Page 139 of No Merciful Corruption

A boy

Dahlia collapses against me. She gasps for air in between words. “A boy…it’s a boy.”

Dr. Cruz moves faster than my eyes can track. She places our son on Dahlia’s chest with a blanket on his back. “Watch his head.”

Dahlia weeps through bouts of laughter as she cradles our son against her chest. I peel back the edge of the blanket and can’t breathe, can’t think.

Dr. Cruz extends a pair of scissors to me. “Would you like to do the honors?”

I cut the umbilical cord and Dahlia looks up at me. “We have a son.”

I wish I could slow this moment down. Time is moving at a pace I cannot keep up with. My body is still in the car on the ride here, my head in the living room, my thoughts still stuck on this morning. It isn’t until our son lets out a cry that I finally feel brought back down to earth.

He’s beautiful. So, so beautiful and this is all I have ever wanted. My wife, my son, my life. I can’t believe I finally have it all.

“You are the best thing that ever happened to me. I love you.” I kiss her. “Te amo, te amo, te amo tanto.”

She kisses me back and her tears mix with the sweetness on our lips. “I told you. I told you it was a boy. I knew it would be.”

He has rosy cheeks and soft hair and the smallest little nose. Ten toes, ten fingers, and he yawns when I trace the outline of his face.

A raw, burning feeling claws its way up my throat at the sight of him. It feels like everything inside of me is expanding to make room for him.

He fills me with so much muchness. An entire life plays out like a movie in my mind and I see all his firsts, can hear his voice before he’s spoken, and know what color his eyes will be before he’s opened him. And I know I’ve known love before because I have his mother and he’s here but this is unlike anything I ever thought possible. Unlike anything I ever thought could be real.

For the first time in my entire life, I finally understand how our father felt about us. And I know, without a doubt, that any decision he ever made was to protect us and this feeling we birthed inside of him.

I know how dark my world has gotten. I swear on my life that darkness will never touch my son.

“We have to pick an A name for him.” Dahlia says.

“It can be any name. Whatever you want.”

“Still dead set against junior?”

I can hardly hear her.

He’s so, so small.

“How about Mateo?”

“Mateo. That’s my middle name.” He has little ears and a little mouth. “Okay.”

“It can be his middle name too,” she says. “Not his first.”

He’s so beautiful. So beautiful and so small and so mine and I am going to love him until the day I die.

Dahlia whispers, “I was thinking…Lisandro.”

My head snaps up.

“After your dad.” Her lips curve with a tentative smile. “We could call him Andi for short. That’ll be his A name.”

“I…” words fail me. I can barely squeeze out a strangled, “Are you sure?”

She nods. “I’ve never been surer of anything else. Except maybe you.”

Andi.