Baby for My Stepbrother

Chapter 9

He left the room, my eyes following his white jacket until the door closed and I was alone with Dane. Grabbing his hand, I gave it a squeeze and asked, “You ready to meet our daughter?”

Concern rolled behind the blue of his eyes, small lines crinkling the skin of his face. He couldn’t even force a smile when he said, “I’m worried that it’s too soon. Will she be okay?”

My heart clenched in my chest because I didn’t know the answer to that question. “Why don’t we try not to worry about it until we can talk to Dr. Williams, okay?”

“Okay,” he answered, his voice filled with fear.

The pain was unbearable at first, tears running down my face as I hunched forward, unable to escape the crushing sensation in my abdomen as each contraction pushed Bean farther along.

Dr. Williams didn’t pull any punches when she first arrived in my room. She warned me that Bean wasn’t ready to be born, that her lungs may not be strong enough to survive on her own. Eight weeks …eight more weeks and Bean would have been perfect – strong and able to breathe independently of me.

The pain ceased in my body after they gave mean epidural, but it didn’t cease in my heart. I was too afraid of what would happen to the little girl I carried.

Hunched down like she was about to catch a ball, Dr. Williams opened her mouth to tell me to push, but I couldn’t hear her. All I could hear was the fast-paced heartbeat of my daughter as she made her entrance into the world.

I didn’t feel her when she left my body. I couldn’t look at her little limp form. I kept my eyes on Dane, watched the flood of emotion race across his expression; fear, love, and despair.

They raced off with her before I had the chance to touch her, to hold her, to place a kiss on her small, soft cheek as I welcomed her into the world.

Swaddled and placed in a rolling crib, she was rushed from the room with a hand operated respirator placed over her tiny mouth, pushing air into the lungs that weren’t quite ready to breathe on their own.

In a moment where I should have felt the most joy, I felt the most pain. I felt like a failure, like I’d somehow cost my child and Dane their first moments together.

In the end, I knew it wasn’t my fault. I hadn’t known Jack would be so dangerous, that he would choose to attack something he claimed to love because he couldn’t let me go.

And once the chaos had ended and the storm had effectively passed, I laid back on my pillow, my hand crushed in Dane’s palm as my heart barely beat in my chest.

“How about Matilda?”

Looking up at Dane’s face, I arched a single eyebrow in response to his suggestion. “Matilda?”

Staring at my sweet Bean’s face, I didn’t see her as a Matilda. It wasn’t the right name, not for her. We’d been thinking of what to name her for weeks, referring to her as Bean until we knew what her name should be. “Yeah, no. That’s not what she wants to be named.” My finger brushed over her little cheek. “Try again.”

Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Dane laughed at the expression on my face. “You’ve shot down all thirty names I’ve suggested. What do you want to name her?”

I knew in my heart what I wanted to name her, but I didn’t know if Dane would go along with what I wanted for our daughter.

“I want to name her Mary…” I said with ashy and quiet voice. “ …after my mother.”

Dane breathed out a heavy breath, his lids blinking slowly over crystal blue eyes. When he reopened them, I held my breath waiting to see what he would say.

“I think that’s a good idea,” he answered, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. Reaching out, he rubbed a single fingertip over Bean’s hand. “Welcome to the world, Mary.”

A tear slipped from my eye and I sat back against the hospital recliner. Mary would need to stay another week in the hospital, but I didn’t know if I could stand waiting any longer than I already had.

For three weeks, Dane and I were here every damn day. What time we didn’t spend with Mary – holding her, kissing her, watching her grow strong – we spent finding a new home and moving into the place where we would raise our daughter. It wasn’t much, but it was ours.

I’d been thankful for so many things over those three weeks. Mary improved with each new sunrise and Dane didn’t go to jail for hitting Jack. No cops were called and life continued on, bringing with it happiness and hope for the future.

The thought that we would make it as a family – together and whole - made me feel warm inside.

Dane was becoming his normal bossy self again, and I was giving it right back to him as good as he gave it tome. Everything was looking up.

So, as I held my daughter close, allowing her bare skin to touch mine and absorb the warmth I had to give her, a smile broke out on my face. It was genuine and it was bright, as bright as the future I saw with Mary and Dane.

The End