Chapter 26 Silas
Maren did not remember arriving at the hospital so much as being absorbed by it.
Lights. Voices. A wheelchair. Dr. Ross's face, calm and focused, appearing above her like a lighthouse with glasses. Monitors strapped around her belly. The baby's heartbeat racing in a fast, stubborn rhythm that made Maren cry because stubborn was better than silent.
"Thirty-two weeks and four days," Dr. Ross said. "We are going to try to slow labor, but we prepare for both outcomes."
"Too early," Maren said.
"Yes," Dr. Ross replied, because she respected fear enough not to decorate it. "But not hopeless."
Hope remained.
Maren clung to that while medication entered her IV and contractions kept coming anyway.
Lenora arrived by phone first and in person later, hair damp from rain, red glasses fogged.
Marta stationed herself near the foot of the bed like a small, furious general.
Reeve waited outside after confirming twice that Maren wanted him there and once that he was not allowed to blame himself aloud.
Callum arrived forty-eight minutes after Marta's call.
Maren knew because Marta checked the hallway, came back, and said, "He is here."
Everything in Maren tightened.
"Where?"
"Waiting room."
"Did he..."
"He asked where you wanted him."
Another contraction rose before Maren could answer. She turned into it, gripping the bed rail, breathing the way every prenatal video had described and none had adequately prepared her for. When it passed, she tasted salt.
"Outside," she said.
Marta nodded. "Good."
After a beat, "For now?"
Her eyes closed before she could stop them.
For now was honest.
"For now."
Callum stayed outside.
Through four hours of failed attempts to slow labor.
Through a neonatal specialist explaining risks in careful language.
Through Octavia calling the hospital and being told by Lenora, with devastating politeness, that no information would be released.
Through the moment Dr. Ross said, "Maren, we need to discuss delivery."
The baby's heart rate dipped twice.
It was not long or catastrophic. It was enough.
Maren signed consent with a shaking hand. Not Callum. Not Lenora. Her.
She found Marta's face.
"Get him."
Callum entered with the caution of a man stepping into a holy room, unsure he was allowed to breathe.
He stopped near the door.
Maren had never seen him look like that. Not at the hospital in New York, where fear had been tangled with control. Not in the library, where remorse had sat upright and signed documents. This was something stripped past posture.
"Come here," she said.
He came to the side of the bed.
Did not touch her.
She reached for him.
His face changed.
his hand closed around hers, careful, warm, trembling.
"I'm scared," she said.
His eyes shone. "I know."
"Don't say it like that."
"I'm scared too."
That helped.
Strength had nothing to do with it. He was not pretending fear could be managed out of the room.
They took her to the operating room.
Callum came because she did not let go.
The world became blue drapes, bright light, pressure without pain, Dr. Ross's voice, the anesthesiologist saying she was doing great, which seemed statistically unlikely but kind. Callum stood near her head in scrubs too large at the shoulders, eyes fixed on her face.
"Talk," Maren said.
"About what?"
"Anything."
For a second, panic crossed his face.
he said, "The baby has terrible timing."
Maren laughed, or tried to.
"Gets that from you."
"Probably."
"And paint opinions."
"Those are yours."
Pressure.
A shift.
Voices changing.
a sound.
Small.
Angry.
Alive.
Maren sobbed.
Callum bowed his head over her hand.
"He's here," someone said.
He.
A boy.
"Silas," Maren breathed.
Callum met her eyes.
She had not told him the name.
It had been sitting in her sketchbook for months, written beside lighthouse drawings and Rialto notes. Silas Voss. Silas Strathe. Silas something. She had not decided what last name would hurt least.
"Silas," Callum repeated.
The baby cried again, thin and furious.
"Good lungs," Dr. Ross said.
The neonatal team moved quickly. Too quickly for Maren to see more than a glimpse: red skin, dark hair, impossibly small limbs, a face scrunched in outrage at being evicted early.
"Can he stay?" Maren asked.
Dr. Ross's voice was gentle. "He needs NICU support. They're going to take him now."
Panic clawed up her throat.
Callum leaned closer. "Maren, look at me."
She did.
"Do you want me to go with him?"
He did not write I will.
Do you want.
Tears ran into her hair.
"Yes."
He kissed her knuckles.
It was the lightest touch.
No claim. No romance. A vow compressed into one trembling contact.
he went with their son.
Maren woke later in a recovery room, hollowed out and heavy at once.
Marta was asleep in a chair. Lenora was typing quietly near the window. Rain had stopped.
"Silas?" Maren asked.
Lenora set the laptop aside. "NICU. Breathing support, but stable. Callum is there."
Maren studied the blanket seam instead.
"He asked before updating me," Lenora added. "For permission. Marta gave it because you were asleep and she is terrifying."
Maren's mouth trembled.
A nurse came in and helped arrange a video call from the NICU.
The screen filled with plastic, wires, blue light, and a baby so small Maren's heart could not understand how the world was allowed to contain him.
Callum's hand appeared beside the incubator, not touching.
"He's stable," he said.
His voice broke on stable.
Maren cried silently.
"Hi, Silas," she said.
The baby did nothing visible.
That was fine.
He was alive.
For tonight, alive was the whole universe.
Callum faced the camera.
"Thank you," he said.
Maren knew what he meant.
For letting him come.
For letting him hold her hand.
For letting him go with their son.
She was too tired to answer all of that.
So she said, "Stay with him."
Callum nodded.
"I will."
This time, when he said it, she believed he understood what staying meant.