Epilogue
Gabriel
Seven weeks later
Evie grips my hand through another contraction.
The room is too bright and too warm. Full of monitors, calm voices, and people who keep telling me everything is progressing exactly as it should.
My heart refuses to believe them.
“Gabe.”
I look at her. Sweat dampens the curls around her face. Her hair came loose hours ago. She is exhausted, furious, and more beautiful than anything I have ever seen.
“You’re doing great,” I tell her.
“You’re staring at the monitor.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
The nurse glances at the sensor clipped to my finger. Apparently, sometime in the last hour, somebody decided the man with the damaged heart also required supervision.
Evie notices the nurse looking.
“He does that,” she says through clenched teeth. “Panics quietly and calls it helping.”
“I am helping.”
“You’ve asked the doctor four times whether everything is normal.”
“It seemed like a reasonable question.”
“The fourth time?”
“I wanted to make sure the answer hadn’t changed.”
A contraction hits her, and her fingers crush mine. I lean closer, letting her pull as hard as she needs.
“That’s it,” the doctor says. “Breathe through it.”
Evie gives her a look that suggests breathing is currently low on her list of priorities.
“I hate everybody,” she says.
I nod. “Fair.”
“Especially you. This is your fault.”
I bite back a smile. “Mostly.”
Her eyes narrow. “Entirely.”
“Entirely,” I agree.
The contraction eases, and Evie falls back against the pillows.
I wipe her forehead with the cool cloth the nurse handed me twenty minutes ago, trying not to remember that my mother died when I was born. The weight of it has been sitting with me since we arrived.
Dad went silent when the nurse wheeled Evie to the delivery suite earlier. He caught my shoulder and held on longer than necessary.
I know this is different. Different hospital. Different woman. Different story.
But knowing doesn’t stop the fear.
Evie opens her eyes. “Come here.”
“I’m right here.”
“Closer.”
I bend until my forehead touches hers.
Her palm settles against the side of my face. “This is not what happened to your parents.”
The words knock the air from my lungs. “I know.”
“No, you don’t.” Her thumb moves over my cheek. “You’re waiting for history to repeat itself.”
I close my eyes. “I can’t lose you.”
“You’re not going to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No.” Her voice softens. “But I’m here. Our daughter is almost here. And you need to stay in this room with us instead of standing like a ghost in one that existed thirty years ago.”
My throat closes. Evie always has a way of finding the truth I’m trying not to see.
“I’m trying.”
“I know.”
She kisses me. “Keep trying.”
Another contraction rises.
The doctor checks her again, then looks up. “It’s time.”
Nurses move closer, equipment shifts, and the head of the bed lifts.
Evie’s grip turns fierce.
I move beside her shoulder. “You’ve got this, Lightning.”
She laughs once, breathless. “If you call me that again while I’m pushing a melon out of my womb, I will divorce you.”
“Noted.”
“Push,” the doctor says.
Every muscle in Evie’s body tightens as she bears down. I hold her hand and count because somebody told me to count, though I lose track somewhere after six.
She collapses back against the pillows, gasping. “I can’t.”
“You can.”
She turns her head toward me. “You do it.”
“I lack the necessary equipment.”
That gets a broken laugh from her.
Then another contraction takes her, leaving no room for anything except effort. She pushes. Stops. Pushes again.
The doctor says something encouraging.
A nurse tells me to look.
I don’t.
My place is with Evie.
Then the doctor says, “One more.”
Evie makes a sound I will hear for the rest of my life.
She bears down, and suddenly I hear a cry, small, sharp, and furious.
The world stops.
Our daughter screams again, and my knees nearly give way.
Evie starts crying before the doctor even lifts her. “Is she okay?”
“She’s perfect.”
The nurse places a tiny, red, outraged body against Evie’s chest.
Our daughter. Dark hair plastered to her head. Eyes squeezed shut. Fists clenched as though she’s arrived prepared to fight every person in the room.
Evie’s hands shake as they settle around her. “Oh,” she whispers.
That one sound contains everything.
I stand beside them, unable to move. Unable to breathe.
The baby’s cries soften when Evie speaks to her. “Hi, sweetheart.”
Our daughter turns toward the sound. Toward her mother.
Alive. Evie is alive. Our daughter is healthy. The realization hits so hard that I have to grip the side of the bed.
Evie looks up at me. “Gabe.”
I can’t answer.
Her expression softens. “Hey.”
“I’m okay.”
“You don’t look okay.”
“I’m not.”
Tears blur everything. I’ve cried more in the last few months than in the previous thirty years put together.
“She’s here,” I manage.
“She is.”
“And you’re—” My voice breaks.
Evie reaches for me. I bend over them, and she catches the back of my neck, pulling my forehead to hers, our daughter tucked between us.
“I’m here,” she whispers.
I close my eyes. Her words move through every frightened place inside me.
Our daughter gives a small, indignant sound.
I look down, and her eyes open, too new to tell whose they will become. She stares somewhere near my chin.
“That’s your daddy,” Evie whispers.
Daddy.
The best word in the world.
I touch one finger to our daughter’s hand, and her tiny fingers close around it. “Hi, baby girl. I’m your dad.”
She doesn’t appear impressed.
Evie smiles. “Tell her the important part.”
I know exactly what she means.
I lean closer, her tiny fingers still curled around mine. “I wanted you. Every second. Before I saw you moving on that screen. Before I felt you kick. You were wanted before you took your first breath. You’ll be wanted every day after.”
Fear rises immediately when the nurse asks if I want to hold her.
“Here,” she says gently. “Let me show you.”
I sit, and she transfers our daughter into my arms.
She weighs almost nothing—and everything.
Her head fits into the crook of my elbow. One tiny fist rests beneath her chin. Her mouth opens, then closes, as though she has something to say but hasn’t decided whether I’m ready to hear it.
I stare at her.
There’s no guilt in this room. No price paid for her life. Only Evie breathing beside me, our daughter warm against my chest, and my heart beating steadily beneath the device.
One of the nurses draws the curtain farther around the bed. “We’re going to get Mom cleaned up and comfortable. Why don’t you take your daughter for a little walk?”
I look at Evie, whose eyes are already drifting closed.
“Go,” she murmurs. “Introduce her.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll still be here when you get back.”
I bend and kiss her forehead.
“Gabriel?” she calls as I reach the door.
I turn. “Yeah?”
She smiles. “Tell them her name.”
I nod, then carry our daughter into the hallway.
Dad is sitting in one of the plastic chairs with his elbows on his knees. Maggie is beside him, holding two untouched cups of coffee and watching the delivery-room door as though she can force it open through concentration alone.
They both stand when they see me.
Maggie’s hand flies to her mouth. “Oh,” she whispers.
Dad doesn’t say anything. His gaze goes to the bundle in my arms, then to my face.
“Evie?” he asks.
“She’s okay. They’re getting her settled.”
His shoulders drop.
Maggie presses one of the coffees into his hand without looking at him. He takes it automatically.
Dad’s eyes follow the movement as our daughter shifts beneath the blanket.
“You want to meet her?” I ask.
His throat moves. “I can wait until Evie’s ready.”
“She sent me out here to introduce her.”
Maggie turns away and dabs at her eyes with the corner of her cardigan.
Dad steps closer, slowly and carefully, as though one wrong movement might break the moment.
“This is your granddaughter, Caroline Ruth Sutton,” I say.
He looks at me for a full minute before his face folds. The worry disappears. Thirty years of it. He’s not the hard man who couldn’t look at his youngest son. He’s simply a father staring at new life.
“She has your hair,” he says gruffly.
“Poor kid.”
Dad’s gaze moves to me. “You doing all right?”
The question carries more than one meaning.
“Yeah.”
I am—terrified, overwhelmed, and so happy it hurts—but yes.
“Want to hold her?”
Dad goes still. His hands open, and I place my daughter in them.
He handles her with a care that surprises me until I remember he did this once before. With my brothers. With me before grief swallowed everything that came next.
Our daughter squirms, then settles against his chest.
Dad looks down at her. “Hello, sweetheart.”
He strokes one finger over the baby’s cheek, and she begins to cry.
Dad panics. “I think she wants you.”
He hands her back quickly, and I settle her against my chest.
Dad watches us, pride moving across his face without being hidden or swallowed. “You’re going to be a good father.”
I hold his gaze. “I plan to be.”
He nods. “I’m proud of you.”
My eyes burn. A man can wait his whole life to hear certain words and still not be ready when they come.
I look down at my daughter, at her dark hair and tiny mouth, the fist resting over my heart. “Thanks, Dad.”
He nods once.
I turn to Maggie. “Your turn.”
She gives me a look, then holds out both arms. I pass my daughter over, and Maggie gathers her close with the same sure hands that held me when I was this small. The hands that fed me, soothed me, and raised me when my father couldn’t.
“Well, hello there,” she whispers. “Look at you.”
Our daughter makes a tiny sound and turns toward her.
Maggie smiles down at her for all of three seconds before she says, “She’s rooting.”
I frown. “She’s what?”
“Hungry.” Maggie presses one kiss to the baby’s forehead, then hands her back to me. “Take that child to her mother. She needs feeding.”
The door opens before I reach it, and one of the nurses steps out, holding discarded packaging and folded linens. “She’s ready for you.”
I go inside. The room is quieter now. The lights have been lowered, the equipment moved back. Evie is propped against clean pillows beneath a clean blanket, her hair brushed away from her face. She looks tired and pale and beautiful.
Her eyes find us immediately. “Hey, you two.”
I cross the room and sit beside her. Evie holds out her arms, and I place our daughter against her chest, then climb carefully onto the edge of the bed beside them.
Her head settles against my shoulder.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Sore. Exhausted. Hungry.”
“Maggie’s outside.”
“Then I’m saved.” She looks down at the baby. “How did it go?”
“Dad held her.”
Evie looks up. “And?”
“He told me he was proud of me.”
Her expression softens. “You okay?”
“No.”
She smiles. “Good no?”
“Yeah.”
“You happy?” Evie asks softly.
I look at my wife. My daughter. The future gathered in one room.
“I am.”
Our daughter makes a small snuffling sound and presses closer to Evie. I place my hand gently over her back and feel the quick, steady beat beneath my palm.
Her heart.
Mine answers.
Beat by beat.
Day by day.
Still choosing.
Still here.
Thank you for reading!