34. Logan
34
LOGAN
I paced in front of the double doors of the operating room. The paper scrubs swished with each stride as the nurse gave me a rundown of what to expect when she walked me in to be with Leah.
We had spent the last few weeks doing everything we could to prepare for our boy to make his entrance into the world. The nursery was ready. Furniture was in place. Clothes were put away. Diapers were stocked. Our freezer was overflowing with ready-made meals for quick dinners. I was officially on paternity leave and had no intention of leaving her side until the day I went back to work—from home, of course.
But now, as I peered through the small operating room window, it all seemed so inconsequential.
I hadn’t left her side for a moment since we got the call that her obstetrician and the hospital were ready for her to come in for her scheduled C-section. That was, until she was taken back for anesthesia and I had to stand there and watch her go.
It felt like my heart was being ripped out of my chest.
She was in the best hands, but I couldn’t help but want to be the hands holding her through the things that scared her. I wanted to be the person telling her it was going to be okay. I wanted to be the one telling her how strong and brave she was.
I was numb as the nurse assigned to babysit me helped me into the scrub gown, cap, mask, and shoe covers.
“All right, Dad,” the nurse said with a smile. “The drape is up and they’re ready for you. There’s a stool set up right by Mom’s head. That’s for you. Go right to it and sit. Don’t cross the drape or you could contaminate the sterile field. We’re talking about major surgery here, so if you’re not good with blood and guts, don’t even peek. If you think you’re going to pass out, tell me and we’ll get it handled. Don’t try to tough it out and become a patient too.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said as I peered in the window again.
Leah had braided her hair in tight Dutch braids to keep it out of her way for the next few days, but now it was covered in a surgical cap. I could see her mouth moving as she talked, and wondered who she was talking to. She seemed calm, but I wondered if that was just the anesthesia.
“When the baby is born we’re going to do a quick check. If everything’s good, we’ll put him right on Mom’s chest. If there are complications and we get in the weeds, Mom and baby are priority. So if I tell you to move back or follow me out, I need you to listen and move right away.”
I knew she was just giving me a standard spiel, but I couldn’t stomach the thought of anything happening to Leah or our baby boy.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
I nodded, because I wanted to get to Leah more than I was afraid for her.
I followed the nurse into the operating room and sat down on the stool beside Leah’s head.
“Hi,” she croaked with tears in her eyes.
The operating room was a flurry of activity and final checks as I settled in and rested my forehead on hers. “You ready for this, honeybee?”
“Ready. Scared. Overwhelmed. Excited.” She took a deep breath. “Thank you for being here.”
“I would have been with you while you were in pre-op and anesthesia if they had let me.”
“I know,” she whispered. “I did okay, though. I didn’t pass out. The nurse was great. She let me hug her while they did it.”
I couldn’t help but smile beneath the surgical mask. “I’m so proud of you. You’re so strong.”
“I just kept thinking about that turkey sandwich,” she admitted with a sheepish smile.
I chuckled. “Kylie is on turkey sandwich duty. I texted her your order before they had me get into my scrubs.”
“Really?” she said with barely restrained excitement. “That’s the best thing I’ve heard all day.”
“Well, if a turkey sandwich is all I needed to get to make you happy, then I’ll take your present back.”
Her eyes widened. “I get a present? When can I open it?”
“As soon as they get the three of us in a room.” I took her hand in mine and laced our fingers together.
The anesthesiologist went through a series of tests to make sure Leah was completely numb.
“All right, Leah,” her obstetrician said from the other side of the blue drape that bisected Leah’s body. “We’re going to start your cesarean now. You might feel some pressure. You might feel some movement. But we don’t want you in any pain. If you start to feel anything, speak up or give Logan’s hand a squeeze and have him tell us.”
“You ready?” I asked her quietly.
Leah nodded. “Yeah. I’m ready.”
The surgical team chatted away, giving quick updates about where they were in the procedure, but all I could do was look at her.
Leah’s eyes were closed, and her breathing was steady as she invoked a supernatural calm.
I kept my forehead on hers, whispering gentle reassurances that she was doing great while I stroked my thumb over the back of her hand. Time moved at a snail’s pace, and every sound from the surgical team was met with the question of if it was normal or not.
“Are you ready, Mom?” her obstetrician called out.
Leah’s eyes snapped open. “He’s here?”
The next thirty seconds might as well have been thirty days.
“Keep breathing for me,” I whispered as I squeezed her hand. “You’re almost through it.”
“Can you see him?” Leah stammered.
“Not yet. But everything’s okay. I’ve got you. You’re doing great.”
“11:14AM,” someone said as they called the time.
Leah’s breathing hitched. “That means . . .”
We waited with bated breath until a distinct, rattling cry filled the operating room, drowning out the steady beeping of the monitors.
“Baby boy is doing great,” the obstetrician said. “Dad, I want you to open the front of Mom’s gown so we can get him on her chest as soon as the peds team gives us the green light.”
With trembling hands, I let go of Leah and started unsnapping her hospital gown. A shift beside the drape caught my eye, and I froze.
“What?” Leah said in a panic. “What’s wrong?”
“I see him,” I said as tears rolled down my face. That was my son. “He’s beautiful.”
“All right, Dad,” one of the scrubbed-up members of the pediatric team said as she held a squirming, screaming baby. “Have you held a baby before?”
I nodded, thinking back to holding Hunter and Zoey when they were newborns.
She carefully transferred the baby into my arms. “Take it slow and put him on mom’s chest.”
She didn’t have to tell me twice. With careful movements, I laid our baby on Leah’s chest for skin-to-skin.
The surgical team never stopped swirling around us but, in that moment, time ceased.
Our tears bled together as I craned over the head of the operating table to hold Leah and keep a hand on our baby’s back.
One of the nurses brought warm blankets to cover the two of them from the chill of the operating room as the team worked diligently to finish the procedure and closed the surgical site.
“Logan,” Leah whispered, a brilliant smile growing across her face. “Look.”
Right then, he opened his eyes. They were dark and stormy as he peered around at the newness of it all.
“He looks just like you,” she said.
He did.
My heart clenched as the realization crashed into me. I had a son.
We were chauffeured to a recovery room where doctors and nurses popped in sporadically to make sure Leah and the baby were still stable, and perform checks and measurements.
By the time we made it up to the room where we would spend the next few days in the mother-baby unit , Leah was exhausted.
“Um, I’m sorry to be a bother,” Leah said to the nurse who had just slipped in to bring her a tankard of ice water and some snacks.
“You’re no bother, honey,” the lady said. “What can I do for you?”
“I really have to use the bathroom,” she admitted, glancing down at the fall risk bracelet that was stacked on top of her hospital bracelet.
“Sure thing. Let me just grab this to help you up,” the nurse said as she grabbed a bright yellow mobility aid and rolled it over. “My name’s Eva. We’re going to get to know each other real well, so don’t be shy.”
Eva carefully picked up the baby from Leah’s arms, laid him in the bassinet, and swaddled him like a burrito.
“Can you teach me how to do that?” I asked as I watched.
Her smile was bright. “Of course. Let’s take care of Mom first.”
I was still getting used to those titles, but seeing Leah perk up every time someone called her “Mom” was one of the highlights of my life.
“I’ll help,” I said as I jumped up to round the bed and brace my arm behind Leah’s back.
Eva gave Leah a wink. “You’ve got a good one.”
Leah groaned and pressed her hand over the incision site as we shifted her over to the mobility aid that helped her go from sitting to standing.
“Hurts,” she cried out.
Eva reassured her that the first days were the hardest as we helped her into the bathroom. I listened while Eva talked Leah through all the pad options that the hospital kept stocked and the recommendations to use a squirt bottle to clean herself rather than toilet paper.
I jotted down notes in my phone of what Leah’s preferences had been so I could make sure they were stocked at home before we were discharged as a family of three.
“I’m okay,” Leah said as I braced my arms beneath her armpits to help her ease back on to the mobility aid. “I know you want to be holding him right now.”
She was right. I wanted to hold him.
“You will always come first,” I said.
It was the truth. I wanted our son to feel safe and secure because of how undeniably I loved his mother. I wanted to prove that love to her every single day.
I was in it.
I was all in.
“Can you bring him to me?” Leah said when she got settled back in bed.
Eva slipped out, giving us some alone time.
“Hey, buddy,” I soothed as I scooped him out of the bassinet.
He let out soft grunts of displeasure at being jostled, but quickly settled when he was back in Leah’s arms.
She was looking at him, but I couldn’t take my eyes off of her.
“You’re so beautiful,” I said as I eased into the bed beside her and tucked my arm around her shoulders. I pressed a kiss to her temple. “You did so good.”
“ We did good,” she said as she gently stroked the baby’s chubby cheek with her finger, then looked up at me. “I couldn’t have done this without you. I wouldn’t have made it through without you.”
“You would have,” I said as she shifted as much as she could to lay her head in the crook of my shoulder and chest. “I’m just thankful you let me into your life.”
“He needs a name,” she said as she trailed her fingers over the tufts of dark hair peeking out beneath the tiny knitted hat. “We can’t just keep calling him ‘Baby.’”
I chuckled. “You’re probably right.”
A thought had taken root in my mind late last night as I lay awake, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the call from the hospital to come.
“What do you think about naming him William?” I asked.
Leah glanced up at me. “You want to name him after Will?”
I nodded. “Maybe we call him ‘Liam’ for short, just so we don’t confuse the two. I just...Sometimes I think back and wonder if I would have ended up where my parents did if it hadn’t been for Will coming into my life. I don’t think I’d be ready to be a father if he hadn’t shown me what it means to be a man.”
“I like that,” she said as she stared down at his rounded cheeks and cupid’s bow lips. “Hi, Liam.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “We’re your mom and dad.”
“Liam Holloway has a nice ring to it,” I said, though I had something else in mind.
“I think we should stick with Solomon,” Leah said. “I want him to have your last name.”
“Yeah?”
She smiled. “Yeah.”
“Good,” I said as I reached into the pocket of my jeans and pulled out the ring I had been holding on to for months. “Because I want you to have it too.”
“ Logan ,” she gasped, her arms tightening around Liam.
I held the ring between pinched fingers. “I tried to come up with the perfect plan. The right way to do this. The best words to say. But everything kept falling short because nothing is as perfect as the moments in life where we let go long enough to actually live.” A sharp laugh broke free from my chest. “All my life I’ve been searching for perfection. But it wasn’t something I could find in mitigating risk and playing it safe. I found perfection the day I found you. You’ve given me more than I could have ever dreamed of, and I will exhaust my last breath trying to be a man worthy of your goodness.”
“Please just ask me already,” she blubbered between sobs.
I couldn’t fight my smile if I tried. “Leah Holloway. Will you be my friend? Will you be my partner? Will you let me be the place you run to? Will you let me give you the help you need? Will you let me love you until the afterlife and beyond?”
She nodded, her teeth sinking into her lip. “Yes.”
“One last question,” I said as I helped her shift Liam so that her left hand was free. “Will you be my wife?”
“Yes!” she said with an unbeatable smile.
I slid the ring onto her finger, then cupped her cheeks. “I love you.”
A knock at the door startled us, and Kylie and Bryan crept in with Kristin and Will right behind them.
Kylie immediately burst into tears and lunged for the bed. “Look at you.”
Bryan snatched her back with his arms around her waist. “Observe from a distance.”
“Hi, guys,” Kristin said with barely restrained excitement. “We’re not going to stay long, so y’all can get some rest.” She clapped her hands over her mouth when she spotted Liam. “He’s perfect.”
As much as I knew Leah wanted to keep snuggling our son, she was eyeing the parchment-wrapped sub sandwich Kylie was holding the way she had just looked at the diamond ring I just put on her hand.
“I’ll let you hold him if you give me that sandwich,” Leah said without an ounce of shame.
Kylie lifted the brown paper deli bag. “I have chips and cookies too.”
“Gimme,” Leah said.
I cautiously supervised the trade and stole a chip when Leah popped open the bag.
“He’s perfect,” Kylie gushed as she cradled Liam with Kristin and Bryan crowded around.
Will broke free and walked over with the same ease he had the day he walked into our single-wide trailer for the first time. “How are you feeling, Leah?” he asked as he kneeled beside the bed.
“Really tired,” she admitted. “I’m starting to hurt a lot now that the drugs are wearing off. But things went well.”
“Good,” he said with kindness in his eyes. “Don’t be afraid to ask if you need anything. We’re right across the bay.” His attention turned to me. “How’re you doing, Dad?”
But it was Leah who answered for me. “He’s been the best partner and he’s already the greatest dad.” She laid her hand on my thigh. “I couldn’t ask for more.”
Kylie’s gasp startled us all. “Is that a ring?” she shrieked.
“Your baby privileges have been suspended,” I said as I plucked Liam out of her arms. “Keep it down.”
Leah flashed her hand at Kylie, showing off the ring. “He did good.”
“Oh my God. He did so good,” Kylie said as she darted over and immediately launched into her wedding planning methodology.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Kristin said as she leaned in to get a good look at him. Carefully, I transferred the little bundle into her care so she could hold him for a minute. “He’s absolutely perfect. Have you guys decided on a name yet?”
“Yeah. We, uh . . . We did.”
She glanced up curiously.
“William,” I said. “Liam for short.”
Will looked taken aback, but Kristin wasn’t surprised in the least.
“I think it’s the perfect name for this little guy.” She smiled. “Hi, Liam.”
“You sure you want to name him that?” Will asked as he fought back tears.
“We’re sure,” I said on an exhale as the weight of the day began to sink in. “Because I want my son to know that he has a dad who loves him because my brother-in-law chose to be one.”
Will pulled me into a hug.
“I’m gonna make you proud,” I said. “I swear.”
“Logan, there hasn’t been a day that I’ve known you where I haven’t been proud of the man that you are. Not a single one.” He clapped his hands on my shoulders and turned me to see Kristin putting Liam back in Leah’s arms. “Now. Make them proud.”