Page 76 of Remember Me

While I’d been admiring the baby, the remaining nurses had been dealing with the placenta and getting Birdie taken care of. She was tucked tidily into her bed again, looking exhausted and so fucking beautiful it made my heart ache.

I bent and placed my forehead against hers. “I love you, baby. So much. He’s incredible.” My voice cracked and I had to stop. She closed her eyes and lifted a hand, pressing it against my cheek before letting it flop back to the bed.

“I love you, too. But you’re not touching me for a year, at a minimum.”

By mid-afternoon they had moved us into a mother-baby room. Birdie fell into a doze, the baby’s clear plastic crib rolled up alongside her bed so she could see and hear the faintest cry. I sat in the rocking chair beside the bed and rocked, strangely wired even with the lack of sleep.

I was a father. I had a son. My heart swelled within my chest at the thought of teaching him how to throw a baseball. Getting him his first puppy. Taking him fishing. All things I would have done with a girl just as readily, of course. I just wouldn’t have taught her how to pee standing up.

As my family and Birdie’s mother crowded into the room that evening, and we exchanged hugs and happy tears…as my mother told stories on me and the others…as Birdie looked on from her bedside throne, the littlest Ellison tucked securely into the stronghold of her arms…I was struck by a fierce sense of rightness. Of the complete and utter brilliance of the choices that had brought us here.

Meeting Birdie’s eyes, I spoke the words silently.Thank you.Thank you for choosing me. Forgiving me. Loving me. Marrying me.

Remembering me.

Her brow wrinkled, a sign that she didn’t understand. It was okay. I had a lifetime to make sure she did.

The End

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