No stranger to holding newborns from my rotation in this very ward, I have no hesitation in taking Jade from her. As I cuddle her, I cast my eyes over her. She looks absolutely perfect. A bit scrunched up for certain, but her wide-open blue eyes, curiously looking around at the new world she’s entered, make her look absolutely beautiful. A tear comes to my eye as I remember how my mom had stolen Trip from me. How I hadn’tbeen allowed to hold him, or soak up the attention all new mothers deserve.
I catch Short looking at me with hunger in his eyes.He wants me to have a baby.
I’d love to tell him I can, but even this happy situation brings back far too many bad memories.
Then Trip approaches, holding his hands out, making it obvious he, too, wants to hold the baby. But Short puts his hand on his shoulder, holding him back.
“The baby’s far too little for men like us to hold her right now. We’ll have to wait until she’s bigger.” It’s the right thing to say. Trip preens at being called a man.
Knowing there’s a queue of people waiting to meet Jade, I hand her to her mother. “You’ve done good, Pippa.”
Taking her baby back, she manages to look like she’s already an expert as she looks at me and laughs. “To hear Saint talk, it sounds like he did all the hard work.”
It’s another reminder of how wrong Trip’s birth had been. There was no one who wanted to celebrate him being born, the very least being his and my father.
I murmur more congratulations, stammer a goodbye, then stumble my way to the door.
Short’s fast on my heels, his arms surrounding me as I brace one hand against the wall to support myself as tears well up inside me.
“No pressure, Bron. You and Trip are my world, and if that’s all I’m going to have as a family, I’m still the luckiest man breathing. But just saying, if you did want to add to us, then that,” he jerks his head toward the door we just exited, “is what you’d experience, and it would be nothing like the nightmare from before.”
The tears fall, whether for the past I experienced or the future I’m not sure I can allow myself to have. Short just holds me, rocking me gently.
Then there’s a tug on my shirt. “Why’s Momma upset?”
It reminds me that all the pain, all the years when I rejected him, are worth it to hear my son calling me Momma and showing compassion. Indicating to Short I want him to let me go, I bend down and crush my son to me. “I’m alright, Trip.” He doesn’t struggle to get out of my arms. He just lets me reassure him, and his own arms encircle as much of me as he can, as he unknowingly lends his own strength to me.
