Chapter 5 - The Third Baby Who Wouldn't Cry
At twenty-seven weeks, Tessa woke bleeding.
She called Rowan before she called her mother.
That terrified her almost as much as the blood.
He arrived in eleven minutes.
He did not ask permission before lifting her, but she was shaking too hard to protest.
At the hospital, doctors stopped the immediate crisis.
The babies remained inside.
For now.
But Tessa did not go home.
She spent the next twenty-three days in a hospital room overlooking a parking garage.
Rowan came every morning before work and every evening afterward.
Sometimes they spoke.
Sometimes they did not.
He brought terrible coffee.
He learned the names of nurses.
He stopped taking calls in her room.
He read parenting books with the suspicious intensity of a man studying an adversary.
One evening Tessa woke from a nap and found him sitting beside the window reading a chapter about premature infant development.
His lips moved slightly when he concentrated.
It was strangely ordinary.
She watched him for nearly a minute before he noticed.
“What?”
“You look ridiculous.”
He checked himself.
“I’m sitting.”
“You’re studying a baby book like there’s going to be an exam.”
“There are three babies coming.”
“There is an exam.”
“Exactly.”
She smiled.
Then the smile disappeared.
“Rowan.”
“Yes?”
“I’m scared.”
He closed the book.
“So am I.”
“You’re not supposed to say that.”
“Why?”
“You’re supposed to tell me everything will be fine.”
“Would you believe me?”
“No.”
“Then I’m scared.”
He moved his chair closer.
“I’m scared one of them will be sick. I’m scared all three will be sick. I’m scared you’ll get hurt. I’m scared I’ll make a mistake and you’ll look at me exactly the way you looked at me in the clinic.”
Tessa’s eyes filled.
He continued.
“And I’m scared that no matter how many things I fix, there are some things money cannot reach.”
She looked toward the dark window.
“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said in months.”
He took her hand.
She let him.
The babies came at thirty weeks and five days.
Not beautifully.
Not with cinematic music or glowing parents or a doctor smiling above a clean white blanket.
They came in alarms and blood and commands.
A nurse cut Tessa’s gown.
Someone pushed Rowan out of the way.
Another person asked him a question he did not understand.
Three teams waited.
Tessa vomited from fear.
Rowan stood beside her head, gripping her hand while trying not to let her see that his own was shaking.
Baby one arrived first.
A girl.
Two pounds, fifteen ounces.
She did not cry immediately.
Rowan stopped breathing until she did.
A thin sound.
Small.
Furious.
Beautiful.
Baby two was another girl.
Three pounds, two ounces.
She arrived kicking.
The doctor laughed.
“That one’s angry.”
Tessa sobbed.
“Good.”
Then baby three came.
A boy.
And the room changed.
No cry.
No laughter.
People moved faster.
Someone said his heart rate was dropping.
Rowan saw the child only for a second.
Gray-pink skin.
Tiny limbs.
Then three people surrounded him.
“What’s happening?” Tessa asked.
Nobody answered quickly enough.
“What’s happening?”
Rowan leaned over her.
“They’re helping him.”
“Why isn’t he crying?”
“Tessa.”
“Why isn’t he crying?”
Her fingernails dug into Rowan’s wrist.
“Why isn’t my baby crying?”
Rowan had no answer.
So he did the only thing left.
May you like
He stayed.
