This was lit.
I didn’t panic. I breathed slowly and deeply, centering myself.
“Dede.” He gripped my hand. “What do you need? Should I get doctor? Water?”
“The babies,” I started, then lost my breath to a contraction so intense it felt like being squeezed in a vise.
When it passed several seconds later, I could speak again. “Our babies, Aris. They’re coming.”
30
There was nothing in this world that smelled better than a newborn baby. Double that, and you have an approximation of the satisfaction I was experiencing as I held my children, one nestled in the crook of each arm. I couldn’t resist bending forward to inhale the clean scent of their perfect skin and light smattering of dark hair.
I sat in a large armchair, surrounded by soft lighting and quiet. Each child grasped one of my fingers with a tiny hand.
My daughter yawned, and my son hiccupped, prompting a small chuckle from me. They were exquisite, and all was right with my world.
“Yianna and Periklis. You are perfect. You are loved,” I told them. It was essential they knew this from their very first day on this Earth.
In the bed nearby, Dede rested, drifting between sleep and wakefulness. Though clearly exhausted, she radiated tranquility.
Dede was alive. She made it. Her presence erased the memory of the last time I’d been in this position.
My gratitude was beyond articulation. My chest expanded with a joy I hadn’t permitted myself to believe possible in twenty-four years.
I bent to kiss each tiny forehead. “Your yiayia is going to…”
“Mr. Christakis!”
The voice penetrated my brain, and the babies dissolved. The peaceful room vanished, replaced by harsh lights and the acrid smell of antiseptic.
I was standing in Dede’s hospital suite, my back against the wall, my hands trembling at my sides. Around me, lights flashed and alarms sounded. Medical staff moved around, their urgency cutting through my paralysis.
“We need to move her,” a doctor said, gripping a gurney. “To the OR. Now.”
Reality crashed over me. I’d been beside Dede, supporting her through rapidly progressing labor when everything went wrong.
I forced my legs to move, following the gurney. My pulse throbbed in my ears.
I reached for Dede’s hand. Her eyes were wide with pain and fear. She was employing her breathing techniques and maintaining her composure despite everything spiraling out of control.
A doctor kept pace beside me, explaining rapidly. “Natural delivery isn’t possible, given the immediacy of her labor. There’s meconium present in the amniotic fluid, and with every push your wife makes, the babies’ heart rates are decreasing.”
“Meconium?” The word was foreign. “What does that mean?”
The doctor’s expression tightened. “It means one or both babies have had a bowel movement in utero. If they inhale it during delivery, it can block their airways or cause severe lung inflammation. Combined with the dropping heart rates, we can’t risk a vaginal birth. We need to get them out now.”
My vision blurred even as I hurried alongside them. I was thrust backward in time to another delivery room in this same hospital, where I heard the words that altered my life permanently: “We’ve lost her.”
I glimpsed a younger version of myself looking around in disbelief. Blood on the sheets. Lydia’s scream of pain, and the high-pitched, uninterrupted drone of a flatlined monitor.
“Father!” Chrysanthos’s voice cut through the noise. He and Tia appeared beside me, matching our pace. “What’s happening?” he asked in Greek. “Where are they taking Mom?”
I couldn’t form words. My throat closed.
“Emergency C-section,” the doctor answered in Greek, not breaking stride. “The babies are in distress.”
“What did he say?” Tia’s voice was panicked. “Chrys, what’s happening?”
