25. Brody
My son is four hours old and asleep on my bare chest, skin to skin.
The book that I read said it settles them.
The midwife looked at the size of me and said he may actually get lost, sing out if you can’t find him.
He’s a burrito of blanket not even the length of my forearm.
His whole hand is wrapped around the top joint of my finger, and every so often his grip tightens in his sleep like he’s checking I’m still on the other end of it.
I am. I’m not going anywhere. I may never move again.
Everett is asleep at last, flat out, one arm flung over his face the way he sleeps when he’s finished with the world’s nonsense. He did the impossible all night and then stayed awake two more hours just holding our miracle.
I told him to sleep and he was far too tired to argue. I’ve been standing guard over the two of them since.
The kid has dark hair. A lot of it, standing straight up. He’s got Everett’s mouth. He is the most beautiful thing that I have ever seen.
Everett wakes hours later, the sun already well up. I’ve made sure there is tea beside him. He drinks half of it before he says anything.
He shifts up against the pillows and holds his arms out, and I hand our son across, and watch pure happiness drain from his face.
“Okay,” I say. “So. Names.”
“Not Gordon.” It’s out of him flat and fast, before I’ve even sat down.
“No,” I say. “Not Gordon.”
He looks up, half braced for an argument. I shrug. “I loved the man. He was better to me than my own father but he’s gone and you’re here. I know you don’t want it.”
Everett looks back down at the baby for a while. When he speaks again his voice has gone quiet. “Thank you.”
“What about your father?” he asks, eventually. “I don’t even know your father’s name.”
“Dale,” I say flatly. “And no. He’s not getting anything either. He wouldn’t know about it anyway, and that’s the point.”
“So. Neither grandfather. A clean sheet.”
“A clean sheet.”
We go through some. Everett vetoes anything that sounds like a hockey player, which I think is funny but also rules out more than you’d think.
I veto a couple of his suggestions for the single reason that they simply don’t sound right.
The baby sleeps through the whole negotiation, which everyone agrees is wise.
“Everett Junior,” I offer, at one point, purely for the pleasure of watching his face do what it does.
“Absolutely not. No child should go through life as a junior. You spend your whole existence being the smaller version of somebody.” He says it lightly.
“Jens,” he counters. “Quietly Scandinavian. Dignified.”
“Linus will take full credit and you know it. He’ll tell the papers.”
“God. Withdrawn.”
“Sam,” Everett says, finally, looking at him. “He looks like a Sam to me. It travels. It doesn’t shorten into anything stupid. Nobody in either of our families is called it. Sam.”
The kid picks that exact moment to work one arm free of the burrito and lay it across Everett’s chest like he’s calling the vote.
“Sam,” I say. Trying it in my mouth. Sam Callahan. Sam Rourke. “Sam what, though? Whose name does he get stuck with?”
“Both. Rourke-Callahan.” He says it like it’s been decided for some time, which it probably has. “Alphabetical. Don’t fight it.”
“And a middle name?”
“I had a thought about that,” he says. “And I think it’s one you wanted to suggest but didn’t want to.”
And the thing is, I know. The exact same thought’s been sitting in me since about five this morning: the one person who knew everything almost the whole time and carried it, who covered for us, drove me to the airport, told me to go when going looked insane.
“Jean-Pierre,” I say.
“Jean-Pierre,” Everett agrees. “God help us all.”