Epilogue
EMMETT
Seven and a half months later.
“S he’s coming,” one of the new ranch hands says coming my way, the look on his face is one of shock and fear all mixed in one, “and she’s pissed.”
“Who is?” I look up from the clipboard with the names of the horses we are going to be rotating by the end of the week. He rushes past me and toward the stables out of view.
“Emmett,” I hear my name hissed and look up to see Lilah walking from the office. Actually, she’s waddling side to side. “Did you just tell Charlie today is my last day?” She puts her hands on her hips.
“No.” I shake my head, tossing the clipboard to the side and getting off of my desk. “I told him that yesterday, not today.”
Her look goes from annoyed to murderous all in one blink of an eye. “Why the hell would you do something like that?”
“Sweetheart, your due date is tomorrow.” I smile at her, putting my hands on her hips while moving hers out of the way. She moves her hands over to my forearms. “And you said you were working until the end of your pregnancy unless your water broke before.” I tilt my head to the side to kiss her lips. “Which is tomorrow.”
“Emmett, you can’t just go around making decisions for me,” she says softly and moves out of my reach. “I can continue working, since your child”—she puts her hand on her swollen stomach—“has no plans of ever leaving my uterus.”
“The doctor said when she or he is ready.” I stop talking when she holds up her hand.
“Emmett, I don’t want to hear it right now.” She puts her head back. “What am I going to do at home that I can’t do here?”
“Not be here, for one.” I look over and see Charlie coming in, trying hard not to laugh.
“Don’t blame me. I thought she knew she wasn’t going to be working anymore.”
“I never agre—” She suddenly stops talking and her eyes go big. “Oh my,” she yelps and I watch her look down at her stomach. “I think my water just broke.”
“You think?” I ask her looking at Charlie, who is standing here not sure what to do.
“Either my water broke, or I just peed all over myself,” she retorts and then closes her eyes as she breathes through her nose and then exhales through her mouth. “Okay, that, I think, for sure was a contraction.”
“Have you been having them for long?” Charlie asks her and she shrugs.
“I’ve been having back pain all night long, but I just thought that maybe the baby was on something. But this morning it moved to the front.” She moves her hands over her belly.
I look over at Charlie. “Are the bags packed?”
“At the front door,” I tell him, going to her and putting my arm around her. “I’ll meet you there.”
“Meet us where?” she asks me as I walk her out of the barn and toward my truck.
“Sweetheart,” I soothe softly and calmly, even though I’m secretly freaking the fuck out, “I think we should get you to the hospital.” I knew this was coming, practiced going to the hospital a couple of times by myself, just to make sure I had the best route. But now that it’s really happening, I’m feeling a lot more than I thought I would.
“But…” She shakes her head. “But—” She stops talking as she closes her eyes and starts the breathing exercise we learned in Lamaze class a couple of weeks ago. Something I wasn’t keen on doing, but for her I would do whatever she wanted.
“I think it’s time,” I tell her as she breathes through the contraction and then opens her eyes at me.
“I think maybe we should time the contractions before going to the hospital,” she replies to me as I usher her into the truck. “Don’t you think?”
“Sweetheart,” I repeat softly. “I have no fucking clue what we should do,” I answer her honestly, trying not to let her know that I’m secretly freaking the fuck out, “but I will feel a lot better when we get to the fucking hospital with people who know what they are doing.” I nod at her. “Yeah?”
“Okay.” She puts her hand on her stomach. “Lucy?”
“She’s at school.” I feel the way my heart seizes in my chest. “We’ll see what the doctor says and then we’ll get her, okay?” She nods as I close the door and walk around the truck to the driver’s side.
She loves my daughter as much as I do, never once treating her like she wasn’t her own. From the moment they met, they shared a bond that will never be severed. She was nervous when we told Lucy we were having a baby, the whole time thinking Lucy would hate her for taking me away from her, even worried that she was bringing a kid into the house when she wasn’t even settled yet. She literally made herself sick over it, only for Lucy to guess she was having a baby when she walked in on her throwing up five days in a row. It turned out to be just like a normal day plus, “Cool, I’m going to be a big sister.” That was it, there was no ill feeling, nothing. Every single step along the way, Lilah has made Lucy a part of it all. From planning the nursery to helping pick out everything to go in said nursery, it was always whatever Lucy wanted. Now, the nursery looks like we are in the forest and it is very fucking cool, even if I say so myself.
“Emmett,” she says when I speed away from the barn.
“Yeah?” I look over at her and see she is holding on to the door with one hand and the other is fisted by her side.
“I’m scared,” she confesses quietly, “but excited at the same time.”
“Sweetheart.” I grab her hand in mine. “I’ve never been more scared in my life,” I admit to her, getting to the hospital and parking in the first spot I see.
It takes a full five minutes to walk in, stopping every couple of minutes for her to breathe through her contraction. By the time we get to the floor, I feel like I’m about to pull out my hair. The contractions are getting closer and closer as the nurse starts to ask her questions, “When did contractions start?”
“I was having back pain for the last two days.” She avoids looking at me.
“You didn’t tell me,” I say from beside her as she tries to take off her jeans but stops midway. “Sit on the bed,” I tell her when I get them down around her hips before pulling them off of her.
“Because you would be all over me about resting and not pushing myself.” She grabs the hospital gown the nurse put on the bed for her to change into. “Was I wrong?” she asks me, taking off her top and then placing the gown over her shoulder. “I was not, so that is why I didn’t tell you.”
“Lie back and we’ll get you checked and see where we are,” the nurse urges her. I move to the side, tossing her jeans in a chair, and then going back over to her to grab her hand when she roars out in pain, grabbing her stomach.
“Shit,” she hisses out, trying to control her breathing and then closing her eyes.
“It’s okay,” I assure softly, bending to put my forehead on the side of her head. “It’s going to be okay. You got this,” I say as she moans through the pain. I look over to the nurse, who is watching what is going on.
Her body relaxes when the contraction leaves her as she lies on the bed limp. “Let’s get you hooked up before the next one comes so we can see what is going on,” the nurse instructs, putting something around her waist and then on her stomach.
“Is that okay for the baby?” I ask her and she nods at me.
“It’s going to tell us when the contractions come.” She points to the monitor and then makes sure the baby’s heart rate is okay.
I feel like I’m going to throw up, and I’ve pretty much seen it all in my life. But watching her go through the pain every single time a contraction comes, I feel like I am going to literally bust every single wall. “She’s at eight centimeters,” the nurse reports when she examines her, and then smiles at Lilah, who is lying there with her eyes closed. Her contractions feel like they are one after the other, and every single time she finishes with one and relaxes, another one comes.
“When can I get the epidural?” she asks, her voice monotone.
“I’m sorry,” the nurse says, “that window is closed.” She looks at me.
“No-no-no,” Lilah cries from the bed, “open the window up for just a second.”
“It’s really not safe.” The nurse tries her best to talk to her but Lilah just looks at me.
“I’m tired,” she says, “and it hurts so bad.”
I bend to look at her in her eyes. “You are the strongest woman I know,” I remind her, cupping my hand on her cheek. “Literally, there is nothing in this world you can’t do.”
“I can’t do this,” she sobs as a contraction comes and she closes her eyes as she moans through it.
I look at the nurse, who smiles sadly at me. “She’s moving too fast, there is no way we can get it.”
“I don’t want to do this anymore.” She opens her eyes, “I thought I could, I can’t.”
“Sweetheart,” I soothe softly, “there is no one in this world who has more strength than you do. No one who can survive what you did and not only rise above it, but get even stronger from it.” I kiss her lips. “You are the pillar of strength. I’m in awe of you.”
“You’re just saying that because I’m going to have to push out the baby and feel it all.” She closes her eyes and another comes, this time she yells, “I feel pressure.” She holds her stomach. “So much pressure.”
The nurse moves over to the little intercom on the wall, without a care in the world, and I have to look up at the ceiling before I snap at her to move her fucking ass. “Can we get a doctor in room four?” She turns back to look at us. “Let me check you again.” She comes over and asks Lilah to open her legs. “Oh, she’s crowning.”
“What does that mean?” I snap at her as Lilah yells from beside me, “What the fuck does that mean?” I run my hand through my hair, wanting to pull it out to stop her from hurting, to stop all of this.
“It means”—she takes off her gloves—“you are about to meet your child.”
The doctor comes into the room at that moment and looks around. “Hi, Lilah,” she greets us. “It’s a nice day to have a baby.”
“Is it?” Lilah asks her as more nurses come into the room now. My head is spinning as the sound of my heart beating in my ears gets louder and louder.
“Okay, Lilah.” The doctor’s voice snaps me out of it. “On the next contraction, I’m going to have you push. You are going to bear down and push like you are going to the bathroom,” she tells her. “Dad, you can hold one of her legs,” she instructs me, and I put my hand under her upper thigh. “Are we ready?”
“No,” Lilah whines, “it burns. It feels like it’s on fire.”
“Totally normal,” the doctor quickly states before I can even ask her. “And push,” she says, counting down from ten to one. “That’s good.” I look at Lilah, who looks like she is going to faint.
“She’s not okay,” I tell the doctor. “She’s pale.”
“It’s going to be over soon,” she counters, practically ignoring me. “Let’s go again, Lilah. You need to help bring your baby out.”
“I can’t,” she replies, sounding defeated, “I really can’t.”
I put my arm over her head on the pillow. “You can do this,” I encourage her. “I wish I could take it all away from you. I wish I could do it, but we both know you are stronger than me.” The tears run down her face. “I love you with every single fiber of my being, Lilah.” I kiss her lips. “You can do this.”
“Okay, we have another one coming,” the doctor cuts off our look. “Now, you’ve got to give me another big one,” she tells her, counting from one as Lilah closes her eyes and tucks her chin in as she pushes. It feels like she was pushing for an eternity before the doctor announces, “The baby’s head is out.” She puts a cover down on top of Lilah. “One more push and you can meet your baby.” The feeling in my chest is something I’ve never felt before. It’s a feeling that you think you can’t have. It’s the same feeling I got when I first held Lucy in my arms and she called me Daddy. Then again when Lilah told me she was pregnant, and a couple of times when I would feel the baby kick my hand away. It felt like little sprinkles of immense happiness running through me, until it’s so overwhelming that it feels like your whole body is going to implode. It’s past that, it’s in its own atmosphere. “Here is your baby,” she says, placing the baby on Lilah’s chest. “Congratulations, you have a son.”
Lilah wraps her arms around him as she cries out, “Oh my goodness.” She kisses his head. “My baby.” The emotions stick in my throat as the tears silently fall down as I wrap my arms around both of them.
“Dad,” the doctor calls to me, “do you want to do the honors of cutting the cord?” She holds the scissors in her hands as the baby now lets out a huge wail. “Good set of lungs.” I grab the scissors from her as she instructs me to cut between the two clamps. “Congratulations.”
I just nod at her, looking back at Lilah, who is staring at me. “You okay?” she asks me and I shake my head.
“What you just did”—I walk back to the side of them, looking down at my son, who is now just blinking his eyes as he takes in his mother—“it’s hands down the bravest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.” I lean and kiss her. “There is nothing I can do that will ever come close to that. Nothing I can ever do that shows you what you and our children mean to me.” I put my forehead to hers, looking down at our son. “Welcome to the world, baby boy.”
“Lennox,” she says the name. “Lucy and I thought Lennox would be a good name.”
“It’s a great name,” I agree with her. “Welcome to the world, Lennox.”
* * *