Page 85 of Aperture

While still holding her hand, I try to slyly sneak a peak of the action by leaning ever so slightly to the left.

“Wyatt! Get back up here!” she yells. “We talked about this. If you try to look down there one more time, I’m going to make sure it’s the last time you ever see my vagina.”

“Geez,” I say under my breath. “I just thought it would be cool to see the baby coming.”

“Right?” Gwen agrees. “It’s the miracle of life. I wanna look at Millie’s vagina, too!”

“I can hear both of you!” Millie grits out. “No one looks at my vagina! Keep it up and you are both getting kicked out.”

I’m pretty sure I hear her doctor snicker from his perch between her thighs.

Gwen and I make eye contact and chuckle like a couple of kids who have been caught doing something wrong, but Millie’s painful groans quickly bring us back to the moment.

“Wyatt,” she cries. “It hurts.”

“Look at me,” I tell her. “Look right here.” I look directly into her eyes. “Focus here and breathe.” I look into her gray-blue eyes and see the strength there that she has always possessed but sometimes forgets.

“AAAHHHH,” she cries again. “I can’t.”

“Millipede, listen to me. You are the strongest woman I have ever met. You are minutes away from meeting him. You will do this.” This time when we lock eyes, I can see her resolve. Yep, my girl’s got this.

She nods and grips my hand harder. I see the knuckles on her other hand turn white as she's gripping Gwen’s hand with the same force. I know it’s the same force because Gwen looks like she is about to pass out.

“That’s good, Millie,” the doctor says. “Just a couple of more pushes.” Millie leans forward while I help by leaning in behind her. She pushes one more time with a loud noise somewhere between a grunt and a scream and then falls back onto the bed.

I look down and see a tiny, red, squishy, goopy mess of a human being tended to by the doctor. Ten fingers. Check. Ten toes. Check. Tiny penis and balls. Double check. The baby gets handed to the nurse who rubs him with a towel, and he starts to cry. They weigh him and check his APGAR scale (I paid attention in birthing class) and then he gets wrapped in a tiny blanket, then the nurse hands him to Millie, who is crying from joy and sheer exhaustion.

“Hi Handsome,” she coos, looking into his little face. I know I’m biased, but he is the cutest baby I’ve ever seen. Millie places kisses on his tiny cheeks and nose. “You will never have to wonder how much I love you. Do you understand that? Never.” She unwraps his blanket and kisses his tiny fingers. “I.” Kiss. “Will.” Kiss. “Never.” Kiss. “Leave.” Kiss. “You.” Kiss.

The tears I’ve been holding back break free and travel down my cheeks. I am not much of a crier but hearing her speak those words twists my heart inside my chest. Gwen, who has been crying silently, finally speaks.

“Mouse, I’m going to go spread the good news and give you two some time alone.” She leans over and kisses Millie’s forehead and Millie smiles up at her, only momentarily taking her eyes off of the baby.

When we are finally alone, she looks at me expectantly. “Do you want to hold him?”

“More than anything,” I say without pause. She carefully hands me the baby and I cradle him in my arms, supporting his neck. He looks up at me and opens his eyes briefly. It’s such a surreal feeling to look into the eyes of my best friend. His hair is lighter, like Millie’s, at least for now. But those amber-colored eyes are from his father.

“How do you feel?” Millie asks, chewing on her lower lip with worry.

I exhale, looking down at the baby boy in my arms, and then at her with a smile.” I feel like I have a son.”

Millie’s tears start again, and so do mine.

When Millie found out she was pregnant she was terrified. They gave her a routine pregnancy test in the hospital when she was being treated after what we now refer to as “the incident.”

She tried to hide it from me initially, but I knew something was off.

Finally, one day while we were walking Milo on the beach she stopped me and told me that she was pregnant.

She explained that she hadn’t been feeling well and skipped her birth control pills for a few days due to nausea, and that must’ve been when it happened.

She was burdened with guilt about sleeping with Theo, not because she did anything wrong by me, but because she felt it was then that Theo knew they had no future.

She struggled to forgive herself for the way it happened. I held her tightly as she cried. Then I told her that I planned to be there for her and the baby, who would become the biggest blessing we could ever dream of. As messy as our situation was, it was still our situation and our love, and that made it beautiful to me.

I try not to dwell on the events that led us to finding one another, but rather revel in gratitude that I found the love of my life.

I suspect that initially Millie thought it would get tougher for me to stick around as we got deeper into the pregnancy. She worried I might leave, knowing that the baby was Theo’s. She said she’d understand if that happened. But it didn’t. If anything, I felt closer to Millie and the baby. We went to birthing classes, we shopped for clothes, diapers, swings, and everything else we could think of, and I built a crib. I loved every minute of it.