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CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

LEDGER

I ’ve never run so fast in my whole fucking life, but I spring into Pacific Children’s like I’m wearing two blades on ice.

I climb the stairs to Labor and Delivery, because I don’t have time to wait for a slow as fuck elevator, and slam into the scrub station like it’s a puck in overtime when I finally reach the front desk.

“Mar-Mar-Marlee!” I finally shout, bending at the waist and trying like hell to catch my breath. “Babies!”

“They’re prepping your wife now, sir,” a nurse says to me as she hands me sterile scrubs with the speed of someone used to men in full panic mode. “They'll be starting surgery any minute,” she says, voice calm but urgent.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I freeze, my whole body in shock. “Surgery?”

“A C-section, sir. Her blood pressure is to high which means?—”

“Pre-eclampsia.”

She nods. “Yes, sir.”

“Also, she’s not my wife,” I breathe, fumbling with the gown, “but she’s…she’s my everything.”

I’ve got one bootie halfway on and the other completely backwards. Mask, cap, gloves. I don’t know what the hell I’m doing but I’m pretty sure something’s inside-out. It doesn’t fucking matter. All I know is Marlee is behind a set of these doors and I need to get to her right fucking now.

A nurse slides open a gap between a pair of swinging doors and I spot Marlee lying on the table and barge through, nearly skidding into another nurse standing nearby.

The OR is white and blue and painfully bright.

Machines bleep, instruments glisten, and Marlee lies on the table, face slick with sweat, eyes rolling like she’s trying to see inside her own skull.

There are so many people in here: the OB from last Tuesday’s appointment, a gray-haired anesthesiologist attending to the IV in Marlee’s hand and a team of three nurses standing by tiny incubators.

I can only assume they’re from the NICU.

A team for each of the three babies, I guess.

There are three other people attending to Marlee, and then me, the only one in the room without a clue, swaying in a sea of disinfectant and adrenaline.

“Ledger!” Marlee’s voice is soft and tired but I can hear the relief in her words. “You made it.”

I shuffle around to the left, where someone points and encourages me to hold Marlee’s hand.

As if I would ever deny myself the opportunity.

I fold my hand over hers, her skin damp and cold, fingers curled up hard, nails digging into my knuckles.

“Hey, beautiful.” I whisper, “Hey, I’m here.

You’re good, you’re a fucking superhero, Marlee.

” She laughs, or maybe she winces, but I choose to believe it’s laughter because right now the team on the other side of the curtain that is now hiding us from the action is yanking and shifting her body like they’re trying to get the world’s most stubborn cork from a bottle of wine.

A beeping monitor alarms. “BP’s up,” someone says, and the anesthesiologist with the gray hair leans in, murmurs something reassuring to Marlee, and taps a syringe.

Marlee’s lips are blue at the edges and she’s breathing in short, shallow gasps.

I lay my hand just above her forehead and smooth my thumb across her hair cap and then I say all the words a person is supposed to say.

“I love you.”

“I’m so proud of you.”

“You’re almost there, babe.”

“God, I can’t wait to meet them.”

But underneath every word I say, I’m fucking terrified, like there’s a stone in my chest vibrating so fast it could split my ribs apart.

I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. I don’t know what any of the people in this room are doing, yet I’m supposed to trust them with the lives of everyone I love the most.

What if they mess something up?

What if there’s a mistake?

What if something happens to one of the babies?

What if something happens to Marlee?

Bile rises in my throat but I force myself to swallow it back and hide every possible fear from the woman lying on the cold table in front of me.

I did this to her.

She’s in this predicament because of me.

If something happens to her I’ll never forgive myself.

“Okay, Dad, you ready?” It takes me a second to realize they mean me. The OB’s face is partially obscured by a mask and a face shield, but her eyes are kind.

Fuck no, I’m not ready.

I nod anyway, or maybe just bobble my head like one of those dogs in a car window. “Yes. Yes, what do I do?”

“Just be here,” she says. “First baby’s coming.”

There’s a wet sound, a suction, then air, and the room changes.

The yelling stops just long enough for a sticky, furious squawk to slice through the walls.

I’m crying, and I don’t even feel it start.

They hold up a tiny, purple, writhing shape, and Marlee sobs, open-mouthed and wild, and I get my first look at a person I already love more than the bones in my body.

"Baby A, 3:13 P.M.,” someone says, and then they’re hurrying that baby to a table, nurses closing in, a whole aviation ground crew for a passenger the size of a squirrel.

Marlee’s voice rattles. “Ledger, did you see her? Did you?—?"

“She’s perfect,” I choke, not knowing if she’s perfect or not, but to me she is. “You did it, Mar, you?—”

But they’re already on to the next one. More suction, more percussive panic. The team works fast, blood soaking and suctioning, a blur of blue gloves and red pads.

Then there’s this grim silence. It’s like a black hole of gravity on the other side of the curtain. My vision tunnels and the scent of antiseptic and blood lingers in my nose, making my head ache and my stomach turn.

“Second baby’s breech!” the surgeon announces and something raw rips loose in my throat as my heart sinks.

I only barely know what those words mean.

Whoever told us “childbirth is natural” never saw what they do to a body to get a baby out when nature decides to be a fucking sadist. The OB’s arms are red to the elbows.

Marlee tries unsuccessfully to lift her head, her eyes darting around the room looking for any kind of understanding of what’s going on.

“Ledger,” she groans. “Ledger?—”

“I’m here, I’m here,” I say, chanting it like a prayer for her, but also for myself.

“There she is!” the doctor says just before a rush of fluid hits the linoleum with a slap.

Baby B is out but silent, limp. I don’t breathe until the nurse starts briskly patting her back, her voice unfazed, as she urges, “Come on, little one, get mad at me. Make some noise.” Marlee clutches my hand like a life preserver while all I can do is stare at that unmoving scrap of our hope, our love, our luck… our blood.

She’s so fucking small.

How can anything that small make it in this world this early?

Finally, a sound comes, shrilling, then growing in volume and defiance as the baby finds her lungs.

The hush in the OR splits open and everyone sighs and laughs.

Air comes rushing back into my own lungs, my knees going weak as I realize I’ve been holding on to everything except my own life.

The nurse holds the tiny beautiful little princess up and I see her face.

My God, she’s most beautiful little thing I’ve ever seen.

She is furious at the world and alive and I love her instantly, completely and desperately.

“Baby B, 3:16 P.M.,” the nurse says before she begins to towel her off.

The nurse holds her up to the side so Marlee can see her, and for a second Marlee’s grip goes slack.

I panic until I see it’s just exhaustion, everything loose in her face except the shine in her eyes, locked on me.

I bring my lips to her forehead and kiss her tenderly, my own tears dripping down my cheek.

“You’re almost done, babe. You’re fucking crushing it. They’re so beautiful.”

“One more to go,” she whispers. “Your son.”

I choke on a sob the moment she says, ‘your son’ because holy fucking shit this is it. Two babies are here, safe and warm.

My princesses.

And now my son is about to make his entrance into the world as if he was the one protecting his sisters inside their mother’s womb this entire time.

My little hero knows how to protect his family already.

My hero of a son is about to show up his dad.

They say things go fast, but this is outside of time.

Baby C takes his damn time making his entrance.

Apparently, he doesn’t want to let go. I almost laugh at the notion, until the mood shifts through the OR and the room tightens around us.

Voices lower and become hushed murmurs instead of excited declarations and then suddenly there’s talk of cord entanglement and excess blood loss. ”

Again, I don’t know what it all means but it doesn’t sound good.

Are they scared?

Fuck.

What’s going on?

“Ledge? What’s happening?” Marlee’s face twists and when I look down she looks weaker.

Every part of me wants to lift her up off this table and take her out of this place, run with her as far away as I can get.

Away from these people with their busy, bloody hands.

Away from the bleeping machines. Away from the anxiety and the crushing fear and to a place where we can be calm.

Happy.

At peace.

Silently I curse her body, curse myself for what I did to it and for every time I put hope in it. I curse the universe for asking it to bring my family safely into existence.

There’s movement on the other side of the curtain and then the doctor has him.

My son. Baby C. The smallest of the three, blue and still for a breathless eternity.

No.

Please, God. No.

No, no, no.

Don’t do this.

I want to scream, but my breath is frozen. I want to sob but every piece of my body has stopped working. I want to die.

Take me.

I’ll take his place.

I’ll do it!

I’ll do anything!

Fuck, I want to kill someone. I want to crawl into the hole that’s just opened in the universe. Anything to pull the precious cry of my son from his lungs.

But there’s nothing I can do.

I’m just their helpless father.

God, I’m no better than my own father was with me.