Page 131 of Pregnant in Plaid
"Then I need to figure out how to be independent and partnered at the same time."
"We'll figure it out together." He stops walking, turns to face me. "I don't want you to stay because youfeel obligated, Patrice. I want you to stay because you want this life. This town. This family. Me."
"I do want this," I say quietly. "All of it. I'm terrified, and I have no idea what I'm doing, and tomorrow we're taking our daughter home to your cabin that's full of incorrectly assembled furniture and approximately ten thousand baby bottles?—"
"Twenty bottles."
"—twenty bottles, and I've never been more scared in my life. But I want this. I want you. I want us."
He kisses me, gentle and sure, and I kiss him back like I'm trying to communicate everything I can't quite say out loud yet.
"Tomorrow's going to be chaos," he says against my lips.
"Complete disaster," I agree.
"We're going to be terrible at this."
"The absolute worst." But I'm smiling when I say it.
"Together though."
"That's the most romantic thing you've ever said to me."
He laughs. "Just wait. Tomorrow I'm going to panic about car seat installation and probably drop something important and definitely call Dr. Martinez about seventeen non-emergency emergencies."
"And I'm going to cry at least four times and Google 'is my baby breathing' every five minutes."
"We're going to be those parents, aren't we?"
"Oh, we're absolutely going to be those parents."
We walk into the NICU together, past the hand-washing station, past the nurses who know us by name now, past the other families dealing with their own tiny humans and their own fears.
Brooklyn's in her bassinet, eyes closed, one tiny fist curled against her cheek. She's gained weight. She looks less fragile, more solid. More ready for the world.
Tomorrow, we take her home.
Tomorrow, we become parents. For real. No nurses to ask. No monitors to reassure us. Just us and our daughter and a cabin full of baby supplies and our complete and utter incompetence.
I watch Trace reach down and gently stroke Brooklyn's head, his huge hand dwarfing her tiny skull, and my chest tightens with something that might be love or terror or both.
"We got this," he whispers.
"We absolutely do not got this."
"Well, no. But we're going to pretend we do until we figure it out."
"That's your parenting philosophy? Fake it till we make it?"
"Do you have a better one?"
"Not even a little bit."
He grins at me over our daughter's bassinet, and despite everything—the fear, the uncertainty, the absolute certainty that tomorrow is going to be a beautiful disaster—I find myself grinning back.
Tomorrow,Brooklyn comes home.
I look at Trace holding Brooklyn's tiny hand through the bassinet opening, and despite every logical cell in my body screaming that we're not ready for this, I feel ready anyway.
