34. Lee
Lee
Myles had officially decided he liked it inside me too much. At my last appointment, my doctor checked me, looked over everything, then told me that if he didn’t make his own appearance before Monday, she wanted me at the hospital at six Monday morning to be induced.
I should’ve been excited to finally have a date, but instead my stomach dropped.
The closer I got to giving birth, the harder it was getting to keep Junior out of my head.
As long as Myles was moving, I could usually talk myself down.
A foot in my ribs, a hard roll across my stomach, hiccups at three in the morning, I welcomed all of it because every little movement was proof that he was still in there doing what he was supposed to do.
Now I had an actual date. In a few days, I was going to walk into another hospital pregnant, and all I could think about was whether I would walk back out holding my baby. I hated that my mind even went there.
I sat in my car after the appointment with the induction paperwork in my lap. Mama and Anika were easy calls. I made those before I even pulled out of the parking lot. There was one more person I needed to call.
JB.
I damn sure didn’t want to. I sat there staring at his name for a good five minutes, trying to convince myself I didn’t owe him shit.
But this wasn’t about what I owed JB. Myles was his son too, and I wasn’t giving that man the opportunity to tell anybody I purposely kept him from knowing when his child was coming into the world. So I unblocked him and called.
He answered on the fourth ring. “What?”
No hello. No nothing.
“My doctor inducing me Monday,” I told him. “I gotta be at the hospital at six in the morning.”
JB went quiet.
I looked out the windshield while I waited. “I’m letting you know in case you wanna be there.”
“You ain’t needed me all this time. What you calling me for now?”
That almost hurt my feelings, which pissed me off even more because I should’ve known better by now. I swallowed before answering.
“Because that’s your son.”
“You made it real clear you got everybody else.”
And there it was. This wasn’t about Myles. It was about me not needing JB the way he wanted me to.
“Okay.”
“What you mean, okay?”
“I mean I told you when your son coming. What you do with that information is on you.” I hung up before he could say anything else.
For a minute, I sat there with my phone in my hand. I wasn’t crying, and I damn sure wasn’t calling him back, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sting. Fifteen years with somebody, and somehow they could still find new ways to disappoint you.
I called Van next. Wind blew through the phone when he answered, so I figured he was outside somewhere at work.
“What’s up?”
“You working Monday?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“My doctor inducing me.”
Everything on his end went quiet.
“Monday?” he asked.
“Six in the morning.”
“Aight. I’m taking off.”
I smiled despite myself. “You can?”
“I just said I am.”
“I was asking before you start bossing people around at your job.”
Van laughed a little. “I’ll handle work. You good?”
The question loosened something in me. He didn’t ask whether JB was coming or make me explain why I needed him there.
“I’m nervous,” I admitted.
“I know.”
“I need you there.”
“I’ll be there.”
Monday came entirely too damn fast. Mama prayed over me at my place before we left, then somehow decided God needed a follow-up prayer once we got to the hospital parking lot.
“Mama, I think He heard you the first time.”
“He can hear me again.”
She had both hands pressed against my stomach and her eyes closed, so I let her finish. Van stood beside us holding my hospital bag, trying his hardest not to laugh.
Mama must’ve sensed it because she opened one eye. “You think this funny?”
Van straightened up immediately. “No, ma’am.”
“Then bow your head.”
His head dropped so fast I had to bite the inside of my cheek.
When Mama finally finished, she kissed my forehead before turning to Van.
“Take care of my baby.”
“I will.”
“And my grandbaby.”
Van looked down at my stomach, then back at her. “I got both of ’em.”
I turned toward the hospital before either one of them noticed my eyes getting watery. I had enough to cry about that day. I wasn’t starting in the parking lot.
Anika and Trevon were coming later. There was no point in them sitting in a waiting room from six in the morning while everybody stared at my cervix and waited for Myles to cooperate.
Getting admitted took forever. I changed into the gown, got hooked up to monitors, answered what felt like four thousand questions, got an IV stuck in my hand, and eventually they started the Pitocin.
Once that medicine started running through my IV, it finally hit me that I was really about to have this baby.
I watched the monitor beside my bed constantly. Every time Myles’s heart rate changed even a little, my eyes went straight to the screen.
The first few times, Van didn’t say anything. After about the twentieth, he leaned closer to the bed.
“He good, Lee.”
“I know.”
Five minutes later, I checked again. Van caught me doing it. “He still good.”
“I said I know.”
Mama looked up from her phone. “Leave her alone, Van.”
“I’m trying to keep her from worrying herself to death.”
Mama gave him a look. “You ever met somebody who stopped worrying because somebody told ’em to stop worrying?”
“Thank you, Mama,” I said.
Van looked from her to me and shook his head. “I see where you get it from.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Get what?”
He picked his phone back up. “Nothing.”
Mama nodded approvingly. “Smart man.”
The contractions eventually went from something I could breathe through to something that had me gripping the bedrail and questioning every woman who had voluntarily done this more than once. By the time I asked for the epidural, every brave thought I’d ever had was gone.
Another contraction finally eased, and I looked at my nurse. “Where the anesthesiologist at?”
“They’re coming.”
“They need to come faster.”
Van tried rubbing my lower back.
“Don’t touch me.”
His hand disappeared immediately. “Aight.”
About thirty seconds later, another contraction started.
“Rub my back.”
Van looked at me, then over at Mama like he needed a witness.
Mama shrugged. “Welcome to childbirth.”
He started rubbing again.
Once the epidural finally kicked in and I could think like a human being again, I apologized. Sort of.
“You know I ain’t mean it.”
Sitting beside my bed, Van gave me a look. “You absolutely meant it.”
“At the time.”
“Exactly.”
Eight hours after we walked into that hospital, my nurse checked me again and smiled.
“Well, Mama. It’s time.”
Every bit of joking left my body.
I stared at her. “Time like… time?”
“You’re having your baby.”
My heart started beating so hard I could hear it. Mama was on her feet before the nurse even finished talking, and Van came closer to my bed as soon as he saw my face.
“Hey.” He waited until I looked at him. “Myles is good.”
I nodded. I knew that. The monitor said he was good. The nurses said he was good. The doctor said he was good. But I had heard all of that before.
People started moving around the room, getting everything ready. Mama pulled her phone out and asked me one more time if I still wanted her to record.
“Yeah.” If this day ended differently, I wanted something I could look back on.
By the time they put my legs up and told me to push, I had Van’s hand locked in mine so hard I’m surprised I didn’t break something.
“Come on, Lee,” he said beside me. “You got it.”
I pushed until they told me to stop, sucked in as much air as I could, then did it again.
The whole time, I prayed. I didn’t ask God for anything complicated.
I didn’t care what Myles looked like. I didn’t care how much he weighed.
I didn’t care if he came out looking like a wrinkled little old man with an attitude. I just needed one thing.
Please let him cry.
“Again,” my doctor told me.
I pushed until my whole body shook. Somewhere behind me, Mama was crying while she recorded. Van kept telling me I was doing good, but all I could hear was my own breathing and that one prayer repeating in my head.
Please let him cry.
“One more big push, Lee.”
I squeezed Van’s hand, shut my eyes, and gave it everything I had.
Then I heard him scream. Loud as hell, angry as hell, and alive.
My eyes flew open. “Oh my God.”
My baby came into the world screaming like somebody had personally offended him by making him leave my uterus, and I started crying before they even put him on my chest.
“My baby.”
He was warm and wet and mad as hell, his little face all scrunched up while I touched everywhere I could reach.
“Hey, Myles.” My voice cracked. “Hey, baby.”
He screamed louder.
I laughed through my tears. “That’s right. Keep making all that noise.”
Mama wasn’t even pretending she wasn’t crying anymore. She stood behind her phone sobbing right along with me.
Then I looked at Van. His eyes were wet too.
“You crying?”
He wiped at his face and looked at me. “You did it, baby.”
That made me cry even harder.
After we’d had a few minutes with Myles on my chest, the nurse looked over at Van and held up the scissors. “Dad, you wanna cut the cord?”
Van hesitated. “I’m not his daddy.”
“He his goddaddy,” I said, looking at him. “But he can cut it.”
Van looked at me. “You sure?”
“Yes. Go.”
The nurse handed him the scissors, and Mama kept recording while Myles’s goddaddy cut his cord.
A little while later, they took Myles long enough to clean him up, check him over, and do whatever else they needed to do before bringing him right back to me.
I had been scared to picture this moment for months, holding my baby after everything was over and knowing he was okay.
But Myles was here. He was alive, he was okay, and thank God, he was mine to take home.
Later, when they brought me the paperwork and asked what last name I was giving him, I didn’t hesitate.
“Davis.”
JB knew where I was. He knew the date and the time, and he never came. So Myles got my last name.