Page 149 of Tides That Bind

I nod.I hope so.

“Promise?”

“And we’re done. You can move back.” He motions to the head of the bed. “You have to stay back here.”

I plop down into the cold, metal stool, hiding how my head sways. “You okay?”

They hang a sheet that blocks Harper’s body from the top of her stomach down. There are so many people in the room, and somehow, when I focus on her, our space feels all kind of private.

“Harper,” I command when she doesn’t look at me. Anchoring my feet against the smooth floor, I push myself as close as possible to her on the stool. She’s scared—understandably, because maybe there’s something wrong with the baby and she’s about to be cut open. Me? I’m scared, scared for her, for her husband and my best friend who is a world away from this operating room and has no idea any of this is even happening.

The anesthesiologist stands beside me at Harper’s head.

“She’s not…going to feel anything, right?”

“A little pressure,” he says through his mask. “Baby will be out quickly.”

I look down at Harper, who seems all kind of pale. The anesthesiologist puts an oxygen mask on her face. “Let’s make you and baby a little more comfortable, hm?”

“Hey. It’s okay. They said it would be quick.” I don’t know what to say in this situation, what to do to ease her worry. Tears flood her eyes and begin to escape as Harper turns her head to me. “I know you wish it wasn’t me sitting here. I know you wish it was Nate, but I’m here and everything’s going to be fine, alright?”

Maybe it’s a lie. But I know Nate would say that. I know he’d make small talk with Harper to distract her and try to not think about what’s happening beyond the curtain.

“And baby is out.”

Harper and I both hold our breaths, our stillness connected through our linked hands. I want to smile at her, but I don’t. Because I hearwhispers that should be drowned out by something louder, and there’s nothing—for a good fourteen seconds—until suddenly, there’s something. It’s a little squeaky at first, but then baby’s cry pierces the air like something backed by only the force of nature.

The sound Harper makes is something I’ve never heard before—and not just from her, but ever in my entire life. It’s a rumble that blossoms out of her with such strength I wonder how long it’s been waiting, planning its escape. It’s got the force of eternity behind it. The sound of a mother—of Harper becoming a mother—almost sends me flying off the stool.

But what I catch sight of—an impossibly small, wrinkled foot—equally holds me as still.

She’s sobbing and I don’t know what to do. “Is he…Riley, check, is he okay?” Harper blubbers. The baby is still crying, but I can’t see him as nurses and doctors crowd the small cot on the side of the operating table. I feel this instinctual need to push them aside, and I don’t know why.

“Riley.”

A whine of Harper’s might normally send me into a tizzy, but this is more than that. It’s a plea.

As soon as I’m on my feet, a nurse is in front of me. She’s got a tiny, bundle in her arms, and all I see of the baby is a pink, puffy face. He’s still crying—less now, more squawking and voicing his unhappiness and I don’t really blame him. What a way to enter the world.

“Good lungs,” is all she says before she places the baby in my arms and I cradle him on instinct, mesmerized by his barely-there weight, at a loss for how someone who wasn’t here just a minute ago could mean so damn much.

I turn, because it should be Harper holding him and I’m not prepared for the look on her face when she catches sight of me holding her son.

“Hi.”

Harper’s voice is different now, so smooth and sweet, just one word of it sounds like a lullaby. Apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so, because the baby settles. Even wrapped up I feel the way his littlebody relaxes when he hears his mother. And I’m not sure what this feeling is rushing through my body, but when I see his eyes open as I lay him as close to her as possible, their flushed cheeks touching, I’m dizzied by it.

But I don’t teeter, because even though Nate isn’t here, I am. I’m the one holding this fresh baby against his mother. And I’ll be damned if I ever drop him—now, tomorrow, or ever.

“Hi, sweet boy,” Harper coos.

Harper nuzzles him closer, and I’m able to lay him across her chest and remove one of my hands. I don’t know what to do with it or where it should go, but something inside me places it on Harper’s head.

“You did such a good job,” I tell her.

Her eyes fight leaving her son, but drift up to me.

“How about a picture of the new, little family?”

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