I toed off my shoes and clambered up on the bed.I levered Millie upward, as I’d seen in some of the birth videos, and let her head rest in the crook on my shoulder, brushing Olivia’s hands off Millie’s belly.
“Tell me when to push,” I said to Dr.Lopez.
Millie inhaled, a sure sign of another contraction.Dr.Lopez gave me a nod.I pressed both hands downward against the hard ball of Millie’s stomach.
She screamed.
I grunted.
Bree slid out.
Dr.Lopez crowed.
Millie slumped back against me, her body trembling.I was shaking, too.Intense.There was no other word for this experience.
“She’s not crying,” Millie whispered.
“Bree?”I asked Dr.Lopez, clutching Millie to my chest.
“Just need to clear her nasal passage…”
The sweetest wail rose above our broken breaths.
“Oh, she’s got a good set of lungs,” Dr.Lopez exclaimed.
“What’s her APGAR?”I asked, biting on my lip.
Dr.Lopez gave me an approving look—like I gave a fuck if she was impressed that I knew that test’s name.I needed to know my daughter had passed it.“Nine.We’ll check her again in a couple of minutes, but she’s strong and healthy.Congratulations, you two!”
“Our girl, sweetheart,” I whispered, kissing Millie’s hairline, her cheek, her neck.“You did it.”
I bet she’d really scored a ten but the doctor didn’t want to tell me that, what with the room for improvement and all.Still, I was sure Bree was a ten in all ways.She was mine and Millie’s kid, so of course she was perfect.
“I want to hold her,” Millie said, her voice shaking.
“After we cut the cord.Dad?”Dr.Lopez handed me a pair of scissors, and Olivia steadied my hand enough for me to cut the umbilical cord.
The nurses huddled around, oohing and ahhing.Dr.Lopez checked her another time, then beamed at me.“A perfect ten APGAR.”
I fucking knew it.
Dr.Lopez laid Bree on Millie’s chest, her tiny body against Millie’s soft, pale skin.Goo covered our baby that caused her dark hair to stick to her tiny skull.Her fingers were long, her nails smaller than anything I’d ever seen.She blinked her blue eyes, frowning at the lights.I cupped my hands over Millie’s, thrilling all over again at the perfection of this moment.
I had a daughter.
Millie loved me.
Life was perfect.
Millie
I’d knownTrent would tell my father I was in town, and pregnant.
What I didn’t realize was just how callously my father would make his possession of this knowledge known.I had Bree at my breast—we’d been in the room barely three hours—when a man walked in.He wore an expensive suit and a predatory expression.
“Millicent Jones?”
I remained silent.
