Page 55 of Angel
“Oh God,” she whispers. “I didn’t want…”
“They didn’t come to celebrate,” I say quietly. “They came to stand.”
Carrie’s the first up the porch. She doesn’t hug Stevie right away. Just takes her hands. Searches her face.
“You, okay?” she asks.
Stevie nods, tears spilling again.
“Heartbeat,” she says softly.
Carrie presses her lips together, eyes shining.
“Good,” she whispers. “That’s real good.”
Joker steps up and claps my shoulder. No words. Tank nods once. A look that says he understands exactly what that sound meant.No one asks how far. No mention of baby showers. They just… stay.
Someone fires up the grill, and someone else brings food inside. Laughter drifts through the yard, low and familiar. Stevie sits between Carrie and me on the couch. Polly asleep against her shoulder like she belongs there. And watching my wife laugh, soft, careful, real, something settles in my chest.
This is the joy.
Not fireworks.
Not announcements.
This. Family showing up not to demand happiness, but to hold space for it.
Later, when the bikes roll out one by one and the house quiets, Stevie and I sit on the porch wrapped in a blanket. Night air cools against our skin. Crickets chirping. The world is ordinary again.
“I didn’t spiral,” she says softly. “I was scared… but I didn’t disappear.”
I kiss her temple.
“You did good.”
“So did you,” she says, looking at me. “You didn’t shut down. You didn’t try to control it.”
I think about the old version of myself. The one who would’ve barked orders, who would’ve tried to outrun fear instead of sitting in it.
“I stayed,” I say quietly. “That’s the job.”
She rests her head on my shoulder.
“I don’t know what tomorrow brings.”
“Me neither.”
“But today?” she asks.
I slide my hand over hers, resting warm and steady over her stomach.
“Today we heard a heartbeat,” I say. “And we didn’t lose ourselves to the fear.”
She smiles through tears.
“That feels like a miracle all on its own.”
I pull her closer. Whatever comes next, appointments, scares, unknowns, we’ve already proven something bigger.
