Chapter 18 - The Day My Son Arrived

My son arrived six weeks later.

Not on schedule.

Apparently, he inherited my family’s refusal to follow convenient timing.

Labor began at 2:13 in the morning.

I called my father.

He answered on the first ring.

“I’m coming.”

Fourteen hours later, I was exhausted, terrified, laughing, crying, and gripping a nurse’s hand hard enough to apologize repeatedly.

Then I heard him.

My son.

A furious little cry filled the room.

Everything stopped.

They placed him against my chest.

I stared at his tiny face.

His dark hair.

His closed eyes.

His hand opening against my skin.

“Hi.”

My voice broke.

“I’m your mom.”

My father stood several feet away.

He was crying.

He pretended he was not.

I let him pretend for approximately thirty seconds.

“Dad.”

He wiped his face.

“What?”

“You’re terrible at hiding it.”

He laughed.

The nurse invited him closer.

He looked almost nervous.

Chief Justice Jonathan Mercer, who could question the most experienced attorneys in the country without blinking, appeared terrified of a seven-pound baby.

“Support his head.”

I told him.

“I know.”

“You look like you don’t.”

“I raised you.”

“Mom probably supervised.”

He smiled.

Then he held his grandson.

The room became quiet.

“What’s his name?”

My father asked.

I looked at my baby.

“Samuel.”

My father froze.

It had been my mother’s father’s name.

“She would have loved that.”

“I know.”

Later that afternoon, Rebecca called.

She offered to wait.

I told her to speak.

“The divorce decree was entered this morning.”

I stared at Samuel sleeping beside me.

“Today?”

“Today.”

I laughed softly.

Of course.

The day my son entered the world was the same day I legally left the marriage that nearly destroyed both of us.

“What about David?”

“He was notified.”

I looked at the hospital window.

“Did he respond?”

“No.”

There would be supervised procedures for any future parental access, subject to professional recommendations and court orders.

I knew the future could become complicated.

David was Samuel’s father.

That fact would not disappear because our marriage did.

But neither would history.

I had learned the cost of ignoring warning signs.

I would never pay it again.

I touched Samuel’s cheek.

“You don’t have to save me.”

I whispered.

“That’s my job now.”

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He slept through the promise.

I intended to keep it anyway.