Page 147 of Love What's Left
“Five more minutes,” Dave says. “We’re going to make it.”
Dave is wrong.
“That’s our daughter’s head. That’s hair. She’s crowning, Sydney.”
Sydney doesn’t acknowledge my words, just labors, nearly silently, to bring our child into the world.
“Her head is out . . . holy . . . it’s rotating . . .”
“You have to catch her. Support the head and chest,” Josh says.
But my hands are already there, one of them guiding and supporting our baby’s head on my forearm, my pinkie and thumb hooking under her armpits to keep her steady and my other hand catching her body. Our daughter comes fast and unstoppable, a perfect strike straight into the waiting net of my hands.
The noise, the city, and the panic fade. A sob chokes my words. “She’s beautiful, Sydney. She’s beautiful.”
I lift her carefully, cradling her in my arms, holding her against me. She has a touch of blood on the top of her head, but not much. There’s a little of the white stuff they call vernix on her. Her red face scrunches up under a mass of dark hair, and she wails the high angry cry of newborn with fantastic lungs.
“The cord?” I ask, worried.
“You’re less than a minute from medical care. They’ll take care of it. Just get her warm. Skin-to-skin contact will help her regulate her respiration and heart rate,” Josh says.
Sydney pulls her shirt over her chest and unsnaps her nursing bra. I lay Peanut against her skin, settling her against her mother.
My throat closes. Through eyes blurred with tears, I locate another blanket from the diaper bag and cover them both, then layer my jacket over the blanket. Pressing my lips to my wife’s forehead, I rest my palm on our daughter’s back. “I know you hate hospitals, but your private room in the birthing center is a five-star hotel compared to this.”
She gurgles a wet laugh and finds my eyes. Then her face crumples, tears spilling for the first time as she holds our squirming bundle against her chest. “Gabriel,” she says, and it means “I love you.”
“Sydney.” I answer back, her name still and always a promise.
One sunny autumn day, I met a woman who knocked my cold, dying world on its axis. I didn’t know, then, that I could live a life that wasn’t pain. Had no clue of the stunning moments of joy waiting for me or that quiet contentment could be a peaceful hum in my soul.
I smile down at our daughter. “Hello, baby. Your name is Cordelia Rose McRae.”
She blinks, shocked and angry at her abrupt entry into the world. A universe full of possibility stretches before her. “You’re going to have such a life full of laughter, and learning, and joy, and striving, and fighting, and changing, and pain and grief and happiness that feels like river inside you. And you’ll never for an instant not know what it is to be loved.”
