Chapter 31
Famous Last Words
? Everything I Did To Get To You - Ben Platt
Griffin
Girls, Hayes, and Neighs
Wilder: Anybody have eyes on Poppy? She’s not in her pen.
Me: She wandered over the sanctuary again. Hanging out with Sadie.
Jaxon: My bad. Didn't realize she was a free-range fluffy cow.
Me: She's a menace.
Wilder: Finders keepers. She’s all yours now.
Me: Emmy Lou would never let you get away with that.
Wilder: Fine. I’ll pick her up in an hour.
Olivia: Wilder Hayes if you try to get rid of my daughter’s cow one more time.
Jaxon: Uh oh. Wild man’s in trooooouble.
Wilder: Middle finger emoji
I return home from the sanctuary to a disheveled Angie pacing the living room floor with her hands pressed against her back. It’s not an uncommon sight these last couple of weeks.
“Braxton hicks again?” I ask.
She stops roaming long enough to take a drink of her water. Catching her breath, she says, “Mostly in my back again.”
“You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital just to be safe?”
She inhales a deep breath and blows it out all at once. “No. I’m fine. They’ll probably just tell me to go home and rest again. I was only one centimeter at my appointment yesterday, and my water hasn’t broken.”
I trust Angie to know her body, but watching her suffer and not being able to help has been torture. I do what I can to ease her pain, but it never feels like enough. “Ok. How about I run you a warm bath? That’s supposed to help, right?”
She strides over to me, her round bump brushing against my stomach. “You wonderful man. Give me a kiss.”
I press my lips to hers and brush a lock of hair away from her forehead, lingering there a moment longer to stare into those sparkling brown eyes. “I’ll come get you when it’s ready.”
I make my way to the en suite bathroom, run the water to a comfortable temperature, and set a couple of Angie’s favorite fluffy towels into the towel warmer—a luxury I wasn’t aware I needed until Angie moved in.
When I get back to the living room, she’s bent over the back of the sofa, legs spread, doing some kind of exercise.
I don’t know how it’s helping her, but it’s definitely doing something for me.
Everything about my wife does it for me, and my desire for her has only grown with time.
There’s something so breathtaking about watching the woman you love become a mother.
I run my hand up her spine in a soothing motion. “Bath’s ready.”
“Oh, thank god,” she says on a sigh.
“Princess treatment?”
“Yes, please.”
I scoop her into my arms bridal style and carry her into the bathroom, depositing her near the tub. “Arms up.”
She complies, and I lift the oversized tee over her head, kneeling to pull down her panties. It’s a goddamn miracle I manage to keep a tight grip on my restraint with my face at eye level with her pussy.
As if she’s read my mind, she says, “Don’t even think about it. I’m pretty sure you triggered this shit with your midday orgasm delivery.”
I chuckle. “Well fuck me for taking care of my wife. How can I make it up to you?”
“Don’t smile at me like that, Griffin Hayes. This is your fault!”
I hold out my hand, and she slides her palm into mine. “Get in the tub, baby girl. You’ll feel better.”
She settles herself against the bath pillow and releases a tired sigh. “Mm. Much better,” she says airily.
“Good. Is there anything else I can get you?”
“Yeah, you can get this baby out of me.”
I kneel at her side and press my lips to her forehead. “Two more weeks, Angel. Hang in there. It’ll all be worth it.”
She sighs. “Two more weeks.”
Angelina
There’s a gush of warmth between my legs as another contraction hits me. Pain radiates through my abdomen, and suddenly, this doesn’t feel like a false alarm anymore. Panic overtakes me.
I shout as loud as I can. “Griff!”
He barrels into the room, slipping on the bath mat. Before I can blink twice, his arms are in the water, stroking my back. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”
The pressure in my pelvis intensifies, and the back pain is almost too much to bear. “I think... I think I was wrong. I think it’s time.”
“Ok. Ok. Stay calm.”
A pained laugh escapes as another sharp pain radiates through my hips. “Are you talking to me or to yourself?”
“Both. I’m gonna call the hospital and tell them we’re coming.”
I shake my head frantically, unable to form words.
“What do you mean ‘no?’”
“Too… late…” I inhale a long breath and blow it out as the contraction wanes. “Help me up.”
Griffin holds my hand while I stand, and he wraps a warm towel around me.
“Bed.”
He carries me to the bed, where I lay out the towel and crawl onto the mattress on all fours. I start breathing like the instructor taught us in the birthing class, but nothing seems to help.
“Don’t you dare fucking look, Griffin Hayes.”
“Baby girl, I live on a goddamn ranch. I’ve been by your side while many a horse has given birth. This is nothin’.”
I scream as another intense contraction courses through me. The urge to push overwhelms me, but I can’t do it. Not like this. “Did you… just… compare me… to a horse?”
“No. That’s not what I meant—Jesus.” He approaches my side and runs his hand up my spine as the pain subsides. “Baby. I need you to stay calm, okay?”
He picks up his phone and dials Evelyn’s number.
She answers on the first ring. “Hello?”
“The baby’s coming. No time to get to the hospital.”
She doesn’t miss a beat, a steady presence in the chaos. “Where are you?”
“At home.”
“Make sure she’s comfortable, then get some towels ready.
As soon as you hang up, I’m calling an ambulance.
Angie, if you can hear me, you know what to do.
You prepared for this. You took the classes, read the books.
You’re a mom now. Follow your instincts.
If you feel like you need to push, you push. ”
My eyes well with tears, wishing my mom could be here to hold my hand.
The line goes dead, and Griffin rushes to the bathroom, returning with a stack of towels.
I shift onto my knees with my forearms on the top of the headboard. Griffin stops in his tracks, his eyes wide. “What’s going on? Why are you making that face?”
“I can see the head. We’re about to meet our baby.”
A tear falls down my cheek as I silently beg the universe to keep us safe through this. “Griffin. I don’t think I can do this.”
“You can and you will. You’re strong as hell, Angel. I’m right here. You’ve got this.”
He grips my hips and helps me get into a more comfortable birthing position against the pillows with my legs spread wide.
“What do you see?” I ask.
He sits near my feet, holding my ankles. “Hair. Lots of hair. At the next one, I’m gonna need you to push for me.”
I laugh in spite of myself. “Doctor Sourdough Daddy reporting for duty.”
Another contraction comes, more intense than the ones before. I bear down as hard as I can as the pressure intensifies.
“That’s it. The head is almost out.” His voice is a dull hum beneath the rapid beating of my heart. “Push push push. I have a shoulder. Keep going, baby. You’re doing so good.”
I take a deep breath and bear down a second time.
The contraction dwindles, and everything around me stills. I glance between my legs at a teary-eyed Griffin holding a grey-ish purple blob in his massive palms.
It’s quiet. Too quiet. Why isn’t the baby crying?
Panic overwhelms me.
“Please, please, please,” I whisper. “You have to be okay.”
Griffin wraps the baby in a warm towel and starts to rub their back. “Come on, baby. Make some noise for daddy.”
My heart splinters with each passing second as time slows to a crawl.
A high-pitched cry fills the silence, and tears roll down my cheeks in wave after wave of overwhelming relief.
He places the baby on my bare chest, still connected by the umbilical cord, wiping away the blood and fluid. “It’s a girl,” he chokes out. “We have a baby girl.”
“A girl?” I glance down through misty eyes, taking in the little bundle with the cutest button nose and a head full of hair. “Hey, Jessie. I’m your mommy.”
Griffin slides onto the bed at my side and cradles us both in his arms, pressing kisses to my head and face. “You did so good, Angel. I’m so goddamn proud of you.”
“We did good. I couldn’t have done this without you.” I choke on the words, overcome with a mix of emotions, not the least of which is love for the little girl on my chest, and the man who helped bring her into the world.
Sometime later, Evelyn arrives with paramedics in tow.
“Hi, Mama,” Griffin says. “Come meet your granddaughter.”
Evelyn’s eyes turn glassy as she stares down at the bundle in my arms. “Another girl? Goodness, she’s beautiful. Look at all that hair. She looks just like you, Angelina.”
My heart swells with pride. I always thought newborn babies just looked like indistinct blobs of flesh—sometimes aliens if I’m being honest—but looking down at my baby girl, I see it.
My hair, my nose. Her eyes blink open, and I recognize those, too.
Not the color—they’re that hazy blue-grey most newborns have—but the almond shape I inherited from my mom is there.
One of the paramedics approaches Griffin. “Ok, Dad, would you like to help us cut the cord?”
Griffin looks to me for approval, and I nod without hesitation as emotion clogs my throat.
I became this little girl’s mom the day I found out I was pregnant.
Though Griffin claimed us both long ago, there was never a single tangible moment when she truly became his.
Until now. This was a long time coming—an amalgamation of all the little ways he cared for us over these past nine months. It feels earned in such a profound way.
Once the umbilical cord is cut, they load us into the ambulance, and Griffin stays by our side all the way to the hospital. Everything happens so quickly, it’s like no time at all has passed when we arrive in a room that’s already prepared for us.
There, they deliver the placenta and assess Jessie’s vitals. When she’s given the all clear, they take her footprints and stamp them on the tops of Griffin’s hands before placing her on my chest. She latches onto my breast for the first time, and the world around us seems to disappear.
There are only the three of us and a deep sense of rightness I’ve never felt before.