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We marvel at her tiny fingers, watching each tiny breath. I’m wondering how this much good fortune could have been bestowed upon people who never had an ounce of good fortune between them.
“You ready to try feeding her, Mom?” asks the nurse.
Kate tenses, shooting me a panicked glance.
“It’s going to be fine,” I tell her.
She lowers the side of her hospital gown as if she’s got to force herself to do it. After a few uncertain seconds, Grace latches on. We watch, and wait, but this time the world doesn’t fall apart. Our daughter nurses for no more than a minute, then falls into a sated sleep, safe in her mother’s arms.
Kate’s blinking back tears as she glances at me again. “Thank you,” she whispers. “For her. I have a family for the first time in my life.”
“I think you already had a family,” I tell her. And as all the people from the waiting room begin to file in, group by group, she sees it too. Lynn and Jamie, Adam and his husband, Kate’s aunt Natalie. Rachel and Gus, along with Liam, Harrison and Caleb. They’re here for me and they’re here for Grace, but they’re here most of all for Kate. They’re the family who chose her, who saw some good in her when she couldn’t see it in herself.
When the last of our visitors has been ushered out, joy and exhaustion are etched in Kate’s face—sixteen hours of labor will do that to you.
“Go to sleep,” I say, scooping up Grace. “We’ll be here waiting when you wake.”
Kate smiles at us as she drifts off, and I look down at the little girl in my arms.
I already see hints of her mother in her tiny face, in the rosebud mouth and the slant of her cheekbones.
I’m already thinking about teaching her to surf and ski, about taking that camping trip Kate claims she doesn’t care about anymore.
I already love her so much that it would destroy me to lose her.
It hits me like a freight train, suddenly, this thing Kate already knew: Life is fragile and there are no guarantees. Everyone you allow yourself to love is someone you might one day lose.
And that I get to take this risk with Kate and Grace makes me the luckiest man alive.
THE END
