Chapter Thirty-One

Eddie

“One more push,” the nurse says for what must be the fiftieth time. How many damn ‘one more pushes’ can we have, I think to myself. “Look at all that hair.” Hair, what hair. Holy crap, that hair. Holy fuck, it’s gross and I shouldn’t have looked. Oh damn, I looked again. It’s like a train wreck, when you want to look away, but you can’t. “Do you want to feel?” the nurse asks Callie. Now they want her to touch this fur ball looking object that’s coming out her hoo-ha, covered in blood and mucus. Everyone I’ve spoken to in birthing classes has said what a beautiful experience birth is. I think I’ve aged ten years watching it and it’s not that beautiful, it’s almost like a murder scene in the making from some freakish alien movie. Callie crushes the bones in my hand as the nurse counts this so-called last push down from ten. “Nine, eight…seven, that’s it Callie, you can do this, five, four, oh look her head is out.”

“Have a look,” Jules says to me.

“I’m good up here, I don’t need any more visuals I can’t erase from my mind.”

Something is happening and I turn to Jules “Why is it just stuck in there like that?”

“They wait for the next contraction and the shoulders to turn. Here we go, are you ready dad?”

I lean over and give Callie a kiss on her forehead. “This is it baby, I’m so in awe of you right now.” Within seconds, the baby is out and placed on her stomach. All my hang-ups about the blood and mucus are far from my mind as I look at the perfection I helped make. I look at Callie and even after hours of childbirth she looks at our child with a love so pure; all her pain and all her demons have been forgotten in this moment. I let my tears fall, not caring who can see, this is the single best moment of my life. Seconds blur into minutes, as I reflect on how inconsequential my life has been up until now. The baby is placed back on Callie’s chest as I realise I don’t even know if it’s a boy or girl. We never found out, we decided, and when I say we I mean Callie decided, it would be better if it was a surprise.

“What did we have?” I ask and everyone looks at me. One of the nurses thinks she’s funny when she says a baby.

“Eddie, meet our daughter,” Callie says with a sweet smile.

“Daughter,” I repeat and she nods. Holy shit, I have a little girl. I look down at her and her pink chubby cheeks. “Hi, baby girl, I’m your daddy.” I lightly touch her hand and her skin is so soft and perfect.

Once Callie is cleaned up and done something called ‘skin to skin’ while feeding the baby, the nurse sets me up in a big chair and I get my first hold. She shows me how to support her neck and head right. We did learn in classes, but holding a plastic doll is nothing like this, they should have given us fathers those expensive antique china dolls. I can’t help but stare at her, it all feels surreal. The nurse shows Mickki and the others into the room.

“Everyone, come meet our daughter—Milly Dean Diamond.” I look over at Callie and see her look over at Sasha who’s standing next to her bed. Sasha smiles and leans over to give Callie a hug. We never knew the baby’s gender, but we did have names picked out. We wanted to honour those who’d passed, because without our past we never would have met. So, Milly is short for Amelia, and also sounds like Billy after Callie’s brother. Callie had said she wanted the baby to have the same middle name as Beau, which is also Callie’s last name; until we get married next year, anyway. Milly starts crying and Jules takes her to Callie for me and I follow, sitting next to the special girls in my life. Mickki lets me know he and the girls rescheduled the trial run for next week. I’m glad he did, because it hadn’t even crossed my mind from the moment her waters broke.

“Thank you,” I say to Callie, as I watch her watching Milly sleep.

“What for?” she says, looking up at me.

“For changing me, for believing in me, and for making us a family. Right now, I’m the happiest man alive and it’s all because this stubborn woman waltzed into my life, kicked my bed, and didn’t take any of my shit.”

“I’m glad I really needed the money,” she says with a smile.

“Oh woman, how I love that mouth.”

As I gaze around the room, looking at everyone I realise that just over a year ago I thought I had nothing and no one besides my brother, and now I have enough family to fill a room. Most of them might not be blood family, but they’re my life, my reason for living. It’s amazing how much your life can change just by meeting one person, a person who changes your outlook on the world for the better. Back then I was Eddie Diamond, fucking rock god, I had everything I thought I wanted—money, sex, and rock and roll. But today, I realise I’m Eddie Diamond and I’m a father, fiancé, brother, and friend, and that makes me the richest man in the world and a title I’m damn proud of.

It amazes me that one single event caused two different life paths. The day Amelia died was the day Callie became sober and the day I threw everything away and started my downfall. I like to believe it’s her who brought us together in some weird way. I’ll never forget my past, but now I’m stronger than ever, strong enough to move forward with my family. Callie still has healing to do after losing Beau, but I know she’ll be an amazing mum to Milly and now I know I deserve her love and the love of my daughter.

I lived my life avoiding all feeling, hiding behind my lifestyle. I now realise feeling is how we get through the day. I want to feel again, the good and the bad. it’s what makes me stronger to be the man I want to be, a man I now know I can be.