“I’m here, Angel. You’re doing great,” he rasps, but his voice matches his strained eyes.
Moving up close to my head, he gently strokes his fingers over my cheek, his eyes jumping around to all the activity happening around the room, before coming back to me.
“I’m scared,” I whisper, and those gentle eyes soften even more.
“I know, but remember. This isn’t the same as last time. You’re safe. In the best place for something like this to happen, and our little baby will be in our arms in a matter of minutes.”
I nod, feeling my lower body being moved and tugged, yet not really feeling it at the same time, and my eyes fill with tears as my birth plan flies out the window.
“I didn’t want it to be like this,” I whimper, annoyed at my stupid cervix that apparently won’t dilate any further and has become inflamed.
“Remember what you said yesterday?” he asks as his beard brushes my temple before he kisses me there, his warm, minty breath fanning over my ear. “It’s impossible to keep plans when you have children.”
My lips tug up at the corners, and I nod, staring around at the room.
There’s so much bustling in the space, doctors and nurses talking medical lingo that I’d know if I’d gone to nursing school, but I decided to hold off. I need to be around for my kids, and Tahli too. I will study later down the track when I can devote more time to it, but right now, I kinda wish I knew what they were talking about.
“Hey, Angel. Focus on my voice,” Ringo says quietly, leaning close and practically hugging my head to him. And then, to my surprise, he starts singing, right by my ear.
“Why are there so many… songs about rainbows… And what’s on the other side?”
A giggling sob passes my lips, and I close my eyes and focus on the deep gravel of his voice.
He sang this song at Bobbi’s funeral. A song he’d been singing at his daughter’s grave since her death. But now, he sings it with Bobbi. She loves watching him play the guitar and sings along with him in her sweet little voice, sometimes by Hope’s grave, and sometimes up on the porch when the mood strikes.
It doesn’t carry the heaviness of grief, but the willingness of hope, and in this moment, as the surgeon cuts me open to extract our baby, this song couldn’t be more perfect.
I think of how far we’ve come, from that desperate girl that painted herself in blood being kept prisoner by her parents, to only last week when we celebrated Easter and Ringo left a trail of carrot crumbs and powdered bunny prints for me and Bobbi to follow to find the chocolate eggs.
The two events seem like worlds apart. Like they are two completely different lives led by two completely different people… and I guess they are, but also, they aren’t.
I’m still that girl sometimes. Trapped in my bedroom. My parents dictating every breath of my life.
Some days are easy, but some are hard. The difference between then and now is I have people who love me. Who will fight for me. And who let me dictate my own life… well, as much as a mother can, because let me tell you, when I lay out clothes for my daughter each day, I guarantee, ninety percent of the time, she refuses to wear it and picks the most random things to wear instead.
But, oh wow, I love that side of motherhood. Letting my daughter decide her own path. Letting her choose her clothes, her shoes, herbooks. Letting her play the songs that speak to her heart. Letting her just be herself.
As Ringo’s deep baritone soothes me, the doctors’ voices get louder, and my lids flash open the moment I hear it… my baby crying.
My eyes lock with Ringo’s, and tears instantly fill his before he looks over the screen.
“Congratulations, Mum and Dad,” someone says. “You have a healthy baby boy.”
I can’t see anything but the screen in front of me, but nothing is more important than watching this moment as my husband sees his baby for the first time.
He never got to see Hope alive. Everything about that situation was brutally devastating, and deep down, I’ve been determined to give him something he lost, even if it can’t be the same thing.
I follow his gaze movements, and can tell he’s tracking our son, and the moment he stands, I know this is it.
I’m about to meet our little boy.
“Here he is.” A nurse hands a bundle to Ringo, and his hands look gigantic as he takes it, little hands jerking around as our son cries. But then… he stops, and as Ringo sits, lowering our son next to my head so I can see him, I take in his big eyes as he stares up at his daddy, like he’s committing his daddy’s face to his memory.
“Hey there, little man,” Ringo coos, his deep tone soft and soothing. “Welcome to the world.”
I’m crying. It’s impossible not to in this beautiful moment, knowing I’ve helped to stitch a part of my monster’s heart closed a little more.
“Abs…” Ringo’s glazed eyes dart to mine. “He’s just beautiful.”
