41. Lucy #4
He nodded. Then he kissed my forehead, slow and steady.
“We’ll go find out together,” he said.
By the time we reached the hospital, the waiting room had already become a Frosthawks occupation.
There were players along every wall. Staff members in clusters.
Families tucked into corners. Kids asleep across laps.
North Line bags stacked on a side table because Arlo had apparently decided labor required sandwiches.
Ezra paced near the double doors with his phone in his hand while Lo sat rigidly in a chair, eyes closed, lips moving around what might have been a prayer or a threat.
Freya stood near the nurses’ station, calm and watchful.
Zee sat on the edge of a coffee table until a nurse gave him a look that made him relocate instantly.
Marco had somehow found flowers in the gift shop and was now holding them like he had been assigned to play the role of Emotional Support Florist.
Ty looked around once, then guided me toward the far wall. He lowered himself to the floor, back against the pale hospital wall, one knee bent, one leg stretched out. Then he looked up at me and held out his hand.
I sat beside him. His arm came around my shoulders, and I leaned into him because I wanted to. Because my body knew where to go now. Because every part of me that had once braced against needing him was too tired to pretend need and choice could not occupy the same space.
The waiting room buzzed around us.
Soft conversations. Coffee cups. The squeak of nurses’ shoes. The low murmur of the television no one watched. Every now and then, someone would laugh too loudly and immediately quiet. Every time the doors opened, half the room looked up.
I looked at our hands. His fingers threaded through mine. My nails short and plain against the calluses on his palm. A month ago, I would have wondered who was watching. I would have measured the distance between us and corrected it before anyone else could assign meaning.
Across the waiting room, Arlo leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, talking quietly with Hal Burns. Ruth sat beside Lo, her hand over Lo’s, both of them watching the hallway with the fierce concentration of women who had spent their lives loving people through closed doors.
Evening thinned into night. A nurse came out twice with updates that were not really updates, just enough to keep everyone from vibrating through the floor. Bea was doing well. Labor was progressing. Alois was with her.
At some point, Ty shifted and stretched out both legs, then pulled me closer when I shivered. He gave me his hoodie without asking. I put it on without arguing.
Near midnight, Marco fell asleep sitting upright with the flowers in his lap.
Zee whispered, “Should we draw on him?”
Seven people warned, “No,” at the same time.
Around three in the morning, Lo cried silently into a napkin and Freya tucked an arm around her shoulders. Ezra stopped pacing only when Arlo physically handed him a sandwich and said, “Eat before you wear holes in those shoes.”
At five, the sky outside the windows began to pale.
Ty’s hand never let go of mine.
I dozed in pieces against his shoulder, waking every time the doors opened, every time someone moved too quickly, every time the hope in the room rose and fell like a tide.
Then, just before nine in the morning, the doors opened and Alois stepped into the waiting room.
I had seen Alois after fights. After wins. After losses. I had seen him furious, silent, controlled, amused in ways that barely qualified as expressions.
I had never seen him like that. His hair was a mess. His shirt was wrinkled. His eyes were red. And his face had been remade.
Not softened exactly. Alois would never be soft in a way the world could easily name. But something had opened in him, something raw and stunned and so full of awe.
“My daughter was born at 8:19,” he sang out.
A sound moved through the room. Not a cheer yet. Not quite. A collective inhale, maybe. A hundred hearts catching at once.
Alois swallowed. “Helena Clementine Ribeiro Müller,” he said. “Seven pounds, eleven ounces. Twenty inches. Bea and baby are doing wonderfully.”
Lo’s hand flew to her mouth.
Ezra bowed his head.
Ty pressed his mouth to my temple.
I thought of Dottie asleep on his floor with her toys in the corner.
My toothbrush beside his sink. Paper Lantern cups on my desk.
The way he had made room without making demands.
The way I had kept choosing him, one ordinary morning at a time, until choosing him in front of everyone had felt less like a leap and more like telling the truth.
Ty’s thumb brushed over mine. “You okay?”
I looked at Alois. At Lo crying. At Ezra’s hand pressed to his mouth. At Arlo wiping at his eyes and pretending he was not. At the team gathered around this baby none of them had met yet and already loved with the reckless, ridiculous loyalty that made them family.
Then I looked at Ty and squeezed his hand. “Yeah,” I breathed out. “I’m perfect.”
“You are,” he whispered back.