Beyond These Walls (The Walls Duet #2)(73)

I tried to adjust in the bed, and I felt a sharp pain shoot through me.

“We’re lucky to have you both,” he added.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Have you heard of the pregnancy complication called the HELLP syndrome?”

I shook my head, feeling dizzy from the wave of information being thrown at me.

“Well, when you came in, Dr. Truman thought you were showing signs of preeclampsia, which is why she moved to do the C-section right away. But when Meara went into fetal distress and your blood pressure kept rising, she knew it was much more serious.” He looked down at me, his eyes misting. “You could have died, Lailah.”

“But I’m still here,” I replied, carefully taking his hand in mine.

He broke down, curling into me, as he cried. My mom joined him, holding her husband, as her arm softly touched my hair.

“I’m right here,” I said, knowing they needed to hear it as much as they needed to touch the hair on my head and feel the tears falling down my face.

These two people had nearly watched me die a dozen times over the last twenty-six years. It never got easier, and the fear and worry would never dissipate.

“I’m okay,” I reminded them. “But Meara needs us, all of us.”

I looked up at the exact moment the door opened. It was as if I’d summoned him from thin air. His hair was a disheveled mess, tousled in every direction, much like his clothes. But none of that mattered as his gaze met mine, and I realized I was still here.

And so was he.

Now, there was only one missing piece of our new little puzzle.

“I’m going to go check for updates in the NICU,” Marcus said, adjusting himself.

My mom quickly followed behind. Her hand briefly touched Jude’s shoulder before they left, and soon, it was just the two of us.

“I wanted to be here when you woke up,” he said.

“You’re here now.”

Stepping forward, he raised his hand and placed a single cup of pudding on the metal tray beside my bed. “I was running a very important errand.”

That single gesture opened the floodgates, and I broke. Every emotion I’d hidden, every fear, every damn scenario I’d envisioned that didn’t include me in it suddenly came rushing to the surface, like a hundred-year-old dam breaking in a deadly hurricane.

I just couldn’t hold any of it in any longer.

I was in his arms immediately as the tears flowed, and the overwhelming feeling of everything crashing down around me fell to the floor, one tiny drop at a time. When I felt his wet cheek touch mine, I knew he’d been holding back as well.

We’d become experts at our own game. We’d been skating around the icy fear and haunting reality of what might come that neither of us had even realized the true depth our silence had cost us. I’d thought I’d come clean, vowing to live every moment in the present, but really, I had just shoved more and more doubt further down until I was nearly choking on the very idea of what might come.

Now that it was nearly over, now that I was still here, still breathing and clinging to the man I loved, there were no words.

No words but one.

“Meara,” I said.

His eyes met mine, red-rimmed and swollen around the edges from the lack of sleep. “She’s beautiful,” he said softly. “Beautiful, Lailah.”

An entirely new set of tears fell from my eyes, but these were happy, thankful tears. “You’ve seen her?”

He nodded. “Only briefly. She’s tiny, just around three pounds. But she’s perfect . . . and she’s ours.”

“I want to see her,” I said.

“You will. As soon as the nurse clears you to do so, I promise.”

His hand tenderly went to my arm as my eyes traveled to the single cup of pudding he’d set on the tray.

“Do I need to be cleared for that?” I asked.

A small smile tugged at the corner of his lip. “Not if you plan on sharing it.” He pulled out two spoons from his pocket and handed me one.

“Deal,” I agreed as I watched him peel back the lid of the cup.

Some things never changed.

We’d washed and scrubbed our hands, and as I took a solid deep breath, the nurse wheeled me into the room.

I was meeting my daughter—for the very first time.

It didn’t matter that I’d missed out on her first wailing cry as the doctor pulled her from my womb. It didn’t matter that circumstances had separated us until this moment.

I was here now.

The room was quiet, and a sense of calm met me as soon as we crossed the threshold. I’d seen NICUs in movies and TV shows but never up close. Nurses and other parents greeted me with a nod, welcoming me into the small club I now belonged to. It was a sudden kinship I never knew I’d have.

A mother sat in a wooden glider, tightly holding a tiny baby against her chest. She lovingly looked down at her son, touching the smooth skin of his face, as she softly sang. In comparison to those in the incubators, he was huge, yet he still looked so fragile.

There were others, too—babies and families that humbled me beyond words. I didn’t know what we were going to face, but I knew it would be nothing compared to some of the things I witnessed as I passed by the incubators in that NICU. My heart silently reached out for them as we made our way forward. Jude walked behind my wheelchair as the nurse pushed me forward, his arm firmly linked to my shoulder, as we were escorted to the corner where Meara was.