I catch him carefully as the rest of his body slips free. He’s fully formed, impossibly small and weightless against my palms, fragile in a way that hits something deep and instinctive inside me immediately.
I check for any sign of life. Tilt him carefully. Clear what I can from his mouth and nose. Watch for breath.
I hold my finger beneath his nose, waiting to feel something. A breath. A flutter of air. Anything at all.
“Is he—” Charlotte’s voice breaks weakly behind me.
“Wait.”
I check again. Adjust my grip. Try to force my brain into remembering anything useful—anything I’ve ever heard about newborns, about premature babies, about what you’re supposed to do.
I try everything I can think of.
It isn’t enough.
The room stays unbearably quiet.
No cry. No movement.
“Dane.” Softer this time.
“Give me a minute.”
“Dane.”
I look up at her then.
She’s watching my face, and something inside her settles before I even say the words out loud. Like she already knows and is only waiting for me to stop fighting it.
“I know,” she says quietly.
I look back down at him again anyway. Search his tiny face like there’s still something I missed. Something fixable. Something I can force into changing if I just keep trying long enough.
“I don’t know how to help him.” The words feel wrong coming out of my mouth. Foreign somehow. “Charlotte… I don’t know what to do.”
A parent is supposed to know how to help their child. Supposed to be able to fix it. Protect them from everything.
And I can’t do any of it.
“It’s beyond your control.” Her voice stays impossibly gentle, steady in a way mine isn’t. “It’s all right.”
“He’s not?—”
“I understand.” She reaches toward me with trembling hands. “Let me hold him.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, the apology tearing out before I can stop it. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry I couldn’t?—”
“It’s okay, Dane.”
I hand him to her, and she gathers him against her chest, staring down at his face.
I don’t move. Don’t speak. I just stay beside her and let the silence exist exactly as it is.
There’s something in her expression while she looks at him that I know I’ll never see again. Her hand cups the back of his head while her thumb brushes once across his cheek—slow and impossibly careful.
“A boy,” she whispers. “Somehow I knew.”
Then she goes quiet again, and I let her.
