The Military Wife (A Heart of a Hero, #1)(80)

“Yes! Here come the shoulders and…”

An ebbing of the constant pain flowed over her. She dropped her head back on the pillow. A flurry of movement between her legs was taking place, but she couldn’t summon the energy to sit up and look.

A baby’s cry rang out. Harper’s emotions were in tatters, and all she could think was, Wrong, wrong, wrong. It all felt wrong without Noah. He’d been so excited.

“It’s a boy. A boy.” Tears trickled down her mom’s cheeks and curved into the grooves of her smile. “He’s beautiful. Perfect.”

Adele brought the baby to Harper. His eyes were swollen and closed. He squawked and waved an arm around, blood smearing his bald head. He was ugly. Nothing like Noah. Her arms remained at her sides.

“Go on, Harper, take your baby.” Adele shoved the baby at her, and she took him instinctively. Everyone stood around her with identical beatific smiles. Harper should be oohing and ahing and forgetting about the pain in her happiness, but it was like her heart was in a deep freeze.

A nurse took him, and all Harper felt was relief. It took another half hour before she was cleaned up and the bed was reassembled with clean sheets. In that time, the baby was measured and weighed and given a sponge bath.

The nurse slipped the baby into her arms. He wasn’t as ugly as her first impression. At least he wasn’t screaming his tiny head off. And he smelled better. His eyes were still swollen, but they blinked up at her, unfocused. Not Noah’s blue, but a shade lighter than her own. His hair was sparse and circled his head like a monk’s tonsure but also matched hers.

The nurse helped get the baby latched on to Harper’s breast; the pinch and pull of the baby’s mouth mounted an echo of a contraction in her womb.

Harper endured. She’d read all the mothering how-to books in the first months of her pregnancy with relish. She knew what she was supposed to do even if she lacked enthusiasm. At the nurse’s prodding, Harper switched the baby to the other side. The nurse smiled down at her.

What was it with that smile? She wasn’t the Madonna with Child. Harper dropped her gaze, but the view of the baby going to town on her boob wasn’t any more comfortable. She closed her eyes.

“Have you picked a name yet?”

Without opening her eyes, Harper whispered, “Ben. Ben Wilcox.”

It was the name Noah had wanted. The name he’d whispered in her ear the night they had been discussing possibilities. It had seemed important to him, and she’d liked it, too.

The nurse took Ben and, after changing his diaper, laid him in a rolling bassinet next to the bed. It wasn’t even noon. The sun shined into the windows, but the abrupt change in scenery from her dark belly to the bright world didn’t seem to bother Ben, who closed his eyes and slept.

Harper turned to her side, feeling like she’d been dropped over a cliff and then hit with an anvil. She stared at Ben and waited for a miraculous connection to form. Nothing happened. No hope or enthusiasm, only a bone-tired relief the actual birth was over with. She slept and didn’t dream.

The next days followed the same pattern except she was home. She slept when Ben slept and woke with him for feedings but otherwise didn’t have a desire to hold and cuddle him. Allison went back to her family, but her reluctance was palpable. Harper had interrupted more than one whispered conversation between Allison and her mom.

Her mom pressed her to pick a date for Noah’s parents to come see their grandchild, but Harper put her off each time the subject came up. The last time she’d seen them had been at Noah’s funeral, and facing them again would bring back that awful day.

She felt detached, as if the birth had cut her tether to reality. She bathed and ate and did the minimum amount of work to keep Ben happy and growing. Her mom picked up the slack, giving Ben the cuddles and attention Harper couldn’t spare.

Adele stopped by, ostensibly for a social call, but unlike Ben, Harper hadn’t been born almost yesterday. Her mom showed Ben off to Adele, who cooed and kissed cheeks that had already grown chubbier.

After Harper put Ben down for a nap in the crib next to her bed, she lay down, too, savoring the silence. Adele knocked softly and poked her head around the door before Harper could respond or pretend to be sleeping.

She glided across the carpet with a grace that was becoming a lost art and arranged herself on the side of the bed. “Most women suffer from some level of postpartum depression, darlin’.”

“I know.” She remembered the chapter in her baby user’s manual. “That’s not what this is, though.”

Adele gazed toward Ben. “Maybe not entirely, but the hormones could be amplifying your grief. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through on top of giving birth. There’s no shame in asking for help.”

“I don’t need help.” Harper stared toward the window. “I’m tired.”

“Of course.” Adele patted her hand and slipped out the door, but not before casting a worried look over her shoulder. Harper ignored the little voice in her head that wondered if Adele was right and drifted into the only solace she had left—sleep.

Three weeks after coming home from the hospital, she was jerked from a dream about Noah by Ben’s soft mewling. It was dark outside, and she pulled a pillow over her head. Would she ever get a decent night’s sleep again?

His mewl turned into a cry. Her body responded without her moving, her breasts leaking and aching. She hated the fact that her body no longer belonged to her but to the baby. Ben’s cry ratcheted up another few decibels. Better to respond before DEFCON 1 was reached.