29. Eli
— ? —
Eli
They wheel her through the emergency bay doors just after midnight and everything happens fast.
“I can see the head,” the paramedic says, and my heart stops.
“No.” The word comes out strangled. “No, she can’t… we’re not there yet, we-”
“Shut up and hold my hand.” Az’s voice, strained but steady.
A nurse appears, then two more. Someone says delivery room three and suddenly we’re moving again, fluorescent lights streaming overhead like we’re in some kind of fever dream.
My head is pounding where Cody hit me at the farm.
Dez found me minutes after the alert. I spent the morning at the hospital being assessed and stitched, then hours with the search team, waiting for news.
My shirt is stiff with blood, but a nurse helps me clean my hands, and I stay beside Az.
They get her into the delivery room and everything becomes noise and motion. Az’s grip on my hand is crushing. A doctor appears between her legs, gloved and ready.
“Baby’s crowning. One more push, Azalea.”
“I can’t-”
“You can.” I press my forehead to hers. “You can, you’re the strongest person I know, you’ve got this.”
She screams. My hand goes numb. The doctor says something I don’t catch because suddenly there’s another sound in the room, high and thin and absolutely furious.
Our daughter.
Az is crying. I’m crying. The baby is still screaming, which the nurse says is encouraging while the team checks her breathing.
They check her while I stand there useless and shaking, and then they’re placing her on Az’s chest, this tiny red-faced creature with a shock of black hair and her mother’s angry eyebrows.
“Oh my god.” Az’s voice is wrecked. “Oh my god, look at her.”
I can’t speak. I reach out and touch one impossibly small hand, watch tiny fingers curl around my thumb.
“Her hair.” The words come out rough. “Az, look at her hair.”
“Your fault.” She’s laughing and crying at the same time. “This is your fault.”
“I’ll accept responsibility.”
A nurse touches my arm. “Sir, we should check your head wound.”
“Not yet.”
“Sir-”
“I’m not leaving them.” I don’t look away from my daughter’s face. “You can check it here. I’m not leaving.”
They do something to my head, clean it, re-bandage it, I barely notice. The baby has stopped crying. She’s making small snuffling sounds against Az’s chest, and I can’t stop staring at her.
“She’s perfect,” I whisper.
“She’s early.”
“She’s here.” I lean down, press a kiss to Az’s sweaty forehead, then another to the top of our daughter’s head. “She’s here. They’re looking after both of you.”
Az looks up at me. Her eyes are red-rimmed and exhausted and more beautiful than anything I’ve ever seen.
“We made that,” she says.
“Yeah.” My voice cracks. “We did.”
The baby yawns. It’s the smallest thing in the world, and it breaks me completely.
“June,” Az says, and I look at her.
“It fits her,” I say.
“It does. June.” She’s looking at our daughter, who’s finally stopped screaming and is blinking up at us with eyes that are dark blue, newborn blue, and their eventual color is still a mystery. “Grandma would have loved her.”
“June.” I test it out. Let it settle in my chest. “June Jackson.”
“June Jackson,” Az confirms.
And I can’t finish. Can’t find the words for what’s happening in my chest, what’s breaking open and rebuilding all at once.
“I want a minute,” I tell the room at large. “Just one minute. Then you can do whatever you need to do.”
They give us the minute. Maybe because of my face. Maybe because of Az’s. Maybe because they can see that we’re both about to shatter and they’re decent enough to let it happen in semi-private.
I sit on the edge of the bed next to Az, and we look at our daughter together. At the black hair and the scrunched face and the tiny perfect fingers. At the life we almost lost. At the life we made.
“We did it,” Az whispers.
“You did it. I just showed up at the end.” I brush hair off her forehead.
“You saved me. You found me.”
“The deputies found you. I just refused to wait in the car.”
“My ex is in custody, right?” Her voice is steadier than I expect.
“Yeah. Him and Brynn both. She’s still screaming about how the baby’s supposed to be hers.” I watch something dark cross Az’s face. “You okay?”
“I hit her with a lamp.” She says it almost wonderingly.
“I saw. It was incredible.”
“I don’t feel bad about it.” Her chin lifts.
“You shouldn’t. She tried to steal our baby. You defended yourself. That’s not something to feel guilty about.”
“I feel…” She searches for the word. “Satisfied. Is that wrong?”
“No.” I lean over and kiss her forehead. “That’s exactly right.”
A nurse appears in the doorway. “We need to move her to a room. And sir, we need to recheck that head injury after what happened at the cabin.”
“Can someone stay with her while I do that?”
“Of course. We’ll tell her where you are.”
Az squeezes my hand. “Go. Then come back.”
I go. When the doctor lets me return, I pull a chair beside her bed.
For the next three days, this is where I want to be.
I’m there when the doctors assess June, healthy despite being four weeks early, a little small but breathing on her own, eating well, all the tests coming back clear.
I’m there when the pediatrician explains that we need to watch for jaundice, need to monitor her temperature, need to feed her every two hours.
I’m there when the nurses teach Az how to breastfeed, when June latches on like she’s been doing it her whole life, when Az cries from the pain and the relief and the exhaustion of it all.
I’m there when Dez shows up with updates, Brynn charged with kidnapping and assault, held pending a bail hearing, still maintaining that the baby is somehow rightfully hers. Cody charged with kidnapping and extortion, a prior on his record and a hearing still to come. For now, both are in custody.
Then Dez tells us about Diane.
“She’s in Cody’s texts,” he says, standing awkwardly in the doorway of Az’s hospital room. “She gave him the address. Told him when the harvest would be finished and the visitors would leave. She was supposed to get a cut of the money.”
“The photos and the earlier break-ins connect back to Cody too. Diane passed on information; he used it. They’re sorting out who agreed to what.”
Az’s face goes blank. It’s worse than crying. Worse than screaming.
“She sold me,” she says flatly. “My own mother sold me.”
“The investigators want to speak to you about it.”
“I’ll speak to them.” Az looks at me. “And I want a statement. In my name.”
“Are you sure?”
“She spent my whole life making me feel worthless. Let’s see how she likes it when the whole world knows what she did.”
I call Abbie. I tell her everything. After Az reads and approves the wording, a statement goes out in her name, specific, brutal, naming Diane Moore directly, and my phone starts buzzing with press requests and Abbie’s texts saying the story is everywhere and Diane keeps calling from new numbers and Az blocks every one without answering.
“Good,” she says, handing me her phone. “Let her explain herself to the reporters.”
My mom shows up on day two.
Roz Jackson, sixty-two years old and exactly as terrifying as she’s always been, walks into Az’s hospital room carrying a covered dish and a look that could strip paint.
“Hi, Roz,” Az says weakly.
“Azalea.” Mom sets down the dish and looks at the baby in Az’s arms. Her face crumples and softens at once. “She’s beautiful.”
“She has Eli’s hair.”
“I noticed.” Mom turns that look on me, the one that says I know exactly what you’ve put this woman through and we will be discussing it. “You. Listen.”
I look up from Az and June. Mom stands in the doorway, arms crossed, all five-foot-four of her determined to make this count.
“You almost lost them.”
“I know.” I don’t look away from her.
“Not because of the kidnapping. Because of the years before it.”
“I know.” The words scrape.
“Your father and I didn’t raise you to put your career before your family.”
“I know. Mom-”
“I’m not finished.” She holds up a hand. “You made mistakes. Big ones. But you showed up when it mattered. You found her. You got her out. You’ve stayed with her since she got here. That means something.”
“It means I’m trying.”
“Trying isn’t enough. Not anymore.” She steps closer, and her voice softens just slightly. “Now you’re a father. Act like one every day.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Not just when it’s convenient. Not just when you’re not on tour. Every single day.”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Good.” She reaches up and pats my cheek, and her eyes are wet even though her voice is steady. “I’m proud of you. For finding her, for stopping those people, for being here now.”
“The deputies found the cabin. Dez kept everything moving. I had help.”
“You came back. Now keep doing the ordinary, necessary parts.” She smiles, and it transforms her whole face. “Now hold your daughter. Be the father I raised you to be.”
Mom steps out to call Dad.
Az is nursing June, who’s making those tiny newborn sounds that destroy me every single time. The room is quiet. Safe. Ours.
“Everything okay?” Az asks.
“Yeah.” I sit on the edge of the bed, careful not to jostle her. “My mom says I need to act like a father every day.”
“Your mom’s smart.”
“She also says she’s proud of me.”
“She should be.” Az looks at me, and her eyes are soft in a way they haven’t been in months. “I’m proud of you too.”
“For what?”
“For showing up, for finding me, for being here.” She reaches out with her free hand and takes mine. “For all of it.”
I bring her hand to my lips and kiss her knuckles. “I’m here. And when I have to leave, you’ll know where I am and when I’m coming back.”
“I know.” She squeezes my fingers. “I believe you.”
And for the first time since I woke on the utility-room floor and learned she was gone, for the first time in months, maybe, I actually believe myself too.