Chapter Forty-Eight

The gardens around Owen and Olivia, the world at large, remained unchanged and went on unheeding. Traffic sounds reached them from the distance beyond the hospital grounds. An ambulance rolled up the driveway between car park and garden, a stranger engrossed in a critical moment of their own life. Olivia and Owen paid it all no heed, encased in their own bubble, staring into each other’s eyes.

Something huge shifted within Owen. He had been in a state of shock since his encounter with Jillian. Like all people in shock, he was blithely oblivious of his condition and had been operating on a form of autopilot for hours. Even the relief at closure with Jillian had yet to hit him. He had come to the hospital without conscious thought, gravitating to whatever incidental place contained the people who comprised his world, his family. He had come here blindly in the wake of ruinous distress, seeking the acceptance and validation of his loved ones.

Olivia’s news that he would become a father provoked a feeling unlike anything he had ever felt in his life. It evoked a far deeper thing, the flash and flare of emotion distant, deep in the firmament of his soul, muffled by the vast masses of experience piled atop his innate core. On the surface, Owen remained still, no emotion betrayed on his face for a moment. But far beneath the surface, deep in his core, a spark began to race along a fuse.

The emotional blast occurred deep down, the seismic shift beneath his feet unmistakable and irrevocable. He blinked a few times, trying to make his wandering mind focus on the present moment again. “I’m going to be a father? For real?”

Olivia nodded, a huge smile planted on her face.

“And it’s confirmed? I mean…” He ran his hand through his hair, unsure how to best phrase this. After what happened with Jillian, he was scared of getting his hopes high only to find out later that Olivia wasn’t carrying his baby either.

She cradled his face in her hands. “Owen, breathe, darling!” she said reassuringly. “It’s true. I did the tests—first at the hotel, then here at the hospital just to make sure. It’s confirmed. We’re having a baby!”

Owen got on his feet and started pacing back and forth in front of Olivia, like a madman talking to himself. “I’m going to be a father, I’m going to be a father, I’m going to be a father,” he repeated. And each time he said it, his voice grew louder and louder till he couldn’t hold his emotions inside anymore and yelled to the sky. “I’M A FATHER.”

Olivia grabbed his hand to stop his pacing and got off the bench as well. She put her arms around his neck. “Stop shouting, you fool,” she said with mirth in her voice.

Owen wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer to his body. He rested his forehead on hers and closed his eyes. “This is the best news I’ve heard in a very long time. I love you so much, Olivia. You are my world. The best thing that has ever happened in my life.”

***

From the view of the window high above, Soonja and Jude watched.

“Just kiss her, you goon,” Soonja said at last.

Jude laughed. “Yeah, they should. Why is romance so complicated?”

“It’s not,” Soonja said. “People are just, by and large, morons. Even the intelligent among us are capable of quite staggering stupidity. Not to mention arrogance. Right now, and indeed for some time, the root of Owen and Olivia’s problems has been each thinking that they were the hero of their story.” She smiled, still looking out the window, studying Owen and Olivia below. “We are all the protagonists of our own tales, of course, but that is not heroism. And they are not the heroes here.”

“So who is?” Jude asked.

“You, obviously.”

Jude was too surprised to respond, so Soonja went on:

“A hero sets a goal and pursues it, overcoming all in their path by whatever means necessary. They do not allow themselves to become confused, much less conflicted, remaining instead entirely focused on the goal.”

“They’ve not done that at all,” Jude observed. “They’re both all over the place.”

“Yet, they have not lacked for heroism,” Soonja replied. “A hero leads, showing others the way: brave before danger, calm in the face of strife, bold when it is required. It is a rare and powerful mode of being, and most experience it only once or twice, perhaps for a few minutes all told in their entire lives.”

“I don’t feel any of those things, though,” Jude said.

“I said nothing of feeling. I said it was a mode of being. Have you heard of hysterical strength? When a woman finds the bodily power to lift a crashed car just enough to rescue her children? That is not an enjoyable feeling. Nor, I imagine, is the adrenaline a fire-fighter experiences running through a burning building. But it is powerful. And you have soldiered through a form of that, a marathon rather than a sprint, for months now. How did it feel?”

“It didn’t matter,” Jude said. “It just was. The doctors came to me like a bunch of old wizards and said I had to do all these things if I wanted to live. And I do, so I did.”

“As simple as that.” Soonja smiled sadly. “And yet ever so much deeper and more complex. Were you afraid?”

“No.”

He said it with the same flat calm that he had faced it all, and Soonja took his assertion as gospel.

“But now you have walked that narrow way, the goal ever before you, unafraid. And you have led, made clear the path before the rest of us.”

“Even you?”

“Especially me. There is nothing quite so comforting to an old soul facing the end of their journey, as the company of a wise innocent just beginning theirs. You, Jude, have seen and learned something that most people take their entire lives to learn. You have a sense of scale.”

Jude frowned at that, what she meant still beyond his understanding. Soonja just smiled and thumbed the painkiller switch beside her bed.

“Look,” Jude said, pointing out of the window again. “He is kissing her.”

Soonja laughed. “Finally! That boy better do things right this time or else I will give him a whapping. I didn’t when he was a kid, but I will now if I have to put some sense in him.”

Jude burst out laughing. “Well, if he hurts my sister again, I’ll help you do that.”

Happy with the sight outside her window, Soonja settled on the bed and closed her eyes, hoping for peaceful dreams.