Adrian's voice is warm and call. He’s immediately beside me.
He looks absolutely exhausted, and I feel that grip of panic tighten my chest. The machine monitoring me is going haywire.
"The baby—" My voice comes out hoarse. Broken. "Where's my baby?—"
"He's alive." Adrian takes my hand. His grip is firm. "He's okay. You're both okay." He says it as though he needs to remind himself.
I sob. "I want to see him." I'm trying to sit up. Pain shoots through my abdomen and I gasp.
"Easy." Adrian's hands are on my shoulders, gently pushing me back down. "You just had major surgery. You need to rest."
"I need to see my son." Tears are already streaming down my face. "Please. I need to know he's real. That he's?—"
"He's real." Adrian's voice is gentle. Gentler than I've ever heard it. "He's in the NICU. He's small, but he's strong. A fighter. Just like his mother."
"Can I?—"
"Yes. But you can't walk yet. I'll take you." He's already moving, carefully helping me sit up, maneuvering the IV lines and monitors. There’s a wheelchair beside me.
“The nurses suspected the first thing you’d want to do is see him,” he says, maneuvering me. “So, they showed me how to move things.”
My entire body feels like it's been torn apart and put back together wrong.
But I don't care.
I need to see him.
Adrian helps me into a wheelchair. Pushes me out of my room, down the hall, toward the NICU.
The nurses nod at us as we pass. Respectful. No one stops us. I’m grateful. If they did, I’d probably rip myself apart to get to him. There’s no feeling like waking up with your womb empty, and your child nowhere to be found.
And even though Adrian has assured me our son is fine, I need to see him.
To know for myself.
We go through two sets of doors. Into a room filled with incubators and monitors and tiny, impossibly small babies.
And there he is.
In an incubator near the back. A tiny hat on his head. His eyes closed. His chest rising and falling with each breath. There’s a tag “Baby Boy Nero.”
My son. I’d know him anywhere.
"Angelo," I whisper. The name comes from nowhere and everywhere at once. We never discussed it, but it feels right. "My angel."
"Angelo," Adrian repeats softly. "I like that."
I press my hand against the incubator glass. Wishing I could touch him. Hold him. Feel his weight in my arms.
"Why can't I hold him?" My voice breaks.
"He needs to stay warm. And you—" Adrian crouches beside my wheelchair. "You can't lift anything heavy yet. Doctor's orders. Your body needs time to heal."
I want to point out that I’m his mother. He needs me. And he’s so small, I don’t imagine he’d be classified as heavy. But something in the way Adrian looks at me tells me arguing won’t help. My breast ache—my milk—and it’s only because I know it’s for the best, that I’m able to stop myself from ripping my son out of the incubator.
"How long?"
"A few days. Maybe a week. Then you can hold him as much as you want."
