So breakable.
And it looks like Halo might break if I touched her even with a finger.
Good thing I haven’t.
Not yet, seeing as they took her straight to the NICU after surgery and stuck her with all these tubes. So I haven’t gotten to hold my daughter yet.
My daughter.
She’s my daughter. I have a daughter.
Over the past months, I thought I was preparing myself. I had questions. I asked them. I had a list of things to buy for her. The list of things she’ll need when she arrives.
And yes, I’ve been afraid.
Of course I have been. Of what kind of a father I’ll be. Given I always had a shitty one.
But I never thought I’d feel so incompetent. So blind as to what to do next.
What am I supposed to do now? With her.
How am I supposed to contain all this love? All this rush of love that I’ve never felt before.
Not this kind of love.
It’s like I’ll burst. My skin will fall apart with the kind of love I feel for my baby.
So yeah, I don’t know.
Except the only thing, the only person in this whole world, that has the power to calm me down, to give me peace, is sleeping. Doctors say that she’s doing great.
Except the normal post-op pain and recovery and the weakness that she’ll feel.
Oh, and her ankle’s sprained from the fall.
And I know she’s going to be fine but with her eyes closed and her blonde hair fanned over the white pillow, she looks just as fragile as Halo.
Just as beautiful and small and mine.
But then those eyes flutter and open, pure and shining blue, and my heart skips a beat.
“Hey,” I whisper, leaning over from my chair by her bed and squeezing her hand that I’ve been holding for the better part of the last two hours.
She smiles, those fairy-like eyes roving over my face. “Hey.” Then she frowns slightly. “You look completely destroyed.”
A tired chuckle escapes me. “And you look like a fairy.” She chuckles slightly too and I swallow. “How do you… how do you feel?”
“Good. I had a dream.”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. About the championship game. I’m at the stadium, watching your game,” she whispers, squeezing my hand back, making something prickle in my throat. “And I’m all dressed up in my tutu and my wings and I’m smiling because I know you’re gonna score the goal. But then, you look up from the field. You look directly at me and you smile too and I want to tell you that you need to keep your eye on the ball or you’ll lose but I’m so happy. So happy that you looked at me, that you didn’t care about the game and the world and you just looked at me in the crowd. And then, I felt Halo in my belly and…” Her breaths hasten, her eyes filling with realization and her free hand flies over to her belly. “Halo. What… where’s…”
“Hey, hey.” I squeeze her hand, trying to get her attention. “She’s fine. She’s here. She’s —”
“But she wasn’t supposed to be… I fell, Roman.” She looks at me with teary, panicked eyes. “I fell at school and there was so much pain. And I was waiting for you but you never came and Halo… where’s Halo?”
“Hey, look at me, Fae. Look at me. I’m here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving.” I squeeze her hand again. I keep squeezing it as if trying to pump her heart back to life, as if to tell her lungs to breathe, just breathe. “And Halo’s fine. She’s fine. A little premature but she’s doing great, okay? There’s nothing to worry about. I promise. I promise, Fae.”
Tears are falling from her eyes, disappearing into her hair. “You promise?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I do. She’s fine. You’re fine too.”
Finally her breaths calm down. “Okay, I trust you. I need…” But with her ease comes exhaustion and her eyes are fluttering closed. “I need to see her. Take me… take me to her… she must be alone and… afraid. She must be…”
I caress her hair, rub my thumb over her almost completely shut eyelids.
And when she goes back to sleep, her breathing calm, easy, I kiss her forehead, smell her sweet scent and promise, “I won’t let her be. I won’t let Halo be afraid. Or you. Ever.”
Halo Cora Jackson is beautiful.
She’s the most beautiful baby to ever be born. I know I’m biased because I’m her mom, but I don’t care. She’s got the darkest hair and the bluest eyes, even bluer than mine, and she has the rosiest cheeks.
And she’s small.
Even now, four weeks later.
She was small to begin with. Because she wasn’t supposed to arrive so early, see. She was supposed to be here in July but she came in May.
But I’m not complaining.
I’m not complaining at all.