Chapter 37
Bennett
March 2013
“YOU PROMISED TO TAKE me to Scotland!” Her face was beet red, all twisted and scrunched up. I grabbed a cloth and wiped her brow.
“Breathe, sweetie.” Jill’s intermittent whimpers ripped my guts out. Her pain was my pain, but it would be over soon enough. “I promise I will take you to Scotland for our twenty-first anniversary.” A single tear escaped and slid down her tired face. “When I promised to take you for our twentieth, I had no idea you’d be pushing a human out of your, well… body.” One corner of her mouth turned up. She wanted to laugh, I know she did.
“Oh, oh, oh. Here comes another one!” She grabbed my hand and attempted to break every bone in it at once. “Where. Is. Becky?” She grunted. Once the contraction passed, Jill was able to relax again, but I knew it was short-lived.
The door to the delivery room flew open with a bang. “Momma?” Oh. Thank. God. My savior.
I left Jill’s side and met Becky at the foot of the bed, behind the nurse in her catcher’s stance. “My beautiful girl, your mom and I sure are glad to see you!” I hugged my daughter, pulled her close, and whispered, “Your mother is possessed. Proceed with caution.” One quick nod told me she understood.
“Hey, Mom, I’d say you look great, but… “
“Incoming!” Jill was able to give me about twenty seconds of notice before a contraction ripped through her, just long enough for me to grab her leg and help her any way I could. Becky, never one to be shy, grabbed her other leg as my beautiful wife strained and panted and pushed. The lifetime of heartache she’d endured up to this point was hard enough, but now, the pain at seeing her dream become a reality slayed me. We’d waited twenty years to meet this child and that moment couldn’t come soon enough.
“Stop pushing, stop pushing. We’re about to have a head.” Jill’s eyes got huge and her face paled. Becky burst into tears while the nurse popped her head out to call the doctor.
“Mom, listen to me. Focus on my words. When I was struggling in soccer and wanted to quit, you said, Your body was built for this. When I was in labor pushing Cash out, and said I couldn’t do it anymore, you said, Your body was built for this. Both times you were right. And, Mom, you may not have believed it before this moment, but your body was also built for this.”
The second Cash made his entrance into the world nine months earlier, kicking and thrashing like a baby pig, Bec passed the torch to her mom. “Do you remember what else I said, Mom?”
Jill nodded as she winced in pain. What were they doing down there? I didn’t really want to know, but Becky was distracting her like a champ.
“I do. You said, Okay, Mom, now it’s your turn. It was the first time I truly believed I could carry a child.”
“And here we are, nine months later. Coincidence? I think not.” Bec popped her head up and looked me straight in the eyes. “Grab her leg Dad, this is it.”
“Okay Jill, I’m going to ease the head out, then ask you to stop.” Dr. Polasek, the one who told us to never lose hope, was about to hand us our masterpiece. “When I do, you have to stop so I can suction the baby’s nose and mouth, then find the cord. When I tell you to push again, that’ll be it.”
I kissed my incredible wife on the forehead, even more in love than the day I married her. When we heard a set of awfully healthy baby lungs screaming, there was a collective sigh. Our family of three had just become four. From somewhere below what I called the human equator, I heard, “Do you want to meet your baby?”
Jill sat up—holding my hand on one side and Becky’s hand on the other—while tears coursed down her cheeks. So many prayers, so many wishes, all wrapped up in such a tiny little bundle of wrinkles and squeaks.
Squeezing my hand she smiled, and with a shaky breath, she simply said, “More than anything else in the world.”
Our modest living room was bursting at the seams, full of all the people we loved. Rosie and Doc were in from the ranch. Lillie and Chance, now retired, drove down from College Station. And of course our cul-de-sac neighbors, Claire and Kyle Clark, and Marian and George Preston were all there too.. Their children and grandchildren ran around the house with our granddaughters, Whiskey and Ruby Grace.
This was the same crew, minus a few newcomers, who were here the day we were officially able to say, It’s a girl. That was the first time, by the grace of God, Jill and I became parents. Becky’s adoption felt like a lifetime ago. It was now one of the two happiest days in our lives.
I stood next to where Jill sat on the couch and she handed me our little pot roast-sized baby, all wrapped in white. I cradled him in my arms and kissed his fuzzy little head. He was our miracle and he was ready to meet the world.
“First, thank you for coming.” We’d kept the sex of the baby a secret for two days, just long enough to get home and gather everyone in one place. “When Jill and I started our lives together a little over twenty years ago, we pretty quickly learned it was highly unlikely that we would ever conceive a child. So, as you know, we did what any sane, newly married couple would—we adopted a teenager.” The room burst into applause and laughter as I shot my eyes at my oldest.
“Thanks, Dad,” Becky answered, in that deadpan way she had. The roaring crowd died down.
“Today, we’d like to introduce you to our son, Bennett Chance Hanson. We’ll be calling him Chance.” I passed my son to Rosie, his grandmother, knowing full well I wouldn’t see him again for a while. But how could I begrudge anyone wanting to love on my boy? My hands were empty, so I jumped on the opportunity to take a breather and grab my wife a drink.
Casey Clark and his wife Vaughn made their way over to where I stood in the kitchen, away from the crowd. “Congrats again, old man.” Casey slapped me on the back.
“Thanks.” I looked around to make sure I was alone with the couple. “And thank you again for not spilling the beans about Chance.” Much to my surprise, I’d run into Vaughn and Casey in the hall at the hospital the day Chance was born. I told them I’d only let them see the baby if they swore to keep the gender a secret. And if they told me why they were floating around the floor dedicated just for babies, looking like goons.
“And your news, I suppose I should be offering you congratulations as well… when do you think you’ll share?” Just mentioning their news turned them into goons all over again and I couldn’t think of a more deserving couple.
“Soon. Really, really soon.” Vaughn hugged my neck and the two rejoined the crowd.
“So, Grandpa?” Whiskey, my beautiful granddaughter, breezed in and threw her arms around my neck, hanging on to me like a monkey. “Do you want me to go find whoever has Chance and steal him back for you?” Her devious smile was the carbon copy of her mother, in body, mind, and spirit. I nodded, not quite ready to go back into that crowd, but wanting to see the little person who made me whole again.
“More than anything else in the world.”