Chapter 14 - THE DELIVERY ROOM
My mother drove me to the hospital.
My father followed in another car because my mother banned him from driving after he ran two red lights.
Dominic arrived twenty-three minutes later.
He was breathless.
His hair was wet from the rain.
He stopped outside the delivery room.
“Can I come in?”
That question mattered.
Months earlier, he would have assumed.
Now he asked.
I nodded.
“Yes.”
Labor lasted eleven hours.
There was nothing elegant about it.
I yelled at my father for buying uncomfortable hospital socks.
I yelled at my mother for agreeing with him.
I told Dominic I hated him for approximately four minutes during a contraction.
He accepted this without complaint.
Then at 4:38 p.m., my daughter entered the world.
Seven pounds.
Four ounces.
A furious little cry.
Dark hair.
Dominic cried before I did.
The nurse placed her against my chest.
Everything else disappeared.
The wedding.
The ring.
The divorce.
The cameras.
For one perfect minute, there was only my daughter.
“Hello, Lily.”
Dominic looked at me.
“Lily?”
I nodded.
We had discussed the name months earlier.
Lily Evelyn Carter-Vale.
Dominic touched one tiny foot.
“She’s beautiful.”
“She is.”
He looked at me.
“Thank you for letting me be here.”
“You’re her father.”
His eyes filled again.
Later that evening, my parents left.
Dominic remained in the chair near the window.
Lily slept in the bassinet.
I watched him stare at her.
“You can hold her.”
He looked toward me.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
His hands shook when he picked her up.
The same man who had been unable to stand against his mother now looked terrified of holding a seven-pound baby incorrectly.
I almost laughed.
“Support her neck.”
“I am.”
“Higher.”
“I’m trying.”
Lily opened her eyes.
Dominic froze.
“Hi.”
His voice cracked.
“I’m your dad.”
Something inside me hurt.
Not regret.
Grief.
There is a difference.
I grieved the family we might have had if Dominic had learned courage sooner.
But I did not confuse grief with a reason to return.
He looked at me.
“I know this doesn’t change anything.”
“Okay.”
“I just want you to know.”
He looked down at Lily.
“I’m going to do better.”
“Do it for her.”
“I will.”
“And for yourself.”
He nodded.
At midnight, he fell asleep in the chair with Lily safely back in the bassinet.
I watched him for a moment.
Then I looked at my daughter.
“You are never going to learn that love means accepting humiliation.”
Lily slept through my promise.
May you like
I made it anyway.
---
