Epilogue
SEBASTIAN
Six Months Later
Val threatens to divorce me three times before noon, which would probably scare me more if we were married.
The first time is when I offer her more ice chips.
The second is when I adjust her pillow because she keeps shifting like she’s uncomfortable, which is a stupid thought, because of course she’s uncomfortable.
She’s been in labor for almost thirty hours by then, and I have never felt more useless in my life.
The third time is when another contraction hits and I tell her she’s doing well.
She turns her head very slowly and looks at me with murder in her eyes.
Hair piled on top of her head, face flushed, dark circles carved under her eyes.
She has never looked less interested in being comforted, which is unfortunate because comfort is the only thing I have to offer.
“Do not tell me I’m doing well,” she says through her teeth.
I tighten my hand around hers because she’s squeezing hard enough to crush bone.
“What would you like me to say?”
“Nothing.”
“Understood.”
She closes her eyes and breathes the way the nurse keeps coaching her to breathe. I hate the nurse for having useful information and a calm voice. I hate the monitor for beeping. Mostly, I hate that I can’t do this for her.
I can fix most problems. Not all, but enough that I’ve grown used to being the man people look to when something needs handling.
Money, violence, pressure, favors, security—all of it has a use somewhere.
None of it matters in this room. In here, I’m just a man holding the hand of the woman I love while she does the hardest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do.
Val opens her eyes again and catches me staring. “If you look at me like I’m brave,” she says, “I’m going to throw up on you.”
I nod once.
Nico has been pacing the waiting room most of the day.
Gia asks for near constant updates. Matteo brought coffee at dawn, took one look at Val, and left without saying a word, which means he has stronger survival instincts than most people give him credit for.
My mother called twice. Val told me if I put her on speaker, she’d name the baby after a dictator out of spite.
So I keep everyone outside. This room is hers. Ours, maybe, but hers first. Her pain, her body, her choice, and I am smart enough now to understand that being allowed in the room is not the same thing as owning any part of what happens inside it.
Hour thirty-four is the worst. The epidural helps, then doesn’t.
The doctor comes in more often. The nurses move with a little more purpose.
Val gets quieter, which scares me more than the threats did.
She stops insulting me and starts gripping my hand with both of hers, head tilted back against the pillows, eyes fixed somewhere beyond me.
I brush damp hair back from her forehead. “Look at me.”
She does, and there’s fear there. Real fear.
“I can’t do this anymore,” she whispers.
I lean closer so she doesn’t have to hear me over the machines or the nurses or the movement around us.
“You can.”
“I’m so tired.”
Her face crumples, and for a second I think she’s going to cry. Then the doctor tells her to push again, and Val turns all that fear into focus so fast it nearly takes my breath.
She pushes.
She curses.
She screams at the doctor that “a little pressure” is a criminal understatement.
She tells me if I ever touch her again, it better be with a signed apology and a vasectomy.
Thirty-six hours in, the doctor tells her one more push.
Val does it with a sound I will hear for the rest of my life. Then a sharp, furious cry cuts through everything else.
Our son is born angry. That seems right. The nurse places him on Val’s chest, and I forget how to breathe.
He’s small. Impossibly small, even though the doctor says he’s perfect.
Dark hair plastered to his head, face red, mouth open in a scream.
His tiny hand opens and closes against Val’s skin, and she cries harder, one arm curling around him like her body knows what to do before the rest of her catches up.
“Oh, my God,” she whispers.
I can’t say anything.
I look at her, then at him, then back at her, and something in me gives way so completely I have to grip the bedrail with my free hand. I thought I knew what fear felt like. Then I looked at Val holding our son and realized I had no idea what it meant to have this much to lose.
Val looks up at me through tears. “Sebastian.”
That breaks whatever was left of my control.
I bend over them both, pressing my mouth to her hair, one careful hand covering our son’s back. He is warm. Real. Mine. Ours.
“I love you,” I tell her.
“You better,” she says, crying and laughing at the same time.
The nurse asks if I want to cut the cord. I do it with steadier hands than I expect. A few minutes later, they take him just long enough to clean and weigh him, and Val watches every second like someone might try to run out of the room with him.
I would kill them before they reached the door.
When they hand him back, she lets me hold him.
He fits against my forearm like he was made for that space.
His eyes are closed now, his face calmer, one tiny fist tucked under his chin.
He makes a soft sound, and I look down at him with the sudden understanding that I would burn down the world for someone who has been alive for less than half an hour.
Val watches me from the bed. Exhausted, pale, beautiful, amused despite all of it.
“You look scared,” she says.
“I am.”
“Good. Welcome to parenting.”
I sit carefully on the edge of the bed with our son in my arms. “Marry me.”
Her eyes widen. This is not how I planned to ask.
I had a plan, actually. A ring in the safe at home.
Dinner somewhere private. Flowers that weren’t white.
Something that didn’t involve hospital lighting, my wrinkled shirt, and Val looking like she might still murder someone if they adjusted her blanket wrong.
But the words are out, and I don’t regret them.
Val stares at me for a second.
“I’m sorry, did my thirty-six-hour labor damage your brain too?”
“Probably.”
“Sebastian.”
“I have a ring at home,” I say. “This isn’t how I meant to do it.”
“No kidding.”
“I know you’re exhausted. I know this is ridiculous timing.”
“Deeply ridiculous.”
“I also know I don’t want to wait.” I look down at our son, then back at her. “Marry me, Valentina.”
Her eyes fill again, and this time she doesn’t try to hide it. “You are absolutely insane,” she says.
“Yes.”
“And bossy.”
“Yes.”
“And I just had a baby.”
“I’m aware.”
She reaches for my hand, and I give it to her, careful not to jostle the baby between us.
“Yes,” she says, voice breaking. “Of course, yes.”
I kiss her then, gently because she’s exhausted and because our son is sleeping between us like the smallest, most important chaperone in the world.
For the first time in my life, everything I want is in one room.