Chapter 20 #2
"Of course I did. You're taking my goddaughter home tomorrow!" Tessa's eyes water. "This is huge!"
Marnie descends with her giant gift bag. "I brought supplies. Essentials. Things you absolutely need."
"We bought out an entire baby store," Trace says. "I think we're covered."
"You bought the wrong things. Men always do." She starts pulling items from the bag. "Nipple cream. Hemorrhoid cream. Stool softeners. Heavy-duty pads. Witch hazel wipes—"
"Marnie," I interrupt, mortified. "This is very... practical."
"Practical keeps you alive in the first month." She keeps going. "Coffee. Energy bars. Dry shampoo because you won't have time to shower. Face wipes. More coffee. Did I mention coffee?"
"I love you," I say, and mean it.
Dr. Martinez approaches with a cup of truly terrible cafeteria coffee. "Congratulations, you two. Brooklyn's doing beautifully. She's gained four ounces, her breathing is perfect, and she's taking bottles like a champ."
"When can we take her home?" Trace asks.
"Tomorrow morning. I'll do final discharge papers around ten, and you can take her home after that."
Tomorrow. We're taking our daughter home tomorrow.
The panic must show on my face because Dr. Martinez pats my shoulder. "You're going to be fine. You've taken all the classes, you know what to look for, and you have my number if anything concerns you."
"What if we break her?" I whisper.
"You won't break her. She's tougher than she looks." Dr. Martinez smiles. "And you two are more capable than you think."
Gage and Trace drift toward the terrible coffee, leaving the women to talk. Because of course they do. Men plus feelings equals beverage acquisition.
"How are you really doing?" Tessa asks, sliding into the chair beside me.
"Terrified," I admit. "We're taking her home to Trace's cabin. Just us. No nurses. No monitors. No one to tell us we're doing it right."
"You'll figure it out."
"What if I'm a terrible mother?"
"Then you'll be a terrible mother who loves her kid and does her best. That's more than a lot of kids get.
" Tessa squeezes my hand. "You flew to Alaska seven months pregnant to face the guy who got you pregnant.
You went into labor seven weeks early. You've been living in a NICU for weeks. You're already doing the hard stuff."
"The hard stuff is starting tomorrow."
"Yeah. But you don't have to do it alone." She gestures around the cafeteria at Marnie unpacking more supplies, at Dr. Martinez talking with Gage and Trace, at the ridiculous balloons and homemade banner. "You have all of us."
I look around at these people—Trace's people, who've somehow become my people—and the knot I've been carrying since I left Florida starts to unwind. When I moved to Alaska, I thought I was leaving my life behind. My job, my apartment, my carefully constructed independence.
But I wasn't leaving a life. I was finding one.
"I'm not going back to Florida," I say suddenly.
Tessa grins. "Took you long enough to admit it."
"I need to find work. I can't just be dependent on Trace."
"There's remote finance work. And the town could use help with budgets. Marnie's been managing the town finances with a spiral notebook and prayers."
"Seriously?"
"Welcome to small-town Alaska. We need your spreadsheet wizardry."
I could do remote consulting work. Help Marnie with the town finances. Actually contribute instead of just being Trace's pregnant girlfriend who moved to Alaska. I could have a career and a family and a life that's mine.
"I can do this," I say.
"You can absolutely do this." Tessa hugs me again. "You're staying. You're really staying!"
"I'm staying."
Trace looks over from the coffee station, catches my eye. He knows. Somehow he knows what I just decided. His face does this thing—relief and joy and love all at once—and I can't help but smile back.
Marnie appears with another bag. "I also brought frozen casseroles. Six of them. You just heat and eat."
"You're a saint," I tell her.
"I'm practical. Saints don't survive Alaska winters." She winks. "But welcome home, dear. Ashwood Falls is lucky to have you."
Home.
Not Florida. Not Hibiscus Harbor with its palm trees and humidity and office buildings.
Here. Alaska. This frozen, beautiful, ridiculous place with its small-town meddling and community support and people who throw cafeteria parties for babies they barely know.
This is home now.
Later, after the party winds down and everyone leaves and it's just Trace and me walking back to the NICU for evening visiting hours, he takes my hand.
"You're staying," he says. Not a question.
"I'm staying. But I need to contribute. Find work. Be a partner, not a dependent."
"You were never dependent. You're the most independent person I know."
"Then I need to figure out how to be independent and partnered at the same time."
"We'll figure it out together." He stops walking, turns to face me. "I don't want you to stay because you feel obligated, Patrice. I want you to stay because you want this life. This town. This family. Me."
"I do want this," I say quietly. "All of it. I'm terrified, and I have no idea what I'm doing, and tomorrow we're taking our daughter home to your cabin that's full of incorrectly assembled furniture and approximately ten thousand baby bottles—"
"Twenty bottles."
"—twenty bottles, and I've never been more scared in my life. But I want this. I want you. I want us."
He kisses me, gentle and sure, and I kiss him back like I'm trying to communicate everything I can't quite say out loud yet.
"Tomorrow's going to be chaos," he says against my lips.
"Complete disaster," I agree.
"We're going to be terrible at this."
"The absolute worst." But I'm smiling when I say it.
"Together though."
"That's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."
He laughs. "Just wait. Tomorrow I'm going to panic about car seat installation and probably drop something important and definitely call Dr. Martinez about seventeen non-emergency emergencies."
"And I'm going to cry at least four times and Google 'is my baby breathing' every five minutes."
"We're going to be those parents, aren't we?"
"Oh, we're absolutely going to be those parents."
We walk into the NICU together, past the hand-washing station, past the nurses who know us by name now, past the other families dealing with their own tiny humans and their own fears.
Brooklyn's in her bassinet, eyes closed, one tiny fist curled against her cheek. She's gained weight. She looks less fragile, more solid. More ready for the world.
Tomorrow, we take her home.
Tomorrow, we become parents. For real. No nurses to ask. No monitors to reassure us. Just us and our daughter and a cabin full of baby supplies and our complete and utter incompetence.
I watch Trace reach down and gently stroke Brooklyn's head, his huge hand dwarfing her tiny skull, and my chest tightens with something that might be love or terror or both.
"We got this," he whispers.
"We absolutely do not got this."
"Well, no. But we're going to pretend we do until we figure it out."
"That's your parenting philosophy? Fake it till we make it?"
"Do you have a better one?"
"Not even a little bit."
He grins at me over our daughter's bassinet, and despite everything—the fear, the uncertainty, the absolute certainty that tomorrow is going to be a beautiful disaster—I find myself grinning back.
Tomorrow, Brooklyn comes home.
I look at Trace holding Brooklyn's tiny hand through the bassinet opening, and despite every logical cell in my body screaming that we're not ready for this, I feel ready anyway.
Or maybe I'm just too tired to be scared anymore.
Either way, tomorrow, we're taking our baby home.