I stepped away from the table slowly, almost like I was afraid moving too fast would break something. When I got to the warmer, one of the nurses pulled the blanket back just enough for me to see more of her. My daughter’s face was tiny and perfect. Her mouth kept moving like she still had something to say about being dragged into the world early. Her little hand slipped free from the blanket for a second and opened, then curled again. I stared down at her and felt the whole room disappear. “Hey,” I said, and my voice came out deep but soft, like I already knew I couldn’t talk to her the same way I talked to anybody else. “Hey, baby girl.”
The nurse smiled at me in that way people do when they know they’re watching something private. “She’s strong,” she said quietly. “She’s small, but she’s strong.”
I looked back toward Carmen, and she was watching me, smiling through tears, exhausted and beautiful and still right there. I walked back to her side with my daughter’s cry still ringing in my ears and took Carmen’s hand again. “You did that,” I told her. “You hear me? You brought my girl here.”
Carmen laughed softly, weak and teary, and squeezed my fingers. “Our girl,” she whispered.
I leaned down and kissed her forehead again, slower this time, with feelings of gratitude and fear and love all tangled up in one thing too big to name. “Our girl,” I said back, and I looked over at the warmer one more time where the nurses were still moving around our daughter, getting ready for whatever came next. “And she got lungs on her too.”
Carmen smiled harder at that, then winced a little as the doctor said something behind the drape. I brushed my thumb over the back of her hand and stayed right where I was, mask on, gown on, and heart still trying to figure out how to live outside my body now that part of it was over there wrapped in hospital blankets. Outside this room, I knew the family was waiting. Candy D was probably pacing, and it was a lot going on, but in that room, for those few minutes, it was just me, Carmen, and the sound of our daughter being alive, and I wasn’t finished being there yet.
DOMINIC ROYAL
By the time they finally moved Carmen into recovery, I felt like I had been running on pure adrenaline for hours. The surgery was over, Carmen was okay, and my daughter was here… but even with all that, that knot in my chest still hadn’t fully loosened because my baby girl wasn’t coming back to the room with us yet.
I stood outside Carmen’s room with the blue hospital gown still hanging off me while everybody crowded around. My mama was the first one to reach me. Candy D had tears all over her face, with both hands pressed against her chest while she searched my face for answers before I could even say anything.
“She okay?” she asked with urgency.
I nodded. “She good.”
“And the baby?”
The whole hallway got quiet after that. Keondra was standing a little behind my mama with her arms folded across herself chest. Tone was leaning against the wall with that serious look on his face that only showed up when he was trying hard not to show emotion and even Rell looked tense.
“The baby good too,” I said. “She healthy. She’s little, but she’s healthy.”
The whole hallway seemed to be able to breathe again.
“What she had?” Tone asked.
I looked down for a second before I answered.
“A little girl.”
Tone threw his head back and laughed. “A girl? Oh nah. You fucked now.”
That made a everybody laugh but I still had to tell them more. “Her lungs underdeveloped though,” I said. “They keeping her in the NICU for a little while.”
Everybody’s expressions changed after that. Not completely sad, just more serious. “How long?” Candy D asked.
“The doctors don’t know yet. They just wanna keep an eye on her breathing. It can be weeks, days, couple of months, we don’t know. She needs to gain a little more weight, and her lungs need to get stronger.”
My mama nodded fast and wiped under her eyes. “She gone be okay,” she whispered more to herself than anybody else. “She gone be okay. She’s covered by the blood of Jesus.”
I looked through the small window into Carmen’s room and she looked exhausted… still beautiful, but definitely exhausted. She was barely keeping her eyes open while one of the nurses adjusted something beside the bed, but when she saw me looking in through the glass, she gave me that small smile.
Then the elevator doors opened and everybody turned at the same time to look always being aware of the surroundings. O’Shynn came down the hallway first with her coat hanging open and her hair down her back. Malik was right behind her carrying a bag in one hand with a black hoodie on and his hat pulled low. Even in a damn hospital, people were looking. I heard one of the nurses whisper his name under her breath to another one.
A couple of people farther down the hallway stopped walking completely. It was already enough attention becauseof my family being there, the rest of some of the Cartel were downstairs, we had security everywhere, and now Malik was walking through labor and delivery looking like he had just stepped off ESPN. The blogs was gone have a fuckin’ field day.
O’Shynn came straight to me. “How she doing?” she asked.
“She good.”
“And the baby?”
“She good too.”
