Page 141 of Heartless
Cade:Five minutes out. Everything okay?
Harvey:Oh, good. We’re all here waiting. Everything is fine.
Cade:All? No. You all need to leave.
Jasper:I’m on my way.
Cade:Why is my child’s birth part of a group text?
Summer:Because we’re excited!
Violet:So excited! Send pictures!
Rhett:After though. Not during. I don’t need to know Willa that well.
Summer:Rhett Eaton. I know you are not texting and driving with the daddy-to-be in your car.
Cade:He is.
Rhett:Red light, Princess. And why are you only worried about Cade and not me?
Summer:TODAY ISN’T ABOUT YOU.
Harvey:Y’all kids give me a ducking headache.
Cade:Rhett gives me a headache. Specifically.
Summer:I just wanna know what you’re naming the baby. And if they’re a boy or a girl. And who they look more like. OMG I’M SO EXCITED TO BE THE COOL AUNT.
Cade:Just got here. Now everyone fuck off.
* * *
Cade bursts through the door of the hospital room looking like he’s ready for a fight. I almost laugh at the fierce expression on his face as he rushes to my side. With the trauma of his mom’s death, I know this has been anxiety-inducing for him.
We’ve talked about her a lot. Isabelle Emma Eaton. The woman with the beautiful blue eyes who would make wishes down the well with him as a child.
“Red,” he breathes, pulling me close and smelling of pine trees and sweat. The manliest combination.
He came straight from the fields. Harvey drove me to the hospital and Rhett got on a quad bike to go find Cade. I’ve been playing it cool, but having him here eases my nerves.
“How are you? I came as fast as I could.” His broad palm strokes the back of my head and my eyes flutter shut. I love when he does that.
“Better now,” I say as he kisses my forehead.
“Everyone is in the waiting room. I told them to leave.”
I chuckle but a contraction hits me hard. I grip Cade’s hand and do my best to breathe through it but make some sort of insane braying noise.
He continues stroking my hair and letting me squeeze his hand hard enough to break it. We walk. I bounce on a ball. I sit in a bath. And when I look up at Cade and say, “I’m sorry if the magic is gone after this,” he replies with, “It’s okay, I’ve lived through a lot of calving seasons.”
My hysterical laughter bleeds into a contraction, longer and stronger than any of the others, and when it finally finishes and he’s helping me into bed, I say to him, “I know you didn’t just compare me to a cow.”
“I would never,” he says with a chuckle. And as much as I want to punch him in the face for that joke, I also want to hug him.
This man, who mere months ago seemed so cold and unhappy, has turned my world upside down and made me value my life differently. In a simpler way, a quieter way. A way that fits me rather than everyone else around me.
But more than that, he gave me a sense of satisfaction in myself that I have never experienced. A sense of pride and belonging that I never saw until he opened my eyes and showed me.
