ETHAN

In the middle of the night, Ava gets up out of bed, shuffling toward the bathroom and clicking on the light. It’s only the second time tonight, but I watch her anyway, with her nightgown swaying back and forth, lazily stretching her arms over her head.

She would hate to know that I can hear her peeing, but I totally can. I’ll never bring it up. But the bathroom is right there, and she did leave the door open a crack. I don’t know why, but it’s charming. Everything she does is charming. Every pound she’s put on, every strange craving for olives and ice cream, every out-of-control emotion that takes her over like a band of wild horses.

It all just dazzles me, like some kind of slow-motion miracle in progress.

I hear the tap go on and the toilet flush at the same time. I think that she thinks that if she does them both at the same time, the tap camouflages the sound of the toilet. She is still quite modest, sometimes shy, even. I think it’s just her nature.

She flips the light off, then flips it back on again. The tap goes on again, then back off.

“Oh,” I hear her say. I push myself up on my elbows, waiting for her to reappear in the doorway.

The door swings open, and I squint against the blinding light.

“Hey, babe? You awake?”

“Everything all right in there?” I call out, sitting up and swinging my legs to the side.

“Yeah, um… I think my water just broke.”

Suddenly, I’m completely awake. Alert as a human being ever can be, buzzing with excitement. I grab the hospital bag off the table where it’s been sitting packed and ready for weeks. I help her into her shoes and out to the garage.

For now, she is smiling. From what we know from the birth education classes, that could change at any second. Every few moments she sucks her breath through her teeth, then lets it out slowly. Her fingers dig into the palm of my hand. She is stronger than you might think, but I don’t flinch.

At the hospital, an orderly greets us in the emergency room with a wheelchair and directs her into it. She holds her belly with both hands underneath, smiling as she breathes through puffed cheeks.

“Have you been timing your contractions, hon?” the orderly asks her as we stride briskly through the hallways, careful not to wake up anybody who might be sleeping through this.

“Every three minutes,” she replies.

“Seriously?” I ask. “Already? That fast?”

She glares up at me with her cheeks puffed out. Little drops of sweat dot her upper lip.

“Never mind, baby. I was just asking!”

“Okay, here we are!” the orderly announces, wheeling us into a spacious delivery suite. It barely even looks like a hospital room, with a terrazzo floor and tasteful wallpaper. There’s an armoire on one wall, and the bed even looks like the sort of thing you might have in a really nice hotel.

The orderly gives her a gown and instructions, and two more nurses show up. They scribble on the whiteboard near the door, efficiently communicating with each other in some kind of secret code. I help Ava onto the bed and press my lips against her forehead, inhaling deeply. She squeezes my hand.

“I’m just going to apologize in advance for anything I might do or say in the next few hours, okay?” she tells me.

“You just let loose,” I suggest. “I’m a Marine. I can take it.”

I swear the nurses just rolled their eyes.

Dr. Lopez arrives in about an hour, strangely casual about the whole thing. I’m sure she sees this sort of thing every day, but can’t help but wonder if everything is under control. Yet, everything goes more or less the way the instructional DVD said it all would.

The anesthesiologist arrives to give her an epidural, and Ava calms somewhat. Pain becomes pressure, or so they say. Less pain, anyway. The heartbeat monitor pings at regular intervals. People wander in and out, executing their plans in a well-rehearsed dance.

And I just stand here, holding her hand. Offering her ice chips. Wishing I could be more useful.

It seems to happen almost too quickly, and her legs are up in stirrups and we’re all cheering for her to push. I slip my arm around her to help her half sit up, wishing I could do this for her, amazed that any human can do it at all.

She pushes for a long time, or maybe it’s a short time. Everything is terrifying and exhilarating. I’ve never seen anything like this. Everyone’s yelling, Ava most at all. There are moments where I think she’s terrified, but somehow she gets through it.

“That’s it! You’re doing great, Ava! One more push!”

Ava grits her teeth as she bears down, and three people gather on the far end of the table.

“Yes! You did it!”

I search her face, meeting her eyes. She lets out a long breath and looks up at me, smiling. As soon as I see that she’s okay, I dare to look over my right shoulder.

Dr. Lopez stands up just as a nurse brings a blue blanket underneath the tiny body that she holds in her blue-gloved hands. A swirl of dark hair crowns the head, and the tiny arms box at the air.

“Which one is that?” Ava pants.

“I think that’s our son!” I say, choking back a wave of tears.

“Sure is!” Dr. Lopez announces. “And he is perfect. Absolutely perfect! You ready for his little sister?”

Ava steels herself, nodding determinedly. I can’t believe she is going to go through it all again, but she is. Everyone readies themselves, and she bears down, grunting and moaning, using every ounce of strength to bring our daughter to the world.

She lies back, exhausted, sweating, and relieved. I wipe her forehead with a cool cloth, stunned beyond words.

“Go,” she whispers hoarsely. “Look at them. Tell me they’re okay.”

“Oh, they’re completely okay,” Dr. Lopez interrupts. She rolls two plastic-walled bassinets next to the side of the bed. “See? Totally okay. You did good, Mama!”

Ava shifts to one side, somehow finding the strength to gaze upon our beautiful children who are already sleeping, snug in tightly swaddled blankets.

“You can hold them,” the delivery nurse suggests.

Ava looks startled. “We can? Just like that?”

The nurse chuckles, lifting the little girl from her bassinet and placing her gently in Ava’s arms. Ava cradles her automatically, stroking the edge of her face with the tip of her finger. She looks up with me with expression of surprise and delight.

“We made this, Ethan. Isn’t it amazing?”

The nurse appears in my side, bouncing my son gently in her arms. She nods at me encouragingly.

“Go on. Take him. He’s been waiting a long time. You can hold him.”

I hold out my arms, but then I’m suddenly unsure. “What if I drop him?”

The delivery nurse rolls her eyes. “Big strong guy like you? I think you can handle it.”

“They never trained us in this in the Marines,” I grin. She holds my son out, placing him in my arms. I curl him against my body, not too tight, as a rush of love and fear floods every cell in my body.

“Oh, wow,” I say.

“Right?” Ava asks me.

We stare at each other for a long time, silently exchanging a wordless conversation about how strange this is, how wonderful it is. How there could be nothing more perfect in the whole world than this love here, today.

I’ve been a lot of places, and I’ve done a lot of things. But I’ve never had a family like this. I never really knew was possible. Now that I have found this kind of love, everything is perfect.