don’t know what I expect to happen by telling Archer he has a nephew. Maybe nothing. Maybe something. It’s been a long time since I’ve believed anything good might come of my relationship with my brother. I guess having a child does that to a person—gives you a reason to hope.
“I’ll do what I can, Dean,” my mother says. “Give our best to Liv, and please send pictures. I love you.”
“You too, Mom.”
I end the call and draw in another few gulps of air. The world still seems out-of-focus, as if it has stopped for the past day and is trying to start again.
I head back to Liv’s room. She’s asleep, her features pale but relaxed. I stop beside the bed and touch her shoulder. More emotions than I know what to do with crash through me. Amazement, gratitude, awe, wonder. A love so all-consuming, so fierce, that it has the power to bring me to my knees.
I brush a few strands of hair away from Liv’s forehead and graze my fingers against her smooth cheek. A noise sounds from the adjoining room, and I straighten as a nurse enters. She smiles at me.
“He’s just in here,” she whispers, gesturing behind her.
I follow her into the room, where Nicholas is in his little bassinet. There’s a blue knit cap on his head, and he’s starting to squirm out of his blanket.
“He’ll be hungry by the time Liv wakes up, so we’ll bring him in for breastfeeding,” the nurse tells me. “You’re welcome to have some time with him now. Just press the buzzer if you need anything.”
She motions to a buzzer beside a rocking chair and leaves the room. I look at my son for a moment before reaching into the bassinet to pick him up. So small, almost weightless, like a bird nestling into the crook of my arm.
I sit down and rub my hand over the fuzzy tuft of his hair. He blinks up at me. I read somewhere that a baby’s eye-color lightens over time. I hope Nicholas’s eyes turn a warm, dark brown, just like his mother’s.
I examine his fingers and toes, the shell-shape of his ears. I run my finger over his eyebrows and tickle the soles of his feet.
Some part of me is surprised by how natural this feels, how easy. I was so focused on the pregnancy that I haven’t allowed myself much time to think about actually holding a baby. But our son fits just right in my arms, he seems to like the movement of the rocking chair, and he’s looking at me like he knows exactly who I am.
Like he knows we’re going to be the best of friends.
I lower my head. Breathe in his clean baby smell.
“One day I’ll teach you how to pitch a baseball,” I tell him. “How to knot a necktie. How to kick a field goal. How to tie a lure, ride a bike, and barbeque a steak.”
He squirms. I shift him a little and rock in a different rhythm. He yawns.
“I’ll try and get you interested in medieval architecture, but it’s okay if it bores you,” I continue. “I’ll explain why the Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street is the best album of all time. I’ll build Lego spaceships and tree-houses with you. We’ll go on train rides and sailboats. I’ll tell you to always do the right thing, but I’ll understand when you don’t and we’ll figure out together how to do better next time.”
I brush my lips across his soft hair. “You lucked out with your mother, kid. She’s amazing. She’s going to do everything right. Me, on the other hand… I’ll probably mess up this whole parenting thing sometimes. Sorry in advance for that. But you can also help me figure out how to do better next time. And I promise I will always do the best I can for you. In everything. Okay?”
He yawns again and flexes his tiny hands, then closes one fist tight around my forefinger.
CHAPTER SEVEN
OLIVIA
PART OF ME WANTS TO SIT in bed forever with Dean by my side and our baby in my arms, but there’s a lot to do and even more to learn. The nurses bring Nicholas in and out for breastfeeding, instructions, tests, bonding. A lactation consultant comes to offer advice about positioning the baby to avoid discomfort, a photographer takes newborn pictures of Nicholas, and delivery people bring flowers and balloons from our friends.
Through it all, Dean sits beside my bed, sometimes holding the baby and sometimes just watching. He doesn’t say much, but I can almost see his brain processing everything as Dr. Nolan provides instructions for recovery, and a nurse discusses a very long list of things to be mindful of once we’re home with the baby.
Two days pass in much the same way. Dean rarely leaves. He sleeps on a fold-out bed in my room and showers in the adjoining bathroom.
He holds Nicholas whenever he gets a chance, learns how to change a diaper and use a bulb syringe on the baby’s stuffy nose. He takes notes about the symptoms that would require a call to the doctor when we’re home. He watches carefully whenever I try to nurse, and by the second day he’s using terms like “latching on” and “colostrum.”
Kelsey comes in with a huge chocolate bar for me and a mild scolding for Dean because he didn’t call her right when I went into labor.
“I was a little busy at the time,” he remarks dryly.
“You’re forgiven. When do I get to meet my godson?”
“I’ll ask the nurse to bring him in.”
After he leaves, Kelsey brings up a calendar on her phone and shows it to me.
“So I’ve got a schedule for people to bring you guys dinner,” she says. “We’re rotating on a four-day basis, and everyone’s instructed to bring at least enough for two meals.”
“Kelsey, you didn’t have to do that.”
“Trust me, you’ll thank me later.” She puts the phone back in her purse. “Allie is trying to get everyone to base their meals around a theme. There’s enough food in your fridge now for the next five days, but I’ll call tomorrow to see if you need anything. And I’m on-call if you want me to take care of the baby while you catch up on sleep or something.”
“Thank you so much.”
She waves her hand dismissively, as if she knows I’m about to get emotional. The door opens, and a nurse wheels Nicholas’s bassinet in. Dean follows.
“Oh my god, he’s beautiful.” Kelsey reaches into the bassinet to pick up the bundle of baby. After settling him in the crook of her arm, she smells the top of his head and starts cooing at him and making baby noises.
Dean and I exchange amused looks, even though both of us have always known Kelsey is a secret softie.
“Okay, I’m leaving you alone.” Kelsey shifts Nicholas carefully back into the bassinet and bends to hug me. “You’ve got a gorgeous kid there, Liv. Thank the gods he looks like you.”
She flashes Dean a smile. He responds with a wink.
“No argument from me,” he remarks.
“I’m number one on your speed-dial, so call if you need me.” Kelsey lets Dean give her a bear hug, even responding with one of her own, before she heads off.
Dean brings Nicholas to me, and I get him positioned for another attempt at nursing.
While both Dr. Nolan and the nurses are all lovely and helpful, by the time my discharge time rolls around, I’m very ready to be home. Dean and I pack up our things, and I dress Nicholas in a “newborn” onesie and pants that are so big they hang off his little arms and legs. I settle him in his carry car-seat and buckle the straps.
Among all the many other unexpected things in recent months, I’m surprised by how natural it already is to care for our son—and that had been one of the things I wasn’t at all certain I could do.
Turns out there have been a lot of things I wasn’t certain I could do—and yet I’ve discovered I can do them very well indeed.
After I sign the discharge papers, a nurse wheels me to the front door where Dean is waiting with the car. He settles Nicholas in the backseat and opens the passenger side door for me. I shift to get comfortable and pull on my seatbelt.
After Dean closes the door and gets into the driver’s seat, he doesn’t move. Silence fills the air.
“Dean?” I glance at him.
He’s watching me, his dark eyes filled with warmth and tenderness. He holds up his left hand. I put my left hand against his. We twine our fingers together, and our wedding rings make a familiar click that sounds like the bright, gentle ring of a bell.
Dean brings my hand up and brushes his lips across my fingers, then releases me so he can start the car.
“You, me, and now three, beauty,” he says.
“We’re a trio.” I smile. “Three sides, like a triangle. Isn’t a triangle the strongest shape in the universe?”
“According to mathematicians and scientists, maybe,” Dean says. “Not according to me.”
“So according to Professor West,” I ask, “what’s the strongest shape in the universe?”
“A heart.”
Of course. My beautiful, brilliant husband.
And so we bring our son home, moving together into our new future as parents—a future forever woven with the unbreakable golden thread of Liv and Dean.
Thank you for reading ARRIVE. Please consider providing a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. I hope you enjoy Liv and Dean’s story.
You will hear thunder and remember me, and think,
“She wanted storms.”
—Anna Akhmatova
PROLOGUE
ARCHER
WE CALLED IT THE CASTLE. FIVE rough, splintery boards nailed to the tree branches and three
sheets of plywood stuck to the sides. We hadn’t put on a roof, though, because the leaves of the oak tree made a thick canopy. We both liked the way the sun fell through the branches. If it rained, we put up an old tarp that kept most of the water out.
We’d cut a rectangle in the plywood wall opposite the tree trunk and made a door out of a piece of crate siding and some hinges we’d found in the garage. The door didn’t close all the way because of the heavy rope we used to climb the branches. We pulled the rope up for security when we were both inside. “Raise the drawbridge,” Dean would shout, though sometimes if I went to The Castle by myself, I’d pull the rope up after me so I could be alone.
Sometimes I just didn’t want my brother around. Dean was bigger, older, smarter. I was the runt of the litter—the youngest and the stupidest. I always had trouble in school, couldn’t keep up, was assigned to special ed. Dean did everything so easily, was so much better. It was the reason our parents always paid more attention to him.
But we were equals in The Castle. Sometimes the tree house was a pirate ship, a secret island, a spaceship, the peak of a mountain where the intrepid explorers, the West Brothers, would reach the top, plant a flag, and celebrate their victory by dining on messy sandwiches and chocolate milk.
I remember it all. Sometimes we were friends. Sometimes we were enemies. Then as Dean got older, he started to lose interest in The Castle. He had more homework, more sports, more friends. Girls teased him and liked him. He soon forgot about The Castle.
I didn’t. I still climbed the old oak, pretending I was the lone survivor of a shipwreck, a lost mountaineer, the sole guardian of a fortress under attack. And even though I didn’t always like being around Dean, it was different without him. Harder to battle pirates and fight monsters alone.
When Dean was thirteen, our parents let him buy a Sega Genesis with money he’d earned doing neighborhood yard work. He kept the video-game console in his room and only sometimes let me use it.