I look at the nurse. “You heard the lieutenant governor. Let’s get him a wristband, too, please? He’s family. He’s the baby’s godfather.”
She nods. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Dray appears with our bags, and I point to him. “Take him with you,” I tell her.
“What’d I do?” Dray jokes as he sets the bags down.
“Governor needs a wristband, too.” I hold my hand up to show him the one they gave me, which matches Susa’s and our arriving son’s, once he’s given one. “See that he gets one.”
“Yes, sir.” He follows the nurse out of the room.
I know he’ll do it or die trying. With that handled, I focus on my two pets again. Owen looks at me, and I see the tears in his eyes.
“Thank you, Sir,” he silently mouths.
I squeeze his leg, long and hard, in reply.
* * * *
Susa’s labor goes on into the night. Benchley and Michelle are more than a little miffed that Susa wants Owen in there and won’t let them in, but when she angrily snaps at both of them over the phone that she doesn’t want them standing around and staring at her vagina, I think that changes Benchley’s mind.
If they’re going to argue why she’s okay with Owen seeing her, they don’t bring it up now.
I’m sure I’ll hear about it later, though.
That’s fine.
For now, we’re doing all we can to help her through this. She gets into and out of bed, but now the staff has been told about my pain. I’ve changed into comfortable shorts and left my shirt off long enough that everyone could get a really good look at my scars.
Now they all seem to understand why, when Susa moves back into the bed, I’m happy to have Owen there instead of me.
It’s in the early morning hours when we finally hit the homestretch and they have her start pushing. Owen and I are flanking her, our arms behind her and holding her hands as she bears down. Finally, she gives one more push, accompanied by bone-crushing squeezes from her hands and a loud cry of her own before she slumps back against us.
And we hear our son cry.
We both lean in, kissing her, each other, not giving a shit in this moment who sees us. Dray and Gregory have stayed with us, filming and taking pictures for us with our cell phones.
This is forus. We’ll take a picture for the public later.
“Dad,” the doctor says. “Did you want to cut the cord?”
I look Owen in the eyes. “Go cut the cord, Owen,” I softly tell him.
He’s really crying now, and yeah, fuck, so am I. “Really?”
I nod. “Really.”
He does, returning to us and me pulling him in, all three of us, our foreheads touching as we cry.
This is a literal damnmiracle. Compounded, in many ways.
Like fuckinghellam I excluding him from a second of this in any way. I don’t care how I’ll have to spin it later—this is his soul on the line. His happiness.
This is one of the few times, for now, that we’ll be able to freely and openly love our husband.
And if any word of this gets out? Well, weareattorneys. We willownthis motherfucking hospital with a HIPAA lawsuit.
They bring Petey over to us and lay him on Susa’s chest, and fuck, we’re all crying again. He has Owen’s eyes and a downy, dark fuzz of hair on his head.
