I WAKE UP DISORIENTED and numb in some places, vaguely aching in others. My last lucid memory is the concern etching lines into Grip’s face as he promised me everything would be okay.
No, that’s not right.
He didn’t promise everything would be okay during the C-section or afterward. He promised to love me, and I know he still does.
But is everything okay?
“Grip?” Briars clot my throat and make my voice rough.
“Hey.” He comes into view, and my heart pounds at the sight of him and then stops when I see him holding a tiny swaddled bundle. “You’re back.”
I remember now. My mind fights through the haze of drugs and exhaustion. I remember struggling to stay awake. Between the drugs and fatigue, I just needed to hear her cry. There was an incredible pressure below the curtain that blocked the lower half of my body, and then a sharp cry. Then, as if my body had held out as long as it possibly could, as soon as I heard that cry, everything went dark.
“Is she . . .”
Alive? Still here? Did I miss her? Is she already gone?
The questions clamor for first place in my head, muddling my thoughts. Tears aren’t far behind, burning my eyes and making my lips tremor.
“She’s right here.” I can’t figure out if Grip’s eyes are more tender when he looks down at our baby girl or back to me. “You wanna hold her?”
Syllables and sounds jumble in my throat, and something close to a whimper then an uncertain nod is all I can manage.
“Zoe,” Grip says, leaning down to the bed with his little bundle. “Meet your beautiful mama.”
He transfers the sweet weight to my arms, leaving a kiss in my hair, which I’m sure is mangled and matted all over my head, but he doesn’t seem to care. If anything, his lips linger.
The tip of a tiny hat peeks from beneath the striped blanket. I hesitate, knowing when I pull the blanket back, when I see her, there’s no going back. I slowly peel the cover away. My heart was braced for something gruesome. The pictures I found online promised nothing like what I’m holding. Her eyes may bulge a little more than typical, but they’re the same gray that stares back at me each morning in the mirror, and her little mouth, even at this stage, bears the wide fullness and sculpted lines of her father’s. I know what Dr. Wagner told me, what all the research says—that she has no cognitive function. How could she, missing most of her brain? I know any movement is just instinctual twitches, reflexes, not responses to stimuli. Maybe my heart just wants to fool itself into thinking there’s an awareness simmering in her eyes, that somehow she knows I’m her mother. I faced the fires of hell to meet her, to have her, even for just minutes or hours, and Grip and I have risked our hearts to hold her.
She was worth it.
I know it’s unwise and I’ll pay for it soon, but I open my heart to this little girl, and like a flood, she rushes in. She squeezes herself into every inch, pervading any available space until a pressure builds in my chest and explodes in a sob.
“Oh, God.” Tears sluice down my cheeks, imprinting joy on my face. “She’s beautiful.”
I look up to find Grip looking at me the way I must be looking at her—like she’s a miracle I’m going to hold on to as long as I can.
“Beautiful,” he agrees, the tips of his long lashes damp with tears.
“I can’t believe I passed out.” I look back to Zoe, determined to absorb as much of her as I can while I have her.
“Between the drugs and the fatigue, I’m surprised you weren’t out longer. It was just for a few minutes, not long at all.” Grip eases himself down on the bed beside me, sheltering us with his arm over our heads on the pillow. “The nurses said it happens.”
“You cut the cord?” I pry my eyes away from her long enough to catch my husband’s smile, pride shining from every pore.
“Yeah, I did,” he says softly. “It was amazing.”
“Good.”
We both turn when the door opens. Dr. Wagner enters, her face a careful mask of polite concern. A nurse follows closely behind.
“How are we doing?” Dr. Wagner asks, picking up the chart hanging at the end of my bed.
“Okay.” I meet her eyes frankly, gratefully. “I know you weren’t sure we made the right decision, but thank you for getting her here.”
“It wasn’t that, Bristol.” A smile breaks through her professional façade. “That decision can only lie with the parents. It’s my job to make sure you have all the facts and know exactly what a decision entails.”
I glance back down at Zoe and then to Grip. The reality presses in on us. We can’t hide from the end that looms somewhere in the distance, though we don’t know how close.