Mac
I PUT ON COP FACE BECAUSE if I don’t, I will dissolve into a panic that will not be useful to Hillary or the baby currently on its way out.
These are not Braxton-Hicks contractions. I trust my gut when my gut says trouble, and we are in serious shit right now. Yes, I read the fuck out of every pregnancy book I could find, and I trained on emergency delivery, but this is scarier than a fucking bomb for damn sure. It shouldn’t be happening this fast. All my spidey senses are overloading my network of logical thought processes.
Get it together, Stryker.
I dial 911. The rest starts blurring moment to moment, like I’m swimming underwater but somehow managing all the right things. Baby’s not waiting. Better make a birthing nest. I tear the shower curtain down and cover Hillary’s bed, piling blankets on top. I don’t think I even have time to boil water.
“C’mon, sweet girl. Let’s get you on the bed.”
“I have a bag packed for the hospital. Maybe we can get a cab and stop for a ginger ale? For some reason, I really want a ginger ale.”
Great, she’s in denial.
“Let’s just stay here for now and wait. The ambulance is on the way. I’ll get you a ginger ale from the hospital cafeteria.” I put my arms around her shoulders and lead her into the bedroom.
“I’m so sorry I didn’t finish the job. Once again.”
The job? Oh shit, I think she’s talking about sex. It’s the last thing on my mind. “All I care about right now is you and Bloomer.”
I leave the apartment door open for the paramedics, and get Hillary settled on the bed when she starts to panic. A little late, but not unexpected. “Wait. No. I can’t do this now. Here. We have to go. I can’t have my baby in this apartment.”
“We don’t have time to go, honey. All you need to worry about right now is breathing. I’ll do the rest.”
“No. No. No.” She screws up her face in pain. “No! Not now. Why is this happening so fast? I’m supposed to be at the hospital.”
I don’t know why this is happening so fast, but something isn’t right. I’m scared as fuck. The last time someone’s life depended on me, I let him down.
I know better than to go there now. I push thoughts of the last call out of my head and focus. Hillary needs me. Her baby needs me. Whatever is going on isn’t going to pause so I can have a mental breakdown. I have to focus.
When the paramedics come in the door, Little Bloomer is already crowning. One uniform tries to take my place, but I shake my head, my focus solely on the baby. I don’t trust anyone else. It’s too important. The woman crouches on the floor next to me and the other EMT supports Hillary’s back.
“She should push now,” the woman next to me says.
I nod. Hillary is too pale. “I need you to push, angel. Can you do that?”
“I’m scared, Mac.”
I lock eyes with her. “You’re doing great. You’re going to be such a great mom. I promise. I’m right here.”
“You make everything easier, Mac.”
She fucking detonates my heart.
And then she screams, and the pushing begins. In between pushes, Hillary won’t look at anything but me. I want to take all this pain into myself, free her of it. I couldn’t stand it when she cried about her ankles, so this screaming in pain is killing me.
“Get it out of me, Mac!”
“We’re working on it, angel. Let’s do the breathing again.”
“Fuck you.”
The EMTs know better than to laugh, but I have a hard time keeping it in. I guess if she’s swearing at me, she’s still herself. She screams again, giving it her all, and I catch Little Bloomer sliding out.
Holy fuck. I just caught a baby.
The baby looks at me with these eyes too wise for someone brand new into this world, my heart explodes again.
Words. There should be words for what I’m feeling. The way the whole planet just started turning the other way. I don’t have words. I choke on what might be tears balling up in my throat.
“It’s a girl, Hillary.”
“Is she okay?”
“She’s perfect.”
We clean up the baby and put her onto Hillary’s chest. We still need to get to the hospital, and that’s a process with the stairs and the stretcher and the ambulance. I ride near her head and she looks up at me. “I want to call her Kenzie. MacKenzie Bloom. Kenzie.”
I kiss her temple and the adrenaline rush I’ve been on starts to dissolve, leaving me shaky. Kenzie. “I like that,” I choke out, hoping my voice just sounds manly and not obvious that I’m trying not to cry.
“Thank you for bringing her here safely, Mac.”
“You did all the hard work, babe.”
She smiles and closes her eyes for a little hard-earned rest.
The machine screams, and I look on the floor for a loose cord. We must have hit a bump. The EMT thrusts the baby at me. “Sir, you need to scoot back. Your wife is in cardiac arrest.
***
THE HELL WITH THE WORLD spinning the opposite way. Now it’s upside down.
Hillary won’t wake up.
She came out of emergency surgery three hours ago. I’ve been pacing the halls since we got here. I can’t fix this. I can’t show up in my gear and defuse anything. I can’t take down a bad guy. Nothing I know how to do applies now.
I don’t know how to be a man who paces a hall.
“Detective Stryker?”
I turn, my heart stops while I wait for the nurse in scrubs to fill me in about Hillary. “Your daughter is ready for a feeding. Would you like to feed her?”
“I—”
Compassion and patience soften the nurse’s face. “There’s nothing you can do for your wife but wait. Your daughter can benefit from bonding with her daddy, though. And I think your wife would want you to take care of her while she can’t.”
My wife. My daughter. Daddy.
The paramedics just assumed we were married. It didn’t occur to me to correct them while they were trying to stabilize Hillary’s heart. Then, it made things easier in the hospital. I’ll probably get in trouble for lying, but nobody would have kept “the neighbor” in the loop about Hillary’s surgery. So, I’m now a husband and father.
Pacing isn’t helping, and the nurse is right. “Yeah, okay. I’ll feed Kenzie.” I take two steps then stop. “I don’t know how.”
“I’ll help you.” She brings me to a nursery and sets me up in a rocking chair before she hands me the baby swaddled up tight in a pink blanket.
“Is her blanket too tight?”
“Most babies love it. It’s reassuring to them. They’re used to not having much room.”
That makes sense.
The nurse shows me how to hold the bottle and promises to come back to show me how to burp the baby when she’s through. As long as her neck is supported, I guess I’m doing all right. The nurse walks away and leaves me almost alone with a baby for the first time ever. Am I supposed to talk to her? Sing? I don’t know what is going on.
Kenzie seems to have a better handle on things. She’s drinking from the bottle and watching me. I read everything about pregnancy I could find in the last month. It never occurred to me to read about how to take care of a baby once it’s born. I guess I assumed I wouldn’t have much to do with that.
“Hey, Kenzie. Um, your mom is sleeping. When she wakes up, she’s really going to want to meet you, though.” Kenzie blinks. “You’re really going to like your mom. She’s great. So funny. And she’s good at taking care of stuff. You won’t believe all the houseplants in your apartment. She talks to them. Well, you’ve heard her.” I swallow around that damn ball in my throat. I’m not a dude who cries. “We haven’t really met. I mean, I was the guy that caught you—nice form by the way, you nailed the dismount. I help your mom sometimes. I bet you’ve heard my voice, right? I’ve been hanging out a lot lately. Your mom and I are friends. Don’t tell anyone that though, okay? While we’re here, we have to pretend I’m your dad. I’ll explain later.’
Her little eyelids get heavy. Either I’m boring as shit, or she likes the sound of my voice.
“So, the thing is, if you need anything, you’re going to always just tell me. Okay? I mean, when you can talk. Until then, I’ll just have to guess. But when you’re older, if you have questions about stuff or want to learn how to make a three-point shot, you just call me.”
The nurse comes back and shows me the proper burping procedure. Kenzie lets a good one go. “Just like your mom,” I tell her and the nurse laughs. She leaves us again, and I just rock, not sure what else to do. Kenzie sniffles as she’s falling asleep. I’ll remember this moment forever. The sound of her tiny breaths, the sweet smell of her head, the slight weight of her resting on my chest.
I feel a kind of peace I’m not used to, and in that peace, the thoughts I’ve been keeping out of my head finally break through. What happens if Hillary doesn’t wake up?
She has to. She just has to. Now that my heart has inflated to full size, it would kill me if it shattered. I can’t lose her. I certainly can’t pretend to be Kenzie’s dad, but fuck anyone who tries to put her in foster care. And fuck the asshole who wrote a check to keep this tiny baby out of his life. She’s a fucking miracle.
Please, don’t let her lose her mom before she gets her.