|
MILES
Six years earlier
“What if he turns out to be gay?” Rachel asks me. “Would
that bother you?”
She’s holding Clayton, and we’re both sitting on the hospital
bed. I’m on the foot of the bed facing her, watching her
stare at him.
She keeps asking me random questions. Playing devil’s
advocate again.
She says we need to work these things out now so we don’t
run into any parenting issues in the future.
“It would only bother me if he felt like he couldn’t talk to us
about it. I want him to know he can talk to us about
anything.”
Rachel smiles at Clayton, but I know her smile is for me.
Because she loved my answer.
“What if he doesn’t believe in God?” she asks.
“He can believe whatever he wants. I just want his beliefs—
or lack thereof—to make him happy.”
She smiles again.
“What if he commits an awful, heinous, heartless crime and
gets sent to prison for life?”
“I would question where I went wrong as a father,” I tell her.
She looks up at me. “Well, based on this interrogation, I’m
convinced he’ll never commit a crime, because you’re
already the best dad I’ve ever known.”
Now she’s making
me
smile.
We both look at the door when it opens and a nurse walks
in.
She flashes a regretful smile. “It’s time,” she says.
Rachel groans, but I have no idea what the nurse is referring
to. Rachel sees the confusion on my face.
“His circumcision.”
My stomach clenches. I know we discussed this during the
pregnancy, but I’m suddenly having second thoughts,
knowing what he’s about to go through.
“It’s not so bad,” the nurse says. “We numb him first.”
She walks over to Rachel and begins to lift him from
Rachel’s arms, but I lean forward.
“Wait,” I tell her. “Let me hold him first.”
The nurse backs up a step, and Rachel hands Clayton to me.
I pull him in front of me and look down on him.
“I’m so sorry, Clayton. I know it’ll hurt, and I know it’s
emasculating, but—”
“He’s a day old,” Rachel interjects with a laugh. “There’s
hardly anything that can emasculate him yet.”
I tell her to hush. I tell her I’m having a father-son moment,
and she needs to pretend she’s not here.
“Don’t worry, your mom left the room,” I say to Clayton,
giving Rachel a wink. “I was saying, I know it’s
emasculating, but you’ll thank me later for it. Especially
when you’re older and you get involved with girls. Hopefully
not until after you’re eighteen, but it’ll more than likely be
around the age of sixteen. It was for me, anyway.”
Rachel leans forward and holds her arms out for him.
“That’s enough bonding,” she says, laughing. “I think we
need to review the boundaries of father-son conversation
while he’s being emasculated.”
I give him a quick kiss on his forehead and hand him back to
Rachel. She does the same and passes him on to the nurse.
We both watch as the nurse leaves the room with him.
I look back at Rachel and crawl toward her until I’m lying
next to her on the bed.
“We have the place to ourselves,” I whisper. “Let’s make
out.”
She grimaces. “I don’t feel sexy right now,” she says. “My
stomach is flabby, and my boobs are engorged, and I need a
shower so bad, but it hurts too much to try to take one right
now.”
I look down at her chest and pull at the collar on her
hospital gown. I peer down her shirt and grin. “How long do
they stay like this?”
She laughs and pushes my hand away.
“Well, how does your mouth feel?” I ask her.
She looks at me like she doesn’t understand my question, so
I elaborate.
“I’m just wondering if your mouth hurts like the rest of you
hurts, because if it doesn’t, I want to kiss you.”
She grins. “My mouth feels great.”
I rise up on my elbow so she doesn’t have to roll toward me.
I look down on her, and seeing her beneath me feels
different now.
It feels
real.
Until yesterday, it really did feel like we had been playing
house. Of course, our love is real, and our relationship is
real, but until I witnessed her give life to my son yesterday,
everything I felt before that moment was like child’s play
compared to what I feel for her now.
“I love you, Rachel. More than I loved you yesterday.”
Her eyes are looking up at me like she knows exactly what
I’m talking about. “If you love me more today than you
loved me yesterday, then I can’t wait for tomorrow,” she
says.
My lips fall to hers, and I kiss her. Not because I should but
because I need to.
• • •
I’m standing outside Rachel’s hospital room. She and
Clayton are both in the room, napping.
The nurse said he hardly even cried. I’m sure she tells all
the parents that, but I believe her anyway.
I take out my phone to text Ian.
Do'stlaringiz bilan baham: |
