Chapter 75: Bonus Chapter 3: The Child Born From a Promise

On the day of the delivery, Nathan waited in the hallway for a very long time.

The hospital corridor stretched on and on, too long beneath the cold fluorescent lights. The bulbs washed every face in a sickly blue-white glow. The smell of disinfectant mixed with some artificial air freshener, sharp and sweet at the same time, enough to make his stomach turn.

He sat on a plastic chair with his hands clasped together. His knuckles had gone white from the pressure.

Alvin sat beside him, smoking one cigarette after another.

A nurse came by several times to remind him that smoking was not allowed in the hospital. Alvin nodded each time, stubbed the cigarette out, then lit another one a few minutes later.

No one spoke.

They all knew what it meant for a woman of fifty-one to give birth.

They all knew.

That was why there was nothing to say.

The light above the operating room finally went dark.

Nathan stood at once.

Alvin rose more slowly, as if every bone in his body had been filled with sand.

The doctor came out and removed his mask.

“There was an amniotic fluid embolism,” he said. “We did everything we could…”

The rest of the sentence blurred.

Nathan didn’t hear it.

He saw Alvin’s body sway.

For one terrifying second, the old man looked like a tree that had stood too long in the wind and had finally run out of strength.

Nathan caught him.

Alvin did not cry.

He only stood there, his lips trembling, his eyes fixed on the door of the operating room.

“Let me see her,” he said.

Carol’s face was very peaceful.

As if she were asleep.

Her hair had turned completely white. Under the surgical lights, the lines on her face looked deeper than Nathan remembered, every year carved clearly into her skin. But the corners of her mouth were lifted slightly.

A faint smile remained there.

The nurse said Carol had looked at the baby one last time and whispered, “He looks like Chloe.”

Then she had closed her eyes.

Alvin held Carol’s hand and pressed it to his cheek.

He bent over her, his forehead resting against the back of her hand. His shoulders shook.

But there was no sound.

He cried very quietly.

So quietly it broke something in the room.

Nathan stood at the doorway and watched.

The hallway light stretched his shadow long across the gray floor.

He did not go in.

He was afraid that if he stepped into that room, he would never be able to walk out again.

He had already lost too many people.

He didn’t know how many more times his heart could be torn open and still remain something that counted as a heart.

When the nurse carried the baby out, Nathan took him in his arms.

The little boy weighed almost nothing.

Light as a bundle of cotton.

His skin was wrinkled, his tiny face still marked with streaks of blood that had not been fully wiped away. Both fists were clenched tight, as if he had come into the world already trying to hold on to something invisible.

His eyes were closed. His mouth opened and closed, searching.

Maybe for milk.

Maybe for warmth.

Maybe for someone in this world he had not yet had the chance to meet.

Nathan looked down at him.

Tears slipped silently down his face.

One fell onto the baby’s blanket and spread into a small dark stain.

“Your sister will come back,” he said softly.

His voice was so hoarse it was nearly lost in the corridor.

“When she does, you’ll get to meet her.”

The baby yawned. He shifted in Nathan’s arms, found a position that suited him, and fell asleep as if the world had not just taken his mother from him.

Nathan stood there, holding that small, fragile life.

A life that knew nothing about how cruel the world could be.

The corridor was quiet.

Only the distant voices of nurses drifted through the air, muffled and faint, as if they were speaking from underwater.

Nathan looked down at the child in his arms and thought of Chloe.

Had she been like this when she was born?

Tiny. Wrinkled. Helpless enough to make people want to protect her before she had done anything except exist.

Chloe had once said she was a nightmare as a child.

Climbing trees to poke at bird nests. Wading into creeks to catch fish. Coming home muddy, scratched, and extremely proud of herself.

Whenever Carol talked about it, she sounded helpless.

But her eyes always smiled.

“This child,” Carol used to say, “I have no idea who she takes after.”

Who did she take after?

Nathan still didn’t know.

But he knew one thing.

From that day forward, he had a new responsibility.

For Chloe, he would take care of this child.

For Carol.

For Alvin.

For this tiny life who had barely had time to open his eyes to the world.

Nathan held the baby closer.

Outside the window, the sky was blue.

Blue enough to look painted.

Exactly the kind of blue Chloe loved.

2007 · Summer

When Mason was a year and a half old, he learned to say “Dad.”

Not to Nathan.

To Alvin.

That day, Alvin was sitting in a wicker chair in the yard, sunning himself. Mason toddled over on unsteady little legs, wrapped both arms around Alvin’s calf, lifted his small face, and called out in that soft, milky baby voice.

“Dad.”

Alvin froze.

The cigarette in his hand dropped to the ground.

Then this old man, who had not cried when his wife died, reddened around the eyes. Tears slid down his wrinkled cheeks.

He picked Mason up and held him tightly. His chin rested against the top of the child’s head, and his shoulders trembled.

“Yeah,” Alvin said.

His voice shook.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

Nathan stood in the doorway and watched them.

The sunlight was beautiful that day. It poured across the yard and glazed everything in warm gold. The sugar maple tree in the yard was thriving, its leaves rustling whenever the wind passed through.

Nathan remembered Chloe saying that, when she was little, she had loved playing under that sugar maple more than anywhere else.

“My grandpa planted that tree,” she had told him once. “When I have kids someday, I want them to play under it too.”

She had been sitting beneath that very tree when she said it, a novel open in her hands. Sunlight filtered through the leaves and scattered across her face in broken pieces of gold.

She looked up at him and smiled, sweet enough to make his chest ache even then.

“Nathan, who do you think our kids will look like?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Because they’ll be prettier that way.”

She laughed, her eyes curving into two little crescents.

“Since when is your mouth this sweet?”

“I learned from you.”

She lunged forward and kissed him.

“A reward for your progress.”

Nathan remained at the doorway, watching Alvin and Mason.

Sunlight fell over them, warm and bright.

He smiled faintly.

Then he turned back into the house and closed the door behind him.

Soup was simmering on the stove in the kitchen, bubbling softly. He had started it that morning. Chicken noodle soup. Chloe’s favorite.