Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49385 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 247(@200wpm)___ 198(@250wpm)___ 165(@300wpm)
“Me too,” he admits, and somehow that unlocks something. “But we can do this together. I’m right here and I’m not going anywhere.”
It’s not like the movies. It’s work. It’s focus. It’s Dr. Patel saying, “Beautiful—again,” and Kelley’s countdowns that feel like rocket launches I can actually survive. It’s Lucas’s forehead pressed to mine between pushes, his hands bracing my shoulders when I want to curl away from my own power.
The storm rages louder; a gust rattles the window and the lights flutter, but the generator hum steadies and the room keeps holding. I can’t tell if minutes or centuries pass. I am a person and a volcano and a metronome; I am every woman who has ever done this and somehow still just me, here, with the man I didn’t think I’d need and the baby who is about to make every metaphor literal.
“Okay, Melanie,” Dr. Patel says, voice bright and calm. “One more like that. You are almost there.”
I want to believe her and I do, because the whole room leans toward me like a promise. I close my eyes and push like I’m swimming toward the surface and the light. The world narrows to a ring of fire and then—everything changes.
A cry, sharp and wild and the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.
Time stutters and then sprints. Hands move fast and sure. And then there, on my chest, warm and slippery and outraged at the weather, is our baby boy.
I didn’t know my heart could do this thing—this expanding, this cracking open, this rearranging of furniture. I laugh-cry, both at once, like maybe I’ve been practicing for exactly this sound. Lucas’s hand cups the baby’s back; his other covers my cheek. He presses his forehead to mine and then to the baby’s crown.
“Hi,” he says, voice wrecked. “Hi, Peanut.”
“Hi,” I whisper to both of them, and the room—this messy, humming, generator-lit room—becomes holy.
I count fingers and toes because that’s the law, but also because counting is how I make sense of joy. Ten and ten. A little mouth like a rosebud and hair that is definitely mine and a nose that is definitely not. The baby blinks, surprised that the world exists, and I introduce us, because that feels polite. “I’m your mom,” I say, awed at the words. “That’s your dad. He’s very good at wedges.”
Lucas laughs and sobs and kisses my hair, my forehead, the baby’s tiny hat. “You did it,” he tells me, like I wrestled the storm and the hospital and time itself. “You did it.”
“We did it,” I correct, dragging him closer with my non-baby hand. “All three of us.”
Dr. Patel is still efficient and reassuring at my feet; Kelley is a blanket magician and a swaddling goddess. The generator hum deepens as the wind howls and I seriously couldn’t be happier.
We call Amelia and Mom from the room that now smells like newness and lemon lotion and sterile hope. “Stay put,” I tell them when they cry. “It’s a boy. A beautiful, perfect little baby boy. We’re safe. We’ll send photos.” It hurts to say don’t come, but it hurts in that good, grown-up way that means I know things now.
Lucas takes a hundred pictures, then a thousand. He narrates them to the baby like color commentary. “This is your mom,” he tells the squirmy burrito in my arms. “She’s the bravest person in any room. She’s also very into lemons.”
I’m floating. I’m anchored. I’m ruined in the best way. The storm outside turns the windows into watercolor. The lights flicker once, flirt with drama, then hold. Our baby boy nuzzles toward my voice like he already knows we’ve been talking this whole time.
I slide my hand into Lucas’s where it rests on the blanket. Our fingers interlace around this tiny human we made by accident and on purpose at the same time. He looks at me with a face I haven’t seen before—open, reverent, almost scared of how much can fit in one chest.
21
Lucas
He’s here. He’s real. He’s asleep in a swaddle that makes him look like a very opinionated burrito, one hand fisted at his cheek like he’s already skeptical of our time management.
I have never felt this feeling. Not under fire, not crossing mountain roads at midnight, not at any finish line I’ve ever limped across. It’s like my ribs learned a new setting.
Melanie is propped against pillows, hair in a soft mess, eyes the exact brown that rewired me the night we met. She’s watching our son like she’s memorizing him for a test she’ll happily take forever.
“Okay,” she says, voice hushed and giddy. “We have to stop calling him Peanut now that he has… a face.”
We’ve been dancing around names for days. I sit on the edge of the bed, lay a finger in the tiny palm. He clamps down with a seriousness that wrecks me.