Chapter 11 #2
Iris weighed slightly less than my hockey stick, certainly less than I’d braced for. Iris was a small, warm bundle that fit in the crook of my arm. I sat very still and looked at her face and her tiny, clenched fist. She opened one eye for half a second and closed it again, and that was enough.
“Hi Iris,” I said to her. Quietly. “I’m your Uncle Chip.” I sat with her until Matt eventually crouched at my elbow and took her gently from my arm, giving her back to Lena to nurse as she ate the food the hospital had given her, and then he ruffled my hair.
“We’ll head out for something to eat, Uncle Chip.”
The cafeteria was almost empty. Matt got a turkey sandwich and a coffee. I got a banana, some water, and an apple for later.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I need a minute,” he said, halfway through the sandwich, eyes on the table. “Don’t say anything good or I’ll cry.”
“Okay.”
I waited him out. He breathed for a while, drank some coffee, and looked out the window. Then he pushed the sandwich away.
He looked at me, his eyes wet, and he said, “She’s so small.”
“Six pounds two ounces, which is perfectly acceptable”
“I know.”
“Nineteen inches.”
“I know.”
“She’s an average-sized newborn.”
“I know.”
I took a bite of the banana. “Are you okay?”
“I’m… I don’t know. I’m a dad. Ask me in two weeks.”
“Two weeks isn’t enough time to figure it out.”
“I know it isn’t, but I’ll try.”
“I love you.” I hadn’t said that to him out loud, in those words, since I was nine years old, when he pulled me out of a snowbank deeper than I’d estimated and carried me home on his back.
“I love you. I love Lena. I already love Iris. I’ve been working on saying these things out loud lately because, even if it feels weird to me, I’m going to keep saying them. I wanted you to know.”
He put both his hands flat on the table, looked at them for a count of about six, then looked back up at me.
“I love you too, Russ.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He took a sip of coffee, set it down, and laced his fingers together. He looked at me sideways, the way Matt looked at me when he was about to ask a thing he’d been trying not to ask.
“Is this about Dane?”
“What?”
“You learning to say it. This about Dane?”
I could deflect, change the subject, or give him a number—the number of times Dane and I had held hands, the number of nights I’d stayed at his house, the number of mornings I’d woken up before he had and watched the way his face looked while it was unguarded, which was a thing I’d been doing more frequently and telling myself it was just me figuring things out.
I could do any of that.
I glanced at my brother. He had a daughter who was a few hours old. He ate half a turkey sandwich. He was looking at me with the face he had used when I was thirteen and asked him what a panic attack was.
“Yes,” I said.
“Yeah?”
“It’s about Dane. I think I love him.”
He stayed quiet for a while, and then he smiled. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“You think, or you know?”
“I think. I’m choosing to call it ‘think’ for now because I haven’t said the words out loud to him.
The words are in my head. I have been holding them there for about nine days.
I held them there the first night I stayed at his house, and I’ve held them through every day since.
I am now telling them to the second person in my life who would understand what it means to hold words for nine days.
The first person was Sable, and Sable can’t argue with me about it. ”
“I’m not arguing with you.”
“No.”
“You should tell him.”
“I’m working on it.”
“Don’t work on it forever, Russ.”
“No.”
“Does he—”
“I think he might be working on the same words.”
“Then both of you should stop working and just say the damn thing.”
“It is not that simple for me.”
“I know it isn’t.” He scrubbed his face with one hand. “I know it isn’t. I’m sorry. I’m tired, and I just had a kid. Tell him when you can.”
“Yeah.”
“He saved your life.”
“Yeah.”
“Russ.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m really happy you have him.”
“I’m difficult,” I said after a pause. “It’s not easy being with me. I see how people like Bridget don’t understand, and I know that. I’ve read articles and—”
“If I had to choose a brother, I would always choose you. You have friends, your team, your career, you are happy and alive, and you’re my brother. It’s easy for people to love you just the way you are.”
I didn’t have an answer, but I wanted to cry, as Matt reached across the table and put his hand over mine. Sable thumped her tail against the leg of the booth.
“He always warns me, you know,” I said at random.
“Huh?”
“Dane has started touching me in advance of contact. Touching my back or brushing my wrist before taking my hand, just to let my brain prepare for him.”
“Okay.”
“He gets me, Matt.”
Matt squeezed my hand. “I’m so happy for you.”
We went back upstairs. The baby was asleep. My mother was sitting in a chair watching them with the look of a woman who had decided she lived here now, and there was no sign of Bridget.
“I’m sorry about Mom,” Lena said, and I waved it away.
“I’ll be back tomorrow with gifts,” I said. “Yellow ones, not pink, is that okay?”
“Absolutely,” Lena said.
Matt kissed Iris’s head and Lena’s forehead, then sat on the arm of my mother’s chair. He put his head on her shoulder for a long minute, letting her hold him.
I stood in the doorway with Sable and watched my family for a while, but I had to leave to head to the team for tonight’s game; everything felt right.
I had a brother who had a daughter. I had a niece who would be my world, and I had a man I loved.