Stepbrother Dearest(77)

An unfamiliar twinge developed in my heart upon the nurse’s use of that term. “Yes. That’s me. I’m the father.”

The father.

My whole life had seemingly been defined by being the antithesis of father. I was the son: bastard son, bad son, estranged son. But now, I was the father. It was my turn to be…the father.

“Can I check your identification please?”

I lifted my arm and showed her the plastic bracelet locked around my wrist. I wanted to wear it forever. Gangrene may not have even been a good enough reason to cut that thing off.

“Follow me,” she said.

I’d missed the birth. I’d been visiting Mami in California when Greta called me to say her water broke. She was only thirty-four weeks along, so I thought it was safe to take a quick trip out there before my time became more limited than ever.

I immediately packed up and started driving to the airport once I realized she was likely in labor.

The next thing I knew, Sully was calling me to say Greta had been taken in for an emergency c-section. I panicked because I wasn’t even on the plane yet. I knew I wouldn’t make it in time. The worst kind of helpless feeling came over me. I prayed probably for the first time ever. It’s funny how you can spend your entire life wondering if there’s a God until suddenly in a time of crisis, you’re begging Him for help as if you’d never doubted He existed.

Sully sent me a text shortly before I boarded. It was a picture of my son.

My son.

I remember I’d been walking out of the bathroom and just froze, staring at my phone in awe. I looked around me as if everyone should have known that this was the most monumental moment in the history of the universe. The message said the baby was taken to the NICU but was fine. Greta was fine. They were fine.

Thank you, God. I swear I’ll never doubt you again.

Tears stung my eyes as I looked down at the picture while I walked through the gate and onto the plane. I think I must have stared at the photo for the entire six hours.

When I finally arrived at the hospital, Greta was sleeping, and I didn’t want to wake her, but I couldn’t wait another minute to meet my son.

The nurse led me to where he was asleep in the incubator.

If I thought the photo made me emotional, there was no comparison to seeing him in person, watching his little chest rise and fall.

“He’s breathing on his own, and all his vitals are good. He should only have to be in here five to six days.”

“Can I hold him?”

“Yes. We just ask that you wash your hands with the antibacterial soap over there and put on one of these masks.”

I wasted no time heading to the sink, lathering my hands and placing the paper mask over my mouth.

She took him out and handed him to me. His warm body was swaddled in a blanket and felt light as a feather. Suddenly, I became terrified, not only of keeping him safe for the rest of his life but worried even about the ride home through the city. He was so fragile, and yet this tiny being comprised everything in the world that now mattered to me. Talk about holding the world in the palm of your hand. I wished I could carry him home in a breathable non-destructive display case with a lock. I wanted to shield him from everything this crazy world had to offer.

Looking down at his little face made me truly realize that everything I’d been through in life was supposed to happen exactly as it had. It couldn’t have transpired any other way if it meant that this little person never came to be.

He had Randy’s nose, which was also Patrick’s. It was uncanny. With his lighter hair, he looked even more like them than I did. How ironic that through all of the hate, love was spawned in their likeness.

Chills ran through me when I realized today—his birthday—was the 22nd but didn’t let it bother me one way or the other.

“Hey, little buddy. It’s Daddy. I’m your daddy.”

His eyelids flickered, and he started to squirm in my arms.

“You don’t have to wake up. I’ll still be here. You won’t be able to get rid of me for a very long time.”

He opened his little hand, and I watched his tiny fingers close around my pinky. I wondered where any of my inspiration to write even came from before him. I knew that from now on, every last bit of it would be derived from my son.

Letting go of all lingering anger from the past was going to be more necessary now than ever. There would no longer be room for any of it in my heart. I needed all the room for him. It was in that moment holding my son when I knew I had to truly forgive Patrick and Randy. They’d schooled me on what not to do as a father. I’d make up for their mistakes by giving my own son more love than he’d know what to do with.

It may have seemed strange, but I quietly thanked Randy for what he had given me. In life, he led me to my one true love. In death, he made it possible to find her again.

Through death there was life. Through hate there was love. I looked down at my son. “In the end, there was you, and that made it all worth it.”

In the same way that you can easily switch the letters of a word around to see another hidden meaning, such is life. A life can be defined by its hardships or its blessings. It’s all a matter of how you look at it. So, while this book was once setting up to be a tragic tale, it turned into a love story, an imperfect but unconventionally epic romance.

Scramble the letters of romance, you get Cameron. Greta came up with that one all on her own. It was her very first anagram.