I placed a hand on top of his, where it rested on my rounded tummy. I felt a tiny flutter deep inside. A kick. We felt the first ones a week ago, and since then, Denton had been trying constantly to feel them again, but no luck just yet.
“Did you feel that?” I asked, grinning at him.
Denton looked down at me and smiled. “I did.”
I leaned my head against his sturdy shoulder. “That’s your baby.”
“That’s my baby,” he repeated softly. He stroked his hand against my stomach and once again, we felt the tiny life that we made together wiggle in my belly.
“And this?” I said, indicating all the people we cared for the most gathered in my store. “This is our family.”
Epilogue
Denton
“How do you feel?” I lounged on the squeaky hospital room couch, tapping away on a tablet as we waited through the endless hours of Marcie’s labor.
Marcie put down her book and shrugged. “I assumed labor would be a little more…dramatic than this, but mostly it’s just kind of boring.”
Baby Sawyer—we never did find out the gender ahead of time—was as stubborn as his or her mother, and Marcie’s obstetrician admitted us to the hospital last night for a labor induction. An eviction, as Marcie called it.
Marcie set her book on the tray table and rubbed her big, protruding belly with a sigh. “Do you know what I’m going to do when I’m not pregnant anymore?”
I walked over and sank into the chair next to her bed. “Drink a vodka tonic?”
She snorted. “Nope, that’s not in the cards for a while. No, I want to sleep on my damn stomach. Do you know how hard it is to get comfortable in bed with this belly?”
I caressed her round stomach, mindful of the fetal heart monitor strapped to the front. “Just a few more hours.”
Under my palm, the baby kicked hard. I laughed delightedly and rubbed the spot. I would miss reaching over in the middle of the night to stroke Marcie’s belly, waiting for the baby to kick and loving every tiny movement. With Marcie asleep, it was like my special time with my child.
A soft knock sounded on the door and Dr. Liu poked her head in.
“How’s everybody doing?” she asked. She pushed the door the rest of the way open and walked briskly inside, up to the foot of Marcie’s bed. “Those contractions are really close together, so I need to check and see how things are progressing.”
“Really?” Marcie glanced over at the monitor in surprise. “I can’t feel anything.”
“Epidurals are magic.” Dr. Liu pushed the sheet up over Marcie’s knees and leaned in close to check her dilation. Then, she ducked down and popped back up half a second later. “Oh, yeah, it’s time. I can see the head now.”
Marcie’s eyes went wide. “Wait,what?”
Dr. Liu laughed. “Yeah, your epidural workedverywell.”
Nurses streamed into the room, and in what felt like just a few seconds, the space transformed from a quiet, sleepy little hospital room into a delivery room. I sat up near Marcie’s head, her hand gripped tightly in mine as the nurses helped her get into position to push and Dr. Liu scooted in between her spread legs.
“Okay, push now,” the nurse instructed.
Marcie still looked terrified, but took a deep breath and nodded, then bore down hard.
“Again,” the nurse said.
She gripped my hand tightly each time and pushed for all she was worth. I had never seen anything like it—she was brave and fierce and beautiful as she summoned unfathomable strength to keep going.
“Last one,” Dr. Liu said. “Just one more big push.”
A shriek escaped her as she bore down again, and as soon as she fell silent, another smaller noise took her place. A baby’s tiny, furious cry.
“It’s a boy,” Dr. Liu announced. She held up a red-faced baby, mouth open as he bleated his annoyance at being forced from the warm darkness of his mother’s body. “Daddy, do you want to cut the cord?”