Mom held her, and then Lena asked me if I wanted to hold Iris.
“Are you sure he should?” Bridget asked, her voice tight, eyes flicking between the baby and me as if I might do something wrong.
“Mom—” Lena snapped, sharper than I’d ever heard her, the word cutting clean through the room. “He’s Iris’s uncle. Of course he should.”
Bridget flushed instantly. “I didn’t mean… I just… ” She pressed her lips together then looked at me. “I’m sorry, Chip. Of course. I’m sorry.”
I was used to Bridget being wary of me. I might have a career, partly own a gym, and have my own place, but she still framed every encounter with me around the A-word. I genuinely didn’t care, and it wasn’t a battle I was even interested in fighting. I’ve watched videos and even practiced on a swaddled stuffed bear Matt and Lena had given me at Christmas, until I had a system: I can hold my damn niece without dropping her!
I reached for her, and my mother coached me. “Okay. Lean forward. Cradle the head with your forearm. There, like that. Other hand under her… ”
Iris weighed slightly less than my hockey stick, certainly less than I’d braced for. Iris was a small, warm bundle that fit in the crook of my arm. I sat very still and looked at her face and her tiny, clenched fist. She opened one eye for half a second and closed it again, and that was enough.
“Hi Iris,” I said to her. Quietly. “I’m your Uncle Chip.” I sat with her until Matt eventually crouched at my elbow and took her gently from my arm, giving her back to Lena to nurse as she ate the food the hospital had given her, and then he ruffled my hair.
“We’ll head out for something to eat, Uncle Chip.”
The cafeteria was almost empty. Matt got a turkey sandwich and a coffee. I got a banana, some water, and an apple for later.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I need a minute,” he said, halfway through the sandwich, eyes on the table. “Don’t say anything good or I’ll cry.”
“Okay.”
I waited him out. He breathed for a while, drank some coffee, and looked out the window. Then he pushed the sandwich away.
He looked at me, his eyes wet, and he said, “She’s so small.”
“Six pounds two ounces, which is perfectly acceptable”
“I know.”
“Nineteen inches.”
“I know.”
“She’s an average-sized newborn.”
“I know.”
I took a bite of the banana. “Are you okay?”
“I’m… I don’t know. I’m a dad. Ask me in two weeks.”
“Two weeks isn’t enough time to figure it out.”
“I know it isn’t, but I’ll try.”
“I love you.” I hadn’t said that to him out loud, in those words, since I was nine years old, when he pulled me out of a snowbank deeper than I’d estimated and carried me home on his back. “I love you. I love Lena. I already love Iris. I’ve been working on saying these things out loud lately because, even if it feels weird to me, I’m going to keep saying them. I wanted you to know.”
He put both his hands flat on the table, looked at them for a count of about six, then looked back up at me.
“I love you too, Russ.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.”
