CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE #2
I hesitated. I'd promised myself I would let Aubree have this moment, that I wouldn't insert myself where I wasn't wanted. But she was offering, and I couldn't refuse.
"Yeah," I breathed. "Yeah, I really do."
She placed our daughter in my arms, and the weight of her, the warmth of her, the impossible reality of her existing in the world, nearly brought me to my knees.
"Hi, sweetheart," I whispered against her tiny forehead. "I'm your dad. I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to deserve you."
We stayed like that for a long moment, the three of us suspended in the quiet miracle of new life.
The medical team bustled around us, checking vitals and cleaning up and doing all the things that needed to be done, but none of it mattered.
Nothing mattered except the baby in my arms and the woman standing beside me.
"Have you thought about names?" I asked eventually.
Aubree nodded, reaching out to brush her finger against our daughter's cheek. "I was thinking Everly. Ellie for short."
"Everly." I tested the name, felt it settle into my bones like it had always belonged there. "Everly Wickham. I love it."
"Yeah?"
"It's perfect." I looked up at her, letting her see all the emotion I was feeling without trying to hide any of it. "You're perfect. Both of you."
Aubree's face softened, and for a moment I saw the woman I'd married reflected in her eyes. The woman who had trusted me with her heart and her future and her desperate dream of becoming a mother.
I'd broken that trust. But maybe, if I kept showing up, kept being honest, kept putting her first, I could earn it back.
Hours later, after Everly had been checked and measured and declared perfectly healthy, after Oakleigh had been moved to a recovery room where she would rest until she was well enough to leave, after the adrenaline had faded and exhaustion had taken its place, Aubree and I sat alone in the private room that had been arranged for her and the baby.
Everly was sleeping in a bassinet beside the bed, her tiny chest rising and falling with each breath. I couldn't stop staring at her. Couldn't quite believe she was real, that she was ours, that after everything, we had actually done it.
"I need to ask you something," Aubree said quietly.
I looked up at her, my heart immediately kicking into a faster rhythm. "Anything."
"What happens now? With us, I mean."
I'd been waiting for this question. Dreading it and hoping for it in equal measure.
"I want you to come home," I said carefully. "Both of you. I want us to raise Everly together, in the house we built for our family."
"And if I say no?"
"Then I'll accept it. I'll find another place to live, and we'll work out custody arrangements, and I'll spend every day trying to be the best co-parent I can be.
" I held her gaze, letting her see that I meant every word.
"But I hope you don't say no. I hope you'll give me a chance to prove that I can be different. "
Aubree was quiet for a long moment, her eyes fixed on Everly's sleeping form. I watched her wrestle with something internal, watched the emotions flicker across her face like shadows in candlelight.
"I'm not ready to share a bedroom," she finally said. "I'm not ready to pretend everything is fixed when it isn't."
"I understand."
"I mean it, Tristen. Moving back doesn't mean I've forgiven you. It doesn't mean we're okay. It just means I'm willing to try."
"That's all I'm asking for." I reached out slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted to, and placed my hand over hers on the hospital bed.
Her skin was warm beneath my palm, and she didn't flinch at my touch.
"I know becoming a father doesn't erase what I did.
It doesn't automatically make me worthy of being your husband.
I have to earn that separately, and I will. However long it takes."
She turned her hand over beneath mine, her fingers threading through my own. The gesture was small, almost unconscious, but it made something inside me crack open with hope.
"The guest room?" she asked.
"I've been sleeping there for months. It's practically mine at this point."
The ghost of a smile flickered across her face. "We'll take it one day at a time."
"One day at a time," I agreed.
Everly stirred in her bassinet, making a small snuffling sound that immediately drew both our attention. We watched her settle back into sleep, her tiny fist pressed against her cheek, her lips pursed in a perfect little pout.
"She's really ours," Aubree whispered, wonder threading through her voice.
"She's really ours."
We sat there in the quiet hospital room, our hands still linked, watching our daughter sleep. Outside, the sun was starting to rise, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold that spilled through the window and warmed the cold February air.
It wasn't a happy ending. Not yet. There were still too many wounds unhealed, too much trust to rebuild, too many conversations we needed to have before we could call ourselves whole again.
But it was a beginning.
And for the first time in months, I let myself believe that the beginning might be enough.
"I love you," I said quietly, not expecting anything in return. "I know that doesn't fix anything. But I need you to know it's still true. It's always been true."
Aubree didn't respond with words. But her fingers tightened around mine, a small pressure that said more than any declaration could.
She wasn't ready to forgive me. She wasn't ready to let me back into her heart completely.
But she was here. Our daughter was here. And tomorrow, we would all go home together.
It wasn't everything I wanted.
But it was more than I deserved.
And I would spend every day of the rest of my life trying to be worthy of it.