Warner 34
Warner
I’ve tried three times to turn the handle on our bedroom door, but my heart is beating so hard I’ve lost basic motor skills.
I have to keep stopping to catch my breath.
Sounds filter up to me from the floor below, the low murmur of voices and movement merging to generate a dull hum of background noise. The lights around me seem to flare and retract. My head is pounding between my ears.
I tried so hard to prepare for disappointment.
I braced for every fear; every darkness. I shattered my own heart as a hedge against emotional destruction, hoping that, in the end, it would prove harder to break what was already broken. I was ready to be destroyed.
I never prepared myself for joy.
Now, I don’t know how to coexist with this sensation expanding inside of me. I feel shaky and gutted. There’s an insistent burning in my chest, a sharp heat pressing up behind my eyes.
I can’t seem to close my fist around this handle.
“Aaron?”
The sound of her voice pierces me through the door.
“Aaron,” she says again. “Is that you?”
“Yes, love,” I force out.
There’s a beat of quiet.
“Everything is okay,” she says softly. “I’m okay. We’re okay.”
It takes me a moment to realize what she’s saying.
We’re okay.
She’s not talking about us.
My heart turns over and tightens. This painful heat spreads beyond my chest, up my throat.
I should’ve been here.
I should’ve been home.
I missed everything; all of it. I had no idea she went into labor. I had no idea it would all happen so quickly.
I could’ve lost her.
That thought alone nearly kills me.
I finally manage to turn the handle, my heart beating so hard it seems to detach from its cradle, but as I push open the door, I’m briefly blinded.
My eyes feel dilated.
The emotional resonance in the room is so radiant it’s like stepping into sunlight after hours in darkness. Ella is luminous, almost indistinct with joy.
I have to blink a few times to calibrate.
I’ve never had a sensory experience like this. I’ve never felt like I needed to part through veils of transcendent emotion in order to see someone clearly. When the scene clarifies, my wife materializes before me with a dreamlike quality, her edges blasted with light.
Ella is in bed.
Our bed.
There’s a small bundle in her arms.
“She’s sleeping,” Ella says, smiling.
I can’t speak.
It took most of my strength just to open the door; now I’m frozen at the threshold, wondering whether I’m seeing things from the grave.
Ella is propped up against several pillows, tucked under a light blanket.
Her long dark hair is tied up in a messy bun, the effort collapsing, strands coming loose only to frame her stunning face.
Her blue-green eyes are bright and tired; her cheeks flushed pink.
She turns her smile to the carefully wrapped gift in her arms, drawing her finger down the cheek of a face I can’t quite see.
A strap of her simple camisole has fallen off her shoulder.
I stare at it.
The room pushes in and out of focus. It’s hard to take a full breath.
It all happened so fast, Nazeera had said to me.
“Juliette will tell you all the details,” she’d explained in a breathless rush, “but I just—I need you to know she’s okay—everything is okay—”
I don’t remember speaking.
I’d gone numb in my own head.
“We had to move quickly,” Sonya said, coming down the stairs. She was smiling, but I could feel her apprehension. “Once she went into labor, we knew we had to control the situation as much as possible.”
“We were worried,” Sara said, joining her sister, “that if we let her progress naturally, she might lose control of her power. We wanted to wait for you.” Her matching smile was sympathetic. “But we couldn’t risk it.”
Aaron.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Kenji said to me, “you probably wouldn’t have made it in time anyway. I got over here as fast as I could and I still didn’t make it before the baby was born.”
“Nor did I,” said Castle.
“Me neither,” said Adam.
“I was already here,” Nazeera said tightly.
“There were no early signs she might be going into labor,” Sonya said to me. “This pregnancy, as you know, has been atypical in many ways. Juliette’s contractions accelerated all at once, the pain escalating within minutes and with little warning—”
“—and we couldn’t risk a complication,” Sara finishes for her. “If she’d lost control of her power for even a moment there might’ve been irreparable consequences. We thought it best to deliver the baby as swiftly and safely as possible.”
Aaron.
“It was a good thing, son,” Castle said to me. I remember he was trying to look at me, but I don’t remember seeing him clearly. “It was the best approach given the delicacy of the situation. And everything is all right. Everyone is doing great.”
The girls performed emergency surgery on my wife right here, in our bedroom, working in tandem to heal her almost simultaneously. The good news is, her physical recovery process will be faster and easier as a result.
The bad news is, I wasn’t here.
I should’ve been here.
“You should’ve seen this place a couple of hours ago,” Nazeera had said, forcing a nervous laugh. “It’s kind of great, actually, that you showed up later, after we’d cleaned everything up.”
“Aaron.”
I take a sharp breath, struggling to return to my body. My heart can’t seem to slow down. “Yes, love?”
“Come here,” she says gently.
I meet her eyes with ill-concealed fear. Her love is effervescent and warm and I briefly close my eyes, basking in it. She smiles at me, sweet and sleepy, and I move toward her like I’m cutting a path through water.
The air feels dense. My legs feel heavy.
This doesn’t feel real.
The heat in my chest seems to grow hotter with every step I take toward her, the burn in my throat almost distracting me from the pressure building behind my eyes.
I try to swallow around the feeling, but it grows only more profound.
By the time I reach her bedside, the propulsive force of their combined emotional density nearly forges its own presence; I can feel this new life as palpably as the bones in my body.
“Do you want to hold her?” Ella asks me.
It takes me a second to speak. “Yes,” I whisper.
Ella’s smile brightens as she shifts against the pillows, carefully repositioning herself. I take an uncertain seat at the edge of the bed, leaning forward as she transfers the small bundle into my arms.
My breath catches.
The emotional tenor of this tiny heart flutters at the edges of my consciousness. It’s soft serenity and joy. Tranquility and euphoria. It’s breathtaking, and it strikes me with a stunning blow.
She’s so impossibly small.
I watch, fascinated, as she attempts a yawn, issuing a sound so delicate I almost feel my ribs crack inside my chest.
“Aaron?” Ella says softly.
“Yes, love?”
“What do you think of naming her after my sister? Do you think it’d feel strange to call her Emmaline?”
I look up, surprised. “No,” I whisper. “I think it’s perfect.”
Ella smiles, sinking back against her pillows. Her eyelids are heavy. She blinks, letting her eyes fall closed, her mouth still caught in a smile.
I didn’t think Ella could get more beautiful.
She’s always been exquisite; her beauty unparalleled. I never could’ve known that time would only refine her, that she would use her years the way a sculptor might use a chisel. Every hour seems to enhance her; every day leaves her more distinguished.
Her heart is my power source.
I never dared to hope for more of her.
I look down at the little bundle in my arms, the soft brows and slight slope of a small nose. The ache in my chest only seems to multiply as I drink her in. It feels as if my heart is ripping itself apart and rebuilding, forging a new chamber, and the resulting pain is both tender and terrifying.
My daughter.
I lower my face to hers, eyes closing as I touch my nose to her forehead.
She smells like sugar.
She makes another tiny sound and my heart spasms. I press a light kiss to her velvet cheek, marveling at the impossible softness of her skin, the impossible expanse of my soul she’s already occupied. When I finally lift my head, Ella is looking at me.
Her feelings are wild and weightless, her eyes bright with feeling. She blinks, and a single tear tracks down her face.
“I love you,” she whispers. “You’re going to be the best father.”
I take a trembling breath.
This entire moment feels like something lifted from someone else’s dreams.
I’d never have known how to dream of this.