She bears down again, and I feel the surge of power in her, raw, unstoppable. The midwife’s voice cuts through the haze: “One more push.”
One more. One last mountain.
“Look at me,” I demand softly, and when her eyes meet mine, terrified but determined, something holy ignites in my chest.
She pushes on one more almighty contraction.
And then—
A sound splits the world in two.
A first cry. High and furious and perfect.
My knees almost buckle.
The doctor lifts her, tiny fists punching the air, lungs already claiming territory no one will ever take from her. Our daughter.
Charlotte sobs, collapsing back onto the pillows, and I place kisses like vows across her forehead, her cheeks, her lips.
“You did it,” I whisper against her skin. “You absolutely did it.”
They place the scissors in my hand. I cut the cord, the final tie between her body and our baby’s, and it feels like severing the man I was from the man I am now.
The nurse wraps the baby quickly, then places her in my arms. Her warmth sears me. Her weight, slight and yet heavier than the whole world, settles against my forearm.
Dark eyes blink up at me. Curious. Accusing. As if she already knows every sin I’ve ever committed.
“My daughter,” I breathe, the words shaking loose from somewhere deep.
Charlotte reaches for us with trembling arms. I lay her gently against her chest, and the moment she hears her heartbeat again, her wailing softens into tiny hiccups.
She curls her hand around the baby’s back like she was made for mothering. Like she has always been her home.
And I fall to my fucking knees beside the bed.
Because what I’m feeling, this terror, this love, this violent need to protect, it is too much for a man who once believed he couldn’t feel anything at all.
She is ours. They are mine. And nothing, nothing, is taking them from me.
The doctor says something about monitoring. The midwife adjusts blankets. The storm outside stops. The whole world goes silent to witness this moment.
Charlotte strokes our daughter’s cheek with the back of her finger, voice thin with exhaustion.
“She’s beautiful,” she whispers.
“She is,” I manage. “You both are.”
Her eyes close slowly, the weight of everything finally pulling her into sleep. She doesn’t hear me when I say the words that have been strangling me for months:
“I love you.”
It’s the first time I’ve said it aloud. It feels like tearing open old scars and letting light in.
But something else claws into my chest, a darker truth:
The contract.
Fifteen months. We signed that future before I was willing to acknowledge the truth.
