Scars and Songs (63 page)

Grace and Lea waddled in behind us, both exactly forty-one weeks pregnant, in labor, on the same day. 
It was curiously insane is what it was.  However, as curious as I was about how they managed to find themselves in the same exact situation, I couldn’t help but be the happiest man ever to walk this earth.  I was about to be a dad. 

Okay, so my stomach rolled a little bit at that thought and I might have lost all
the color in my face. I might even have choked back some vomit at that thought, because I was so damn nervous, but I was so damn happy too.

Grace was having my baby.

Today.

As in right now. 
This second…I was going to be someone’s father. Wow!

I grabbed Conner’s arms and shoved him faster through to the maternity floor, both of us nervously giggling like two dumbass schoolboys.

“Hey, Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber, did you forget something,” Lea called out from behind us. 

Conner and I froze, and then slowly turned around.  The girls were all the way down the hall, grasping onto each other in pain. 
Shit
. 

We ran back to them and helped them the rest of the way in, while Lea cursed at us and promised to feed us ‘a healthy serving of our own penis and peppers when she popped her little blob out.’  Whatever the hell that meant.

Then the next thing I knew, Grace was being pulled away from me, dressed in one of those sexy (yes, I’m freaking kidding) hospital gowns and hooked up to those annoying monitors that beep like crazy.  Then the sound of my baby’s heartbeat filled the room,
slow and weak
, over the small device set to measure the stress of the baby’s heart.  At that point, all hell broke loose.

Nurses poured in and a doctor rushed up to the side of Grace’s bed and explained that an emergency cesarean section
was needed, because our unborn child was in distress.

Grace’s eyes filled with tears as she looked at me; I had never ever seen her so frightened.  “Whatever you need to do to help my baby, do it.”

Then I was frantically pushed into a smaller room and had scrubs shoved in my hands, “You’re the father, right?  If you want to be in the operating room for the birth, you need to wear these…” I couldn’t focus on what else the nurse was telling me.  My body had broken out in a cold sweat and all I could do was blink my eyes like a fucking idiot.  At some point, after the nurse stared at me for a few moments, then proceeded to smack my cheeks lightly, I nodded my head and quickly dressed. 

Grabbing me by my arm, the nurse yanked me back through the hallway and
propelled me through two doors into a sterile operating room.  “Do not touch a thing, Mr. Maxton.  Everything in here is sterilized for the safety of your wife and unborn child.”  I felt a little lightheaded.  Okay, a lot lightheaded.  I thought I was going to be sick…

With my leg muscles tightening, and my
breath bursting strangely from my lungs, I looked all around the room, swallowing back bile.  Where was my wife?  Did something happen to my wife while I was getting dressed?  Where is she?  Where.  Was.  My.  Wife?

Then I heard her beautiful nervous laughter as they rolled her in on a gurney. 

“There’s the daddy-to-be,” one of the nurses chirped.  “Your wife here was just laughing and saying that you might be passed out somewhere…”

Rushing over to the gurney, I smoothed my fingers along her cheek, “Everything will be fine, Gray.  I’m right here. You know I’ll always be right next to you.”

“Okay, Daddy-to-be.  Move on over to that side so we can put Mommy-to-be up on the table.”

They helped Grace to stand and then sit down on the operating table.  In my head, everything seemed to get blurry and move in slow motion, then toggle between fast forward, and warp fucking speed. Behind Grace, the nurses were untying her gown, the anesthesiologist
inserted a needle right into her spine that made her lips pinch together, and her eyes squeeze shut.  My body went numb;
I was going to kill him for hurting her
.   Irrational thoughts flooded my brain. 

An enormous blue sheet was lifted over her head, blocking our view of the bottom half of her body and she just smiled up at me. 
What if something bad happened?  I wouldn’t live here without her.  I wouldn’t do this without her.
  Fuck me.  Do they not realize I’m taller than the damn sheet?  The surgeon is slicing her open on my favorite place to lick her skin and my knees began to buckle.

“Look at me, Shane,” she whisper
ed.

I
tore my eyes from all the blood and found calmness in her silver irises.  Grabbing her hand, I held onto her tightly with both my hands.  I never wanted to let her go, not now, not ever.  We just stared at each other, both of us beyond terrified, until the miraculous sounds of our baby’s cries filled the room. 

With tears in my eyes, I
was handed a perfect little life, wrapped tightly in a pink blanket, with the brightest bluish-gray eyes I had ever seen.  “Happy Birthday, Baby Girl!”  The nurses yelled.

I
held on to her with trembling hands, kissed her wrinkled little forehead, and gently placed her into Grace’s arms. 

I
was in complete awe.

I
dropped to my knees. 
Thank you God for letting me live this
.

“Hi, little Emma Grace.  I’m your mommy, and your big goofy daddy is somewhere on the floor,” I
heard my wife coo softly.  Everything was perfect, so perfect.

They
took Emma into the nursery, finished stitching up Grace, and moved her into the recovery room while the nurse escorted me out into the hallway.  She told me a whole bunch of crap I didn’t listen to, because I just wanted to run through the hospital telling everyone what just happened.  I dashed away from the nurse and ran, just ran up to anyone and everyone I saw, and told them my wife just gave me a baby girl.  A healthy baby girl.  When I rounded the last corner, my feet fumbled underneath me when I thought I saw a familiar face offering me a small smile and a wink, but it couldn’t be. 
It just couldn’t be.  It was not going to happen
.  The face melted in with the other people in the crowded hallway, but I stood there tense and angry. 

Moving forward, I
searched more closely into the faces as they stepped onto an open elevator, but I didn’t see anyone I was looking for.  Restlessness falls over my muscles, and I quickly walked back to the nursery where my daughter was.  Behind the huge glass window that kept the newborns safe, the nurses cleaned my daughter and wrapped her sleeping form.  I laid my hand on the cool glass, in awe.

“I hear congratulations are in order, Shane.” A deep voice
came up from behind me.  When I turned, I was face to face with a smiling Michael.

“Thank you, Michael.  Look at her, she’s perfect,” I
pointed to Emma sleeping in her little plastic hospital bassinet with the giant sign on the front of it that read: EMMA MAXTON.  Sleeping in the bassinet next to her was Conner’s daughter, LILY HART. 
I still couldn’t believe this happened on the same day
.

“Perfect,” Michael agreed.

I tilted my head back towards Michael, “I think I just saw our old friend, Michael.”

He leaned his back against the wall and slowly placed his bronze hands in his front pockets.  He kept his stare straight ahead on my sleeping daughter.  There
was a long pause before the angel responded with a stoic blank stare.  “Evil can never hide itself for too long, Shane.  Its ego is too big not to be heard or seen for so long.” 

We stood in front of the nursery window for a long time, watching Emma and Lily peacefully
sleeping.  We stood together silently, until the sun shifted itself across the sky outside, until more little bundles were carried in and other families celebrated new life.  We stood there, until we felt that we could truly look at one another again, with the knowledge that this story may or may not end here.  That this,
that we
, could be touched by evil again.

“I
will never let him hurt my family,” I said.

Michael slowly leaned forward and pushed himself off the wall.  Down the hallway, I could hear the voices of my friends running to meet the babies.  Alex and Mollie ran around the corner first, holding hands and about five dozen pink and white balloons.  Ethan, Brayden and Tucker followed behind with giant smiles plastered on their faces, each holding two enormous teddy bears each.

Michael clapped his hand on my shoulder and squeezed me gently.  “Gabriel may never show his face again.  We won’t know until he makes his next move.”  His hand fell to his side and he walked past me towards the exit sign, “Until then, just love them fiercely.”

The End

At least until Shane sings to me again…

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