Dane's Storm(81)

I nodded dumbly. “Yes, thank you, Doctor.”

He left the room and Dane and I looked at each other, Dane’s grin increasing. I kept staring at him, the soft beginnings of joy fluttering in my heart, along with a thousand other emotions. “A baby,” I whispered.

Dane sat back down on the bed, taking me in his arms. “Yeah, a baby.”

“Is it going to be okay this time, Dane?” I asked, my greatest fear bubbling to the surface.

He pushed a piece of hair away from my cheek, taking my face in his hands and looking directly into my eyes. “Yeah, it is. It’s going to be okay.” He kissed me softly on my lips. “Let’s go home.”

I nodded, breathing in his scent, love filling me, and a strange sense of peace that didn’t seem to make any sense with the worries bouncing around in my mind. “Yes, let’s go home.”





EPILOGUE


Dane



“One more push, baby. You can do it, Audra. I see our baby’s head, honey,” I choked out as she gripped my hand.

My wife sat up slightly, sweat dripping off her forehead and down her cheeks as she curled forward, gritting her teeth as her face turned red and she screamed into the final push.

The small patch of dark hair grew bigger and bigger and I held my breath as the baby’s head emerged, followed quickly by the shoulders as the doctor pulled him—it was a him—from Audra’s body, placing our son on her stomach, and rubbing his back briskly.

For a second, time stopped as my eyes met Audra’s, a thousand words, a thousand feelings, a thousand memories, passing between us in a single glance.

This time, though, it wasn’t only my wife’s cry that filled the hospital room where a baby’s wail should have been. No, no, this time the lusty squall of our baby boy burst forth, filling the silence, causing me to draw in a sudden breath of thankful joy. Audra’s face crumbled as she, too, let out a cry filled with both deep relief and happiness, lifting our son and bringing him to her chest where she cried against his head, kissing his temple, her tears falling on his skin. “Hi,” she breathed. “Hi, baby boy. Hi, Noah.”

I bent over both of them, smoothing Audra’s sweat-soaked hair back as I marveled at the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen: my wife holding our newborn infant as he cried angrily, rooting for the breast that wasn’t being immediately offered to him. Audra laughed through her tears, cradling him in her arms as a nurse handed her a blanket, placed a hat on Noah’s head, and listened quickly to his heartbeat. “Good and strong,” the nurse said on a smile, turning away. To prove her right, Noah let out another furious howl and Audra guided his small mouth to her breast. He quieted, happy with his new circumstances, and I laughed, wiping away the tears I hadn’t realized were moving down my cheeks.

“That’s my boy,” I said and Audra nudged me slightly, but continued smiling the awe-filled, love-drunk smile of a new mother.

Noah stared, his dark eyes fixed on her as he nursed. They finally fluttered closed, his mouth going lax as he fell asleep. Audra beamed up at me as I bent over them, whispering words of love and joy, vowing to protect them forever.

Later, I held Noah in my arms as Audra slept, the hospital room dim, the halls quiet outside the door. I swayed in front of the window, my son’s small body swaddled safely in my arms, watching as a few late-fall snowflakes fell from the sky

I thought about everything that had happened to bring us to this very moment, my gaze following the deep purple outline of the mountains on the distant horizon. I closed my eyes, picturing that endless, arctic terrain, swearing that for just a heartbeat, I caught the sharp scent of pine in the air, felt the whip of the wind across my cheek.

Sometimes, still, I think of grief that way—as a vast, icy mountain, seemingly impossible to survive, so frigid the cold permeates your very bones, the depths of your soul. Each step takes a monumental effort, making any real headway seem insurmountable. And yet, if you raise your eyes to the horizon, looking with your heart as well as your eyes, you can see a tiny wisp of smoke rising from a cozy cabin where you will finally, finally find warmth. Hope. And if you have another who will take your hand, drag you when necessary, and travel through that unforgiving landscape, you will emerge through the trees, changed, yes, but together. Stronger. And when you turn your head and look back at the stark, sweeping vista from which you somehow emerged, you will know, deep down to the very core of yourself, that nothing, nothing is impossible when love is greater, more vast, more solid and immovable than the mountain itself.

I cuddled Noah closer, bringing my face to his, breathing in his sweet baby smell—the scent of purity, of mother’s milk, of my wife, still so very much a part of him, though their bodies were now separated. I snuggled him for a moment, rocking gently, and then I told my second son all about his brother. I told him how his mother and I had once gotten lost in a cold, desolate terrain, and found each other in another. I told him how the second time we’d learned to curl into the cold spaces together, sharing our hearts, our warmth, our tears. I told him how that had made all the difference.

And finally, just as the sun began to rise over those jagged, distant peaks, I told him about a blue butterfly, the soft brush of wings against my cheek as I lay dying. The tiny flutter that had brought me from the edge of death, given me one last surge of energy, the very final burst of strength that had brought us out of the clearing and into the view of a man holding an armful of wood.