Chapter 46 – Grant
FORTY-SIX
GRANT
That’s when shit got real.
This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. I couldn’t do this, could I?
“E.G.! I am, like, not kidding. This really fucking hurts!”
Flowers was sitting next to me in the passenger seat of the car, struggling against the seatbelt as her whole body was seized with a contraction.
“We need to get to the hospital,” she said through clenched teeth. “I want my epidural. I NEED my epidural.”
She was in pain. The mother of my child was in pain and I was doing nothing to help her. I hit the ignition button to turn on the car and slowly backed out of the driveway. I just needed to focus.
I could do this. I could get her to the hospital safely.
No, I couldn’t.
I hit the brake and rested my head against the steering wheel.
“No, no, no, E.G. Not now. I get you’ve got issues with this, but I need you to push through them right now. You can do it. You can do it!”
“We could call an ambulance,” I said through the fog that was overwhelming my brain.
“We would still have to wait! Just suck it up and drive! Owwwwww! It’s happening again.”
I looked over, and sure enough, I could actually see the ripple of the contraction grip her belly under her shirt.
“If you care anything, anything about me, you’ll do this. You’ll do this now!”
That’s when it became so clear to me. What a fool I’d been this whole time. Not because I had hang ups about driving. Those fears were justified. And they were justified because the person in the car with me was the most important person in my world.
Of course, I loved Flowers. It’s why I was so damn scared right now.
I eased off the brake and hit the accelerator. She was moaning, but I didn’t turn to look at her. I needed to focus on the road. On the traffic around me. At every stop sign. Every signal. There could be no mistakes. Not a single misstep.
“You’re doing good, E.G.,” she panted. “Real good. Keep going. You got this. The hospital is only about a mile away.”
That’s right. The woman I loved, who was currently in the process of bringing our child into the world, who was writhing in pain next to me, was also doing her level best to make sure I was okay.
But I couldn’t focus on that. I couldn’t tell her to breathe through the contractions, or to hold my hand, or tell her she was amazing and strong and beautiful.
Because I would not be distracted. I would not allow a single fucking thing to happen on this drive to the hospital because I was going to be with Flowers and our baby.
And I was going to love the shit out of them. Both of them.
I made one last turn, and the hospital, like it had been heaven sent, rose out of the earth like a castle in the middle of what was a cul-du-sac.
The emergency room entrance just off to the right. I pulled up to the doors, hopped out and ran inside, where I found the first person I could find wearing a pair of scrubs.
He was tall and looked fairly competent.
“Baby! Coming! Help me now!”
I think I spoke English words. I hoped I had, because I was already running back to Flowers who was making a valiant effort to get out of the car. When I turned, the man in the scrubs was behind me with a wheelchair.
“Okay, we got you, Momma!” he said.
Together, we maneuvered Flowers into the wheelchair and then we were zipping through the hospital doors with everything around me a blur.
I felt the clasp of her hand reaching for mine.
“You did it, E.G.” she said, panting out shallow breaths. “You got us here. I know how hard that was for you.”
“Flowers,” I growled. “Shut up and let me take care of you. Please.”
We were taken to a room. I told them who our OB/GYN was and they said they would call her, but apparently, upon an initial assessment from the ER doctor, the baby was not going to wait. Flowers had called it. This baby was coming now.
“What the hell, Flowers? This was supposed to be a long drawn-out process.”
It might have been funny. The stunned look on her face that all this was happening at breakneck speed. If it weren’t for the fact that she was in excruciating pain.
In the end, I’d barely pushed my arms into the hospital gown, when Flowers exclaimed that she needed to push.
She grabbed my hand, I was sure with the intent to break it, and three big hard pushes later, our daughter came into the world.
Hours later, we were settled into a private hospital room. Nothing but the best for my family, of course. I was holding my swaddled daughter in my arms, watching Flowers take a quick cat nap on the bed.
My parents and Rebecca were already on the way. Today was a good day.
“What are we going to name her?”
I tore my eyes away from the precious tiny face in my arms, to the precious face on the bed.
What an idiot I was. Thinking that a person’s capacity for love was limited to one, and one only. If I hadn’t come to the realization before my daughter was born, it certainly would have occurred to me now.
My cold dead heart was in fact very much alive and spewing love all over the place. I feared for the next nurse who might walk through that door, because I would love them too.
“You tell me,” I said to Flowers.
We hadn’t really talked about names because we’d decided to wait until we knew if it was a girl or a boy. We each had our list of never-names, of course. But we were pretty in sync in terms of what we liked.
“Do you want to name her Allison?”
She would do that. She would name her daughter after my late wife if she thought it would bring me some measure of comfort.
Of closure.
I loved you very much, Allison. But now it’s time to say goodbye.
“No,” I answered her. “Allison’s dead. This little girl is alive and needs a new name. What do you think of Emma?”
“Emma Allen,” Flowers said, trying it out. “I love it.”
“Emma Flowers Allen,” I insisted.
“Why would you do that to her? Someday someone is going to ask her for her middle name and she’ll have to explain why it’s Flowers.”
“I don’t care. I want her to have all the love in my heart in her name. So that it goes with her wherever she goes. I love Emma. And I love you, Flowers.”
Tears started falling out of her eyes, dripping into the pillow.
“You’re just feeling sappy right now,” she said.
My daughter stirred then, letting out a tiny cry. This would be the first time the nurse would help Flowers with breast feeding. I couldn’t wait to watch that little miracle happen, too.
“Gimme,” Flowers demanded. Already a protective mamma bear.
I stood up and placed our daughter carefully in her arms. Emma instantly settled against her mom’s breasts.
I kissed Flowers on the top of her head. “Thank you.”
“What for?”
“For my daughter. For you. For healing my cold dead heart. For not leaving me. For giving me the time I needed. So many, many things.”
Then I got down on one knee. On the hard linoleum floor, which really kind of hurt.
“Anna Flowers, I love you with all my heart. Will you please marry me and make me the happiest man on this planet?”
I heard a gasp behind me. The lactation consultant, no doubt.
Anna looked over my shoulder to the nurse. “Does he sound sincere to you? Because I’m having a hard time judging right now.”
“Hmm, hmmm,” the nurse replied. “You should say yes.”
“I should say yes,” Flowers repeated. Then she looked at our daughter, then me. “I do say yes, E.G.”
Of course she said yes. I knew she would and still I was…
“Are you crying?” she asked me.
“It’s just because my knee hurts on this hard floor.”
“Then I guess you better get up and kiss me.”
And that is exactly what I did.