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TREY

Arella’s groans of pain echo against the walls of our kitchen.

Last month, we turned this room into a birthing station in anticipation of our Ordinary child coming into the world.

We don’t know what gender we’re having yet.

Arella wanted it to be a surprise. I don’t care what gender our baby is. I’m just excited to become a dad.

My girl has been in labor for almost fifteen hours.

Four highly trained medical zoctors have been coming in and out of our house all day, doing everything they can to help ease Arella’s pain.

They’re now surrounding her feet, ready to catch our baby when he or she pops out.

Arella’s midwife and two nurses are also at her side, coaching her through what looks and sounds like a goddamn horror movie.

I’m near Arella’s head. She’s crushing my hand in hers as I try to stay strong for her. I hate seeing her in misery, especially knowing there’s nothing I can do to stop it.

“You’re doing great!” the main zoctor says. “Your baby is almost here. Can you give me another hard push?”

Arella sucks in a deep breath, then pushes again. She squeezes my hand so hard, I internally yelp. The zoctors at her feet smile as an infant’s cries fill the room.

My heart swells as my eyes fill with happy tears. That’s my baby crying. My baby. My little boy or girl. I lean down to give Arella a kiss on her forehead. “You did it, babe! I’m so proud of?—”

She lets go of my hand as her head drops against the bed. The machine she’s hooked up to goes off with a loud siren.

“She’s passed out!” a nurse shouts. “She’s not breathing either.”

“She’s losing a lot of blood!” says a zoctor.

A nurse pushes me out of her way, and I stumble backward into the wall. Passed out? Not breathing? Losing a lot of blood?

We’ve had multiple conversations about this being a possibility. When Arella and I debated whether or not to continue her pregnancy, we decided to put trust in the zovernment to keep her and our baby safe and healthy. Now I’m thinking we might have made the wrong decision.

My vision blurs as muffled shouting and an infant’s cries consume me. All the people in my kitchen yell things at each other I can’t make out. They surround Arella with machines and cords I have no idea what to do with.

The head zoctor hooks an oxygen mask over Arella’s face. At least, I think it’s an oxygen mask. If it’s not, what is it for?

If Arella doesn’t make it through this, what does that mean for me? For our baby? I haven’t thought much about that because I haven’t wanted to consider it as an option. I’ve been living off the hope that seventy-five percent is enough.

Someone shakes my arm. “Mr. Grant?”

I glance up at the nurse from the kitchen counter I’m bracing myself over. “Huh?”

“Did you hear me?”

“I’m sorry.” My voice comes out as shaky as my hands. “What did you say?”

“I asked if you could do skin-to-skin with your daughter? It’s important that the baby gets it immediately. We typically do that with the mother, but...”

My daughter?

The nurse holds up a tiny human who’s crying at the top of her lungs. She’s so loud, I can barely hear the nurse ask me to take my shirt off.

Get yourself together, Grant. Your baby needs you. After sucking in a deep breath, I tear my shirt over my head, then the nurse hands me my daughter. I erupt into tears as I hold her against my chest and feel her skin against mine.

I’m a dad now. I’m a fucking dad.

I bounce my baby girl in my arms as the nurse rushes back to Arella’s bedside. My hands tremble against my daughter’s back while I wait for someone to tell me whether my wife is okay or not.

I stare at the canvas print of Arella and me hanging on the wall near the fridge, hoping it’ll give me some peace.

Arella looks like an angel in her long lacy white dress.

At the time, she wasn’t showing yet, which was why we had our wedding barely a month after Christmas.

In the photo, I’m dipping her back, making her laugh so hard, she squints her eyes and drops the bouquet of flowers in her hand.

That was one of my favorite moments from our wedding because it was right after I was told I could kiss my bride.

We had a small wedding at our oak tree at sunset with our closest friends, Arella’s grandparents, my bandmates, and Li and Tao.

Javina’s maid-of-honor speech made people laugh so hard, they cried.

Liz’s best-woman speech was so heartfelt, I cried.

Now Arella and I have our wedding photos plastered all over our house—the house we moved into two months ago. It’s much bigger than the previous one, and we chose it because the second we stepped into it, Arella said she could see us raising our kids here.

I can’t live here without her. Correction: I can’t live without her.

We’ve had the most amazing eleven months together.

I can’t lose her. Especially not today. It’s September fifth, the anniversary of my parents’ death, which is now also the birthdate of my first child.

It’s crazy how the world works this way.

Is the world crazy and cruel enough to give me my daughter and take away my wife on the same day it took away my parents?

My baby’s cries mellow out the longer I rock her against my chest. “You’re okay, baby girl. Daddy’s got you.”

Holding her is calming me just as much as it’s calming her. I wish I could tell her that her mother is gonna be okay. I don’t want my baby to grow up without?—

Wait a second... I’m at least five steps away from all the other people in this kitchen. Why am I feeling the zense?

I glance down at my baby. It’s her. The zense is coming from her .

But how? Throughout Arella’s pregnancy, she never felt the baby use any mind powers.

Also, the genetic test came back confirming that our baby was an Ordinary.

The test looked for the chromosome that determines what elemental power the baby will develop by the age of one.

Our baby didn’t have that chromosome at all. How am I feeling the zense from her?

“Mr. Grant?” the main zoctor says.

I turn to find her with bloody gloves and a pale expression. That can’t be good.

“She’s stable.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means we’ve sedated her.” The zoctor puts her bloody hands up in surrender. “It’s okay. It’s just to help with pain relief. Her body went into shock after the birth and she had a postpartum hemorrhage, but she’s going to be okay.”

A postpartum what? I don’t recall hearing that term during any of our prenatal visits.

The zoctor must see the confusion on my face, because she says, “It just means she had heavy bleeding after birth. Remember, we planned for anything to happen. Therefore, we already had the right things in place to give her a blood transfusion if we needed to. The other zoctors are working on that now. She’ll be fine. ”

I let out a long breath as I force myself to nod. If the head zoctor is saying Arella’s going to be fine, I’m going to believe her. That’s all I can do right now.

“May we take your daughter to get her cleaned up?”

Silently, I hand my baby off. The second I let her go, her cries fill the kitchen again.

I keep an eye on my baby as I make my way back to Arella’s side and take her hand. As if she can hear me, I speak softly into her ear. “She’s beautiful, Arella. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”