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I shut her door and head back into the bedroom to check on Addison. Her shoulders are hunched as she braces herself on the dresser.
I hurry over to her side. “Hey,” I say softly. “Addi, baby, are you okay?”
“Yes,” she grits out between clenched teeth. After a few more seconds, the tension leaves her shoulders, and she brings her head back up. “Okay, so the contractions have officially started.”
I grab her shoulders and turn her to face me, and she slides her arms around my back, leaning into me as close as her stomach will allow. I wrap my around her too and start swaying, moving our bodies to the combined rhythm of our beating hearts. I hold her like that for a few more minutes.
“We should go,” she says sleepily, stopping our movements.
“Before things get crazy,” I tell her, grabbing her face in my hands, “I need you to know how much I adore you.” I kiss her forehead. “You are the love of my life.” I kiss her nose. “And I can’t wait to grow our family together.”
I kiss each cheek before settling on her mouth. My kiss is slow and deep, showing her with my lips just how much she means to me.
* * *
After seventeen hours of labor and thirty minutes of pushing, my son is brought into the world kicking and screaming. Tears pour down my face as the nurse lays him against Addison’s chest, and he immediately calms as she wraps him into her arms.
“He’s so beautiful,” she whispers, looking down at him.
“You both are,” I whisper back, leaning in to kiss her temple.
Wiping at my face, I pull Willow closer so she can look at her baby brother. She begged to be in the room, and we eventually relented and allowed her to sit right beside Addison, holding her hand as she pushed—and of course, keeping her eyes focused anywhere but on the “gunk,” as she put it.
“Wow,” Willow says in awe. “He’s so tiny. I can’t believe I’m a big sister.”
That breaks the dam for Addison, and now she’s crying as she reaches out to grab Willow’s hand. “You’re going to be such an amazing big sister,” she says in between shaky breaths. “Do you want to know what we named him?”
Willow nods enthusiastically.
“His name is Cannon Edward Prescott,” I tell Willow. “Do you know where the name Cannon came from?”
Willow’s voice is scratchy when she says, “It was Mom’s maiden name.”
“Yeah, that’s right,” I say.
She wraps her arms around my waist, burying her face in my stomach as she sobs against me.
I close my eyes tightly, sending a silent prayer into the universe. I’ve never believed in the afterlife, but I’m suddenly wishing with everything I have that Emily is watching over us, knowing her memory will live on in both my children.
