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“No,” I snap, though I understand what he’s saying.
He goes one further. “If you were down four points in Quiz Bowl, you wouldn’t mentally check out because you thought you’d lose. You’d fight harder for those last four points.”
I would. I channel my confidence, years of persistence in the face of adversaries of all shapes and sizes. I block out the worst. My spirits lift tenfold.
You’re coming out. And you’re going to be loved. And there’s just no stopping that.
Connor kisses my knuckles, his strength filling me whole. We’re a team. The best of the best. While this is my battle, he’s here with me. He always is.
I shut my eyes, redirecting my energy. I only think about this baby. I grit my teeth as I push. Come on. Come on. Come on. I’m so focused, I lose track of time and place.
Then soft lovely cries pierce the air and awaken me.
Light floods my eyes, and the wiggling baby is being placed on my chest. Nurses wipe him off while my gaze clouds with tears.
Dr. Amora stands. “Congratulations on your new baby boy.”
Connor strokes his thumb across our son’s head, and I clasp the baby’s fingers. His soft cries fade to pleasant murmurs. My body surges with warmth and powerful sentiments that burst through my icy defenses. I crumble at the sight of our baby. No matter how many, each one is new. Each one is different and unique, and I revel in this raw moment that strips me bare.
“He’s already horrible,” I mutter so only Connor can hear. “He’s making me cry.” So did the other three babies. I wipe beneath my eyes and look to my husband.
Connor has this profound tranquility that can only be described as the surface of a quiet lake. Weight has been added to the bottom of his lake, lifting water levels, and his blue eyes draw unbreakable lines between our child and me and him.
“What are you thinking?” I whisper.
“How breathtaking dreams are when you meet them.”
I once asked Connor what quote came to mind when he looked at Jane. I asked him the same thing about Charlie and Beckett, and his response never changed.
The quote beats at my heart, and I speak every word as assuredly and soulfully as he once did. “‘We can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly alive.’” His chest rises, and my life with him starting at fourteen to his fifteen and lasting for years is all in vivid focus.
He finishes, “‘There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.’” Connor tries to bar some of his emotions from prevailing, but he can’t remove the weight from the lake. He sees this too, and he just smiles what can only be called a gorgeous smile.
The nurses hover close to examine the baby as he rests on my chest. They nod to me and mention that his vitals look perfect, and when they distance themselves from us, Connor speaks again.
“George Eliot,” he correctly names the author of the quote. “The Mill on the Floss.”
Eliot. I brush a finger across the baby’s cheek, and he murmurs again. “Eliot,” I whisper. “It suits him.” George Eliot is the pen name used by Mary Ann Evans. A woman.
Connor knows this fact, and I wonder if that’s why his smile only grows. “Eliot Alice,” he suddenly adds. “It suits him more.”
“Alice from…” I think I know, but I’m surprised he’d choose Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll as the namesake. Though Alice is a female character, and since George Eliot was a woman with a common man’s name, Connor must like the symbolism of naming our son Alice in reply.
“Alice from…?” he says, wanting me to guess.
“From a story that has a smoking caterpillar and a cat that grins wider than you.”
He laughs. “Alice reminds me of Lily.”
I thought I was through crying, but another tear escapes. “How come?”
“They’re both gentle, imaginative, can be witty in their own right, and they’re prone to falling down rabbit holes.”
I laugh into a smile.
Connor drowns in my expression, and I float across the temperate, soothing surface of his. Only when the nurse announces his birthday, do I remember the goal I’d set in stone.
“This little one is born 12:01 a.m. on the dot.” She passes me a small cotton cap to put on Eliot’s head.
My eyes widen, processing and processing…
June 1st.
He was born June fucking 1st.
I try to narrow a glare at him, but I can’t do such a thing. He’s too fragile to endure the heat of my eyes. I’m so sorry, my gremlin.
I rub small circles across his back and then look to Connor. “There’s still time to name him Brutus.” Before he can even reply, I whisper to Eliot, “I’d never name you that.” Forgive me.
“You’re in love,” Connor states the obvious.
“You’re in love,” I combat.
“Two truths. What shall we do with those?”
“Have another,” I declare. Have another truth. Have another baby.
“More love,” he says, reading my subtext clearly. “I can agree to that.”
Long before now, he’d never utter these words in this way. And yes, I may have lost my small goal but I see the future and I see now.
I’ve never felt more triumphant.
Connor & Rose Cobalt welcome the birth of their baby boy
ELIOT ALICE COBALT
June 1st, 2019
{ 15 }
November 2019
The Hale House
Philadelphia
LILY HALE
“Did you pack an axe? A machete? What do you use to kill bears again?” I ask in all seriousness.
Ryke shoves a neoprene water bottle in the side pocket of his duffel and then gives me a look like I’m weird and waaay off-base.
I rest my butt against the armrest of my couch. My heavy, pregnant belly likes gravity. I have this need to sit or lounge or just splat on the floor like a beached jellyfish. Everything aches in the third trimester, but my brain still constantly reroutes to Loren Hale. In my bed. On my bed.
Naked. On me.
In me.
Hormones. I love and hate them. The fact that I’m focusing on something other than Lo and sex is a huge win, even if I’ve replaced sex with worry.
“It’s a real question,” I say in the lingering silence.
Ryke zips up his duffel. “You don’t kill bears.”
I lower my voice. “But if they eat him…” I don’t want my four-year-old to hear this hypothetical horror scenario, but he should be out of earshot since he’s upstairs packing a bag with Lo. Garrison isn’t around either. He flew to London for the week to see Willow.
“It won’t happen, Lily,” Ryke refutes. “You can trust me with him.”
“It’s the woods. Anything can happen in the woods.” Is it just the woods though? Moffy has experienced the wilderness plenty of times. We frequent our lake house in the Smoky Mountains so often that he keeps asking when we’ll return.
“It’s not any different than the lake house,” he brings up, “or all the other times I’ve spent with him while you and Lo aren’t there. It’s all the fucking same. So why are you flipping out now?”
“I’m not flipping out,” I snap.
“Then you’re being fucking weird about it.”
“You always call me weird.”
Ryke sighs, frustrated, realizing that he’s being coarse with me, and I know he doesn’t want to be. He slowly unwraps a piece of gum from his pocket but doesn’t chew it.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Trying not to ride you hard—fuck.” He pinches his eyes. “Not like that.”
I smile because it’s funnier than it used to be. “I know you said it’s the same, but this feels different. This is a camping trip with a tent and no electricity and…” It clicks.
“And what?”
“You take a lot more chances and risks than I would with kids.”
It clicks for
him too. “It’s about the fucking climbing wall, isn’t it?”
“You put it in her nursery. You’re the insane one!” I point at him.
He rolls his eyes at me. “It’s fucking safe.”
I get hives walking into Sullivan’s room. Ryke built a climbing wall with footholds and handholds for his one-year-old daughter. Neon warning signs blinked in my head when I saw it yesterday. Broken arm! Broken leg! Broken toes and fingers!
Sulli ascended the wall higher than I’ve ever seen a baby climb anything. Daisy and Ryke were spotting her, and I was hugging the door frame. I could tell their daughter loved it, but if Moffy loved running in front of cars, I’d say no.
I don’t know where the line is for someone like Ryke. “What if Moffy asks to run through the fire?” I step towards him, investigation mode on. “What would you do?” I poke his chest.
He stares down at me like I haven’t changed in a million years.
He’s right. I’m still a terrific sleuth.
“I’d say fuck no.”
