It’s always been this way.
His absence tears and tears my insides. Any other moment. I’d give up three months with him again, just to have him here right now for this birth. I’d cash in all Christmas miracles. I tell that to Ryke, I think, because I hear something about a fucking Christmas miracle—but I lose track of the details.
I try to reroute my head. Baby. Being born.
It’ll be okay.
It’ll be okay.
Even if he’s not here?
It’ll be okay.
I want him here.
It’ll be okay.
I cry. I wipe my nose. I’ve lost sight of my contractions, and I try to tell Ryke that, but he says not to worry.
Maybe I’m truly delusional—but I swear the ceiling hatch opens. Some blonde man I’ve never seen sticks his head in, assessing the area.
“LO!” I scream. It’s all I think to say.
Then the blonde man disappears.
And then. “LILY!!”
It’s Lo, his voice near. I listen to rustling up above, and then his sharp features come into view, his head in the hatch opening. His longer hair on top falls towards his eyes.
I burst into more tears, overcome at the sight of him. He’s here. He’s here.
Or maybe I’m just imagining it all. Is this a fantasy where I make-believe he’s in my arms? It wouldn’t be the first time I confused pretend with reality. My heart aches.
I watch him disappear.
No. “No,” I choke. Come back.
I hear urgent chatter, and then he drops down the ceiling hatch. His feet land on the floor, his black ugly sweater rising on his waist, red and green threads stitched like a DJ elf spinning records.
He wastes no time, his knees beside me, his hands on my cheeks. “I’m here. I’m here, Lil,” he repeats. I hone in on his amber eyes that contain a million I love yous and a thousand more concerns.
“Is this real?” I blink and my tears slip along his hands.
Lo nods. “This is real, love.”
He kisses me, a desperate irresistible kiss that soothes my emotions. When he breaks apart, I wince, the pain below slamming towards me like a car crash. As much as it hurts, I’d take it over the other pain. I would. Any day.
“When did her water break?” Lo asks, sliding over towards my legs.
Ryke checks his watch and shifts towards my side by the wall. “About an hour ago.”
What? I wince again, my hand now in Lo’s. “That’s wrong.”
“You’ve been fucking out of it, Lily.”
I retreated in my head. It’s what I’m good at, unfortunately.
Lo places his free hand on my kneecap, and he peeks between my legs. I’m too lightheaded to read his reaction. “How has she been?” he asks him.
“Out of it,” he repeats.
“An ambulance is coming, and maintenance is working on restarting the elevator,” he explains. “I couldn’t get a hold of either of you—and I thought…” He glares at the ceiling, his eyes flooding, upset and angry. “I called every goddamn hospital nearby. Then we found your car in the parking lot, and I knew you didn’t get in a wreck.”
Ryke stands up. “You saw that the elevator was fucking stuck?”
“Connor did. We found someone who knew how to get into the elevator shaft, and maintenance has been trying to restart it for the past two hours—”
I scream at the contraction and squeeze the life out of Lo’s hand. Ohmy…I almost puke from the pain, nausea building in my throat. Lo strokes my cheek and whispers something that I can’t make out in my state. I dazedly nod.
Ryke goes to the open hatch. He jumps, grabs hold of the edge, and pulls his body up with one hand. I have no energy to spare to freak out. Plus, he returns in a quick second. “I hear sirens.” Though it’s a distant sound.
An ambulance is coming. Or is it in my head?
I try to relax at the first thought.
Lo and Ryke lock gazes, and they exchange a look of gratitude for one another. For Ryke taking care of me. For Lo coming to the rescue.
“She needs you,” Ryke tells him.
Lo stares back at me, and I stare at Lo. Our history blankets me with warm security, and I drown into those amber eyes. He cups both of my cheeks again.
“You and me,” he says.
“Lily and Lo,” I breathe.
“Lo and Lily.” He wipes his own fallen tear and he nods. “We’re going to be okay.”
I murmur, “I believe it.”
The next events happen quickly, rushed between never-ending contractions, my screams, and an incoming baby. The elevator groans to a start. When we reach a new floor, the doors open to paramedics, and I’m hurriedly put on a stretcher.
My sisters appear. So does Connor.
I can hardly think while they assess and then move urgently, all to bring to me to the hospital. I never let go of Lo’s hand.
Outside, as snow flutters in the pitch-black Christmas Eve night, the paramedics open the ambulance doors and I’m wheeled towards safety. My hands on my knees, gritting my teeth.
Rose shouts at Xander to stay inside my uterus.
Connor coaches me to breathe.
Ryke talks to an EMT.
Daisy sets a reindeer-shaped sugar cookie on my belly. Thank you, Daisy. It’s what I really wanted.
And Lo is right beside me, clutching my hand, telling me that this is real. That no matter what happens, he’ll be here.
By the time the world catches up with me, I’m in the hospital, the clock strikes an hour past midnight.
And a Christmas miracle cries softly in my arms.
Lily & Loren Hale welcome the birth of their baby boy
XANDER HALE
December 25th, 2022
2023
“I married someone much braver than me.”
- Garrison Abbey, We Are Calloway (Season 5 Episode 12 – Street Fighter & Diamonds)
< 29 >
March 2023
The Meadows Cottage
Philadelphia
DAISY MEADOWS
“Are you sure?” I ask Rose for the twentieth time. Rose has a great track record when it comes to decision-making. She’s resolute, firm and unbending. I see that each time I ask, are you sure?
“I want to do this for you. Let me.” Rose clasps my hand, both of us sitting together on the window nook. Connor and Ryke are quiet on the couch, watching us.
Rose had her last child about a year ago. Ben Pirrip Cobalt. He naps in a nearby playpen next to Tom and Eliot. I can hear laughter from outside, today a rare warm day.
I glance out the window. In the cul-de-sac, Moffy rides his bike in a circle while Janie, in a pale blue skirt and cheetah sweater, stands on the back pegs, her hands on his shoulders. They’ll both be eight in the summer.
Coconut circles Sulli, not to catch her attention exactly. The white husky protects the five-year-old, ears perked and alert. Sullivan has one of Moffy’s skateboards, but she’s still learning how to use it. She keeps tripping into the grass, but like her dad, she never gives up.
Today is all about Ryke and me making babies, but not in the traditional sense.
Sullivan has cousins as close as brothers and sisters. She’d be fine as an only child, so that’s not really why I’d want another baby.
I was in surgery and close to dying after I gave birth. There was a greater chance that I’d never wake up and see the next day. I wasn’t supposed to live, and in the moments where Ryke was told that he might lose me—where he knew he could become a single father in an instant—he thought about the chance where I’d see him again.
He thought about me and what I’d want.
Ryke made sure the doctor preserved my remaining eggs. In what he calls one of the two hardest moments of his life, he did this for me.
Through my body’s twenty-some years of ups and downs and a risky birth, I was left with eggs on a laboratory dish. Combined with Ryke’s sperm, they became embryos, all frozen until we need them. I feel sick at the thought of wasting something that feels like the last pieces of a certain part of me—something that Ryke made sure to keep safe.