Chapter 9 - At twelve weeks, the baby had a heartbeat strong enough to make Ethan cry in front of a medical professional.
He denied this afterward.
“You cried,” Amelia said in the car.
“I had something in my eye.”
“You were wearing glasses.”
“Dust can penetrate around lenses.”
“The examination room is sterile.”
“Nothing is perfectly sterile.”
She smiled.
“You cried.”
Ethan looked out the window.
“It was loud.”
“The heartbeat?”
“Yes.”
“It was normal.”
“I know.”
He swallowed.
“It was just loud.”
Amelia reached across the seat and took his hand.
This pregnancy was unlike the first in almost every possible way.
She attended appointments with Ethan beside her.
She had health insurance that did not require three hours on hold to argue about coverage.
She had a husband who read every pregnancy book available and then became furious that different books contradicted one another.
She had two daughters who asked daily whether the baby could hear them yet.
And she had Richard.
Richard became, to everyone’s surprise, the least anxious grandparent in the family.
Perhaps because he understood that excessive worry could become another form of control.
When Ethan began researching private obstetric wings at three hospitals, Richard told him to stop.
When Ethan considered installing an additional air filtration system in the house, Richard asked whether the baby planned to live inside a laboratory.
When Ethan ordered an industrial fetal heart monitor online, Amelia canceled the order.
“You told me to prepare.”
“I told you to assemble the crib.”
“The monitor seemed useful.”
“It is intended for medical professionals.”
“I can learn.”
“No.”
By month five, Ruby and Wren had named the baby seventeen different things.
Most were unacceptable.
Ruby favored Aurora Sparkle Cole.
Wren preferred Henry if it was a boy and Fern if it was a girl.
Ethan wanted to wait.
Amelia wanted something simple.
Richard refused to participate.
“I named one child,” he said. “The results were adequate.”
Ethan looked offended.
“Adequate?”
“You survived.”
The pregnancy remained healthy.
Until the twenty-ninth week.
It happened at Detour.
Amelia was standing behind the counter helping a customer choose flowers for an anniversary when a sudden tightness crossed her abdomen.
Not pain.
Not exactly.
Pressure.
She stopped speaking.
The customer noticed.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
She waited.
The sensation passed.
Ten minutes later, it happened again.
She called her doctor.
Her doctor told her to come in.
Not panic.
Come in.
Amelia called Ethan from the car.
He answered before the first ring had fully finished.
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened.”
“You’re calling during a board meeting.”
“How do you know?”
“You told me your schedule.”
“What happened?”
“I’m having contractions.”
Silence.
“Ethan?”
“I’m here.”
“They might be Braxton Hicks.”
“I’m leaving.”
“You’re in Manhattan. I’m twenty minutes from the hospital.”
“I’ll meet you there.”
“Do not drive.”
“I have a driver.”
“Do not tell him to violate traffic laws.”
“I never do that.”
“Ethan.”
“Almost never.”
She closed her eyes.
“I’m okay.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound like you know.”
“I am exercising restraint.”
“This is restraint?”
“You should be proud of me.”
Despite fear, she laughed.
The hospital admitted her for observation.
The baby was fine.
Amelia was not in active labor.
But dehydration and overwork had triggered regular contractions.
The doctor recommended rest.
Real rest.
Reduced hours at Detour.
No standing all day.
No lifting.
Ethan heard only the word contractions and mentally rebuilt their entire life around Amelia never leaving bed.
The doctor noticed.
“She does not need bed rest.”
Ethan nodded.
“Understood.”
“She can walk.”
“Yes.”
“She can continue normal light activity.”
“Of course.”
“She does not need twenty-four-hour medical supervision.”
Ethan hesitated.
Amelia looked at him.
“Ethan.”
“Understood.”
The doctor smiled.
“You two have done this before?”
Amelia looked toward Ethan.
“No.”
The answer contained more history than the doctor could possibly know.
That evening, Amelia lay in the hospital bed with monitoring belts around her stomach while Ethan sat beside her reading work emails without absorbing any of them.
At nine, Richard arrived.
“You didn’t have to come,” Amelia said.
“I know.”
He sat.
The room was quiet.
Ethan went downstairs to collect food.
For several minutes, Amelia and Richard were alone.
Richard looked toward the monitor.
“Ethan was born six weeks early.”
Amelia turned.
“What?”
“He never told you?”
“No.”
Richard smiled faintly.
“He probably doesn’t know.”
“How could he not know?”
“His mother and I never discussed it much after the fact.”
He looked down at his hands.
“Ethan weighed just over four pounds.”
Amelia stared.
“That must have been terrifying.”
“It was.”
Something in Richard’s voice made her listen more carefully.
He continued.
“His mother had severe complications. She recovered, eventually. But I remember standing outside the neonatal unit looking at him through glass and realizing there was absolutely nothing I could do.”
Richard’s jaw tightened.
“I hated that feeling.”
Amelia understood before he finished.
“So you started controlling everything else.”
He looked at her.
“Perhaps.”
There was no pride in it.
“I convinced myself preparation could eliminate uncertainty. Money could eliminate risk. Influence could eliminate vulnerability.”
He glanced toward the monitor again.
“Then his mother became ill years later, and none of those things saved her.”
Amelia had never heard Richard discuss his wife’s death this openly.
“Is that when you became…”
“Impossible?”
She smiled slightly.
“I was going to say rigid.”
“You’re kinder than Ethan.”
Richard leaned back.
“After she died, I decided the only acceptable future was one I could predict.”
His expression turned sad.
“When Ethan loved you, I couldn’t predict what his life would become. So I interfered.”
Amelia rested one hand on her stomach.
“I used to think you hated me.”
“I hated uncertainty.”
“That isn’t much better.”
“No.”
Richard sighed.
“But it is more accurate.”
The door opened.
Ethan returned carrying three bags of food.
“Why do both of you look emotional?”
Richard stood.
“Pregnancy.”
Amelia laughed.
Ethan looked suspicious.
Richard took one bag from him.
“What did you order?”
“Everything.”
“Of course.”
The contractions stopped completely by midnight.
Amelia went home the next morning.
She reduced her schedule at Detour.
She hated it.
Then discovered that other people were capable of running the store without her.
That irritated her even more.
“You built a good team,” Ethan said.
“That was apparently a mistake.”
He kissed her forehead.
At thirty-seven weeks, the baby remained stubbornly comfortable.
At thirty-eight, still nothing.
At thirty-nine, Amelia informed everyone she was no longer interested in being pregnant.
Ruby began asking hourly whether labor had started.
Wren developed a chart.
Richard stopped answering his phone with hello.
Instead he answered, “Is it time?”
At 2:13 on a rainy Tuesday morning, it was.
Amelia woke Ethan by saying his name once.
He sat upright immediately.
“What?”
“My water broke.”
He stared.
Then jumped out of bed.
The next ninety seconds were catastrophic.
Ethan put on two different shoes.
He attempted to carry three bags despite only one being necessary.
He walked into the closet while trying to leave the bedroom.
Amelia, leaning against the dresser through a contraction, began laughing.
“This is not funny.”
“It’s extremely funny.”
“I had a plan.”
“Your plan has failed.”
“Clearly.”
Ruby and Wren woke while they were leaving.
Richard was already on his way.
“How?” Ethan demanded over the phone.
“You called me.”
“I did?”
“Three times.”
Their son was born seven hours later.
They named him James.
Not Aurora Sparkle.
Not Henry.
Not Fern.
James Cole weighed seven pounds, eleven ounces and arrived screaming with such impressive force that the doctor laughed.
“He has opinions.”
“He’s related to Ruby,” Wren said later.
The girls met him that afternoon.
Ruby cried immediately.
Wren did not.
She stood beside the hospital bassinet studying her brother for a long time.
“He’s small.”
“You were smaller,” Amelia said.
“Really?”
“Yes.”
Wren looked toward Ethan.
“Did Papa see us like this?”
The room went quiet.
It was not an accusation.
Just a question.
“No,” Ethan said.
Wren considered that.
Then she looked down at James.
“You get to see this one.”
Ethan’s throat closed.
“Yes.”
“I’m glad.”
“So am I.”
Richard arrived last.
He stood in the doorway.
For once, no one rushed him.
Amelia held James against her chest.
Richard took three slow steps forward.
“Would you like to hold him?” she asked.
He stopped.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She transferred the baby carefully into his arms.
Richard looked down.
His face changed.
He had held Ruby and Wren for the first time when they were nearly five.
Walking.
Talking.
Already themselves.
This was different.
James opened one tiny hand against Richard’s shirt.
Richard breathed in sharply.
“Hello,” he whispered.
The baby slept.
Richard sat beside the bed.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Then Ruby leaned toward Wren.
“He’s crying.”
“I see.”
“Grandpa cries a lot now.”
Richard laughed without looking up.
“Yes.”
He touched one finger to James’s hand.
“I apparently do.”
That evening, when everyone else had gone home and the hospital room became quiet, Ethan sat beside Amelia holding their sleeping son.
She watched him.
“You okay?”
He nodded.
Then shook his head.
“I keep thinking about the girls.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t know you were in a hospital with them.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t know when they were born.”
Her eyes filled.
“I know.”
“I hate it.”
She reached across the bed.
Ethan took her hand.
“But I’m here now.”
“Yes.”
James made a tiny sound against his chest.
Ethan looked down.
Amelia smiled.
“You’re here now.”
May you like
And for once, the words did not feel like consolation.
They felt like truth.
