And, at long last, the world stopped spinning. My world stopped spinning, at least. I had everything I needed. Right here. Right now.
Epilogue
Ben
Four Months Later
Carmen was squeezing the living daylights out of my hand. “Jesus, you’re stronger than I would’ve guessed,” I said.
She glared at me. Her hair was slicked over her forehead with sweat, and both cheeks were flushed bright red.
“Not the time,” snapped a nurse to my right. “Move.”
I shuffled out of the way as the woman went over to check the IV bag on a stand next to the hospital bed. It was chaos in the room. Doctors and nurses were swirling around, Carmen was moaning in pain with each contraction, and the air was filled with beeps and clicks of a thousand different machines. But goddamn, the girl could really grip. I’d lost all feeling in my fingertips.
“Push,” ordered the doctor, crouching between her legs.
“Come on, baby,” I said encouragingly. “You got this. I’m right here with you.”
A piercing wail broke the air and my heart stopped in place. Carmen’s face scrunched up, then she slumped back in exhaustion. The doctor at the foot of the bed rose with a grime-covered infant in his hands. I looked at it in amazement. It was my son.
“Carmen, baby, look,” I said, stroking her forearm gently. “Look at him. We made him. That’s ours.”
Her eyes fluttered open. The doctor brought me over to snip the umbilical cord before gently sponging away the slickness covering his skin. When he’d been dried off, he brought the baby over to Carmen and laid him in her arms. I crouched over the head of the bed, my fingers resting on her shoulder, as I stared at my son. Words failed me. That was happening too often lately, but then again, this was never a direction I’d expected my life to go in. I was in a hospital room with my wife and son. Now there was a sentence I never thought I’d say.
“He’s beautiful,” she whispered.
I kissed her on the forehead. “You are, too.”
She looked up at me and smiled. She looked dead tired, like she’d just fought a war, but there was so much beauty and power in those gray eyes of hers. Those otherworldly gray eyes, the ones that had caught my attention so long ago, sticking out of a crowd and demanding that I walk over and into her world. It meant so little at first. Now, it meant everything.
# # #
I pushed the wheelchair carefully through the double doors into the waiting room on the other side. Carmen was seated in it, with our swaddled son nestled in the crook of her elbow. I kept glancing down at him. That skin was so perfect. He’d fallen asleep and I marveled at how calm and still he was, how flawless. I didn’t know what to call the emotions I was feeling.
As soon as we walked in, we were swarmed. Jay, Slick, Duncan, and Spark were there, lingering on the back edge of the crowd, looking ridiculously out of place with their tattoos and leathers in the middle of this pristine white hospital. In front of them, Carmen’s friend Lori had swooped to her knees in front of my wife and was clutching her arm and cooing at the baby.
I leaned down and planted a soft kiss on top of Carmen’s head before walking over to my men. Jay shook my hand. “Congratulations, prez,” he said with a grin. “Now you’re really in for it.”
“Don’t remind me,” I said.
“You ready to be a poppa?” Duncan asked.
“I don’t think anyone’s ever ready, but being around you idiots has definitely given me experience in the dealing with children department.”
We all chuckled. Then I felt a soft touch on my shoulder. I turned around to see Dina. She was smiling, but her eyes were wet with emotion. “I just want to say thank you, Ben,” she said.
“I’ve told you a million times, Dina, you don’t need to thank me.”
“Without you, I would have no closure. I needed that.” She paused before correcting herself. “We needed that.” I looked down and saw her son, standing wobbly on two feet with her hand clasping his.
“He looks so big,” I said.
“He is going to be very strong and handsome. Just like his father.”
I laid my hand on her shoulder. “Without a doubt.”
She smiled again. “Congratulations on your son, Ben. I’ll let you get back to your wife.” Leaning down, she scooped up her son in her arms and kissed him on the cheek before strolling away.
I walked back over to Carmen and crouched at her side. “You look exhausted,” I said.
She groaned. “My whole body hurts. I want to sleep forever.”
“Ready to go?”
Her smile made my chest do that funny twinge, the one it had done the first time I’d seen Carmen, and every time since. It didn’t show any signs of stopping. “Take me home, Ben.”