stop the first taxi that passes with a whistle and we
jump in.
My heart has stopped. My hands are shaking
and my mind is foggy with a hundred million
thoughts going two hundred miles an hour, for sure
I wouldn’t have been able to drive.
I am losing control; my head is the only part of
me that is still inside my body.
Hospital. Baby.
Rain didn’t say anything else and it’s useless to
press her for more because it would only agitate
her further. When she’s like this she’s not able to
talk. Putting two words together is a great effort
for her and I don’t want to push it.
Fifteen minutes and then the taxi stops in front
of the emergency room doors, which slide open,
and I rush to the desk to get information.
“Erin O’Neill!” I yell at the nurse behind the
glass.
“Just a minute,” she answers as she types Erin’s
name in the computer. “They brought her by
ambulance … just a moment. Who are you?”
“I am… I am…” I stutter without finding a
convincing description of my relationship with her,
something that would justify my being here.
“I can only give information to relatives,” she
tells me. “I’m sorry.”
“He’s the father,” a voice behind me says. “He’s
the father of the baby. That’s why I called him.”
Erin’s mother joins us and delicately pulls on
my arm, making a gesture with her head to the
nurse. “Come on Patrick, come and sit with me.”
We sit in the waiting room. I let my head fall
and rub it hard three times to get the blood
circulating.
“She’s still in the operating room. They are
doing an emergency cesarean,” her mum says in a
voice broken with tears. “They don’t know…” She
sighs. “…They’re trying to save both of them.”
Then she continues to talk to me, saying
something positive, something about letting us
know the best, but I can’t hear a word. The only
thing I hear is Rain sobbing and the noise is
blowing out my eardrums.
Save. Both.
The two most important women of my life in
the hands of who knows what.
What an idiot I’ve been.
I should not have let her leave, I should have
fought and stayed with them every minute,
because my one chance might be gone now.
I wish I had told her what I felt, about the
feelings that she alone was able to spark in my
heart. I’d like to talk to her again to tell her that
she is the most important thing in the world and
that I love her more than any other thing in time
and space.
I want to see Erin again, I want to hold her and
let her know that I’m here and always will be, even
when she wouldn’t see me, even when she went
away.
I want to kiss her lips again to imprint their
sweet taste in me and never forget it again.
I want to be surrounded by her infinite
sweetness and tenderness when she looks at me or
smiles, I’m savoring just the image I have of her
smiling, rubbing her belly.
She has given me so much more that she could
ever know. She opened an unknown world to me, a
world made of sweetness and warmth, sincere
hugs and with love.
I need another day, just one more to give her the
deepest part of me, so that she feels loved
completely and unconditionally.
I need another of our sweet days to protect her
with me forever. Because she is forever. Even if
that forever should only last a second.
I love her and I’ve never told her. I’m not good
with words, I’ve never been able to open my heart,
but for her, for them, I would let someone tear it
out of my chest without even thinking about it.
For them, to be able to see them, and to touch
them, I would give anything in my power. I would
even trade my sorry life for them if it would make
any difference.
I don’t believe in any kind of religion and I’ve
never prayed in my life, but now I find myself
begging God and all of his fan club to take my
useless life and give me theirs in return. Because if
I lost even one of them, my heart couldn’t bear it.
to get up in the morning.
They are my hope.
They are my world.
I want them to live and to be happy. I want them
to be a family, even if I can’t be a part of it.
27
Erin
I am dazed and tired. I can’t open my eyes but I
can sense a presence next to me and I can feel
something touching my hand. I move my head
slowly toward that sensation.
I open one eye and then the other. I blink again
and again before focusing on the figure at my side
who is holding my hand and has his face covered
in a beard.
The reality of it hits me in the stomach and
agony and fear assault me, together with hot tears.
I emit a guttural sound, I have a dry throat and it
burns and is painful. I try to move the other hand
but it’s attached to an intravenous drip and I don’t
have enough strength.
He lifts his head suddenly and what I see in his
eyes makes me shake and I’m paralyzed with fear.
Patrick jumps to his feet and steps back from
the bed. He’s moving his lips but no sound is
coming out of his mouth. Then he comes close
again and he caresses my forehead with shaking
hands.
I close my eyes and feel that sweet tender
contact that I’ve missed so badly and let myself
sob desperately.
“Shh,” he whispers, delicately kissing my tears.
“Please don’t get upset. I am here and I always
will be.”
I nod and try to talk.
“Don’t force it, Erin. Be calm. You can’t move,
okay?”
“The b-b… baby?” I whisper.
Patrick sits down and takes my hand again.
Then he kisses it and breaks out in tears and
judging from his tired, defeated face this situation
must have been going on for some time now.
I’ve never seen anyone cry like this. I’ve never
seen someone so desperate and anguished.
Lost.
He dries his tears with his sweatshirt sleeve and
then looks at me with those deep dark eyes so that
I think I could navigate through them and never
come back.
“She’s beautiful, Erin,” he says, laughing and
crying at the same time. “She’s perfect, just like
you.”
I let out a liberating yell that runs through me
and God, it doesn’t hurt. I cry so badly that I can’t
see anything and Patrick is there to hold my hand
and dry my tears with all of the sweetness he is
capable of.
“She is in pre
natal intensive care,” he explains.
“She’s small and her lungs are not fully developed
yet. But she’s strong and a fighter and is
responding well to therapy.”
I nod because I’m not stupid. I know that she
was born prematurely and that there will be a
million complications to face, but she has been
born and she is alive.
She is real.
All of this is real.
I let Patrick’s hands go and try to take my
oxygen mask off, because I want to tell him, I
want to ask forgiveness, I want him to know how
much I’ve missed him and how much I’d like to go
back to how things were.
He blocks my hand and shakes his head. Then
he kisses my forehead and tells me again to be
still, that I need to rest, that there’s no need for me
to say anything.
Then a nurse comes in and adds something to
my IV. I can feel my eyelids getting heavy, I’m not
able to keep my eyes open but the last thing I see
before I drift off is Patrick’s beautiful smile and I
know that everything will be fine.
Patrick
I let Erin fall asleep and rest some more. The
whole thing was so difficult and we were really
afraid of losing her.
I was afraid to lose her.
They were able to get the baby out in ten
minutes and they brought her immediately to
intensive care in the neonatal ward. All they told
us was that she was born and that she had a
respiration problem and had to be incubated but
the pediatrician said it’s par for the course for
premature babies.
Things were harder as far as Erin was
concerned.
She had lost a lot of blood and they weren’t able
to stop the hemorrhaging. They gave her two
transfusions and her mother donated blood. They
didn’t think they’d be able to save her uterus, the
situation was compromised, but someone up there
came down to give us a hand and they were able to
save her.
By a thread, the surgeon said.
They brought her to intensive therapy and she
was in there all day in a state of semi-
consciousness and I don’t believe she was aware
of what was happening around her at all.
And now she’s awake. I was able to look into
her eyes and kiss her and swear that I would never
allow her to leave me again. Because what I feel
now, looking through the glass at the baby who is
the picture of her mother, is something that cannot
be ignored or asked to be set aside. Even if they
cut off my balls.
Erin’s mother and father are here next to me,
tired, having been through the mill and the
emotional roller coaster. I called my family too:
they all wanted to come here but I asked them to
wait a bit so that Erin could have a little time to
recover.
I say goodbye to Erin’s parents so I can go
down to the cafeteria where the guys are waiting
for the latest updates.
They are all here for her.
For us.
Because Jesus Christ, there is an us. There
always has been. And no one is taking her away
from me.
I meet Nate in the corridor. His face is tight and
his eyes are puffy. He’s also been here the whole
time but he hasn’t seen the baby yet.
I go towards him and stop right in front of him.
I raise my glance and his face falls alongside his
security and so does his arrogance. He falls into
my arms and I hold him up, like a friend, like one
of the family, because whether I like it or not, he is
part of this family.
He is the father of the child.
I hug him and let him vent his feelings, giving
him a few pats on the back. Then, I bring him,
supporting him by putting my arm around his
shoulders, to the window next to where Erin’s
parents are standing.
“There she is,” I say, indicating the window.
“Bed number 12.”
He covers his mouth with his hand and he starts
crying again as Erin’s father encourages him to
calm down because the worst is over. I turn and
leave them to head back where I was going, but
Erin’s father blocks me.
I turn and see his hand extended. I accept it and
shake it but he pulls me to him and hugs me
warmly. I respond to his embrace and he whispers
in my ear: “Take care of my girls.”
I nod keeping in the emotion, then let him go
and I smile at him, turning towards the stairs to go
give everyone the good news that our family has
just grown.
28
Erin
It’s the middle of the night and I am surrounded by
silence. After having seen everyone, one by one,
they let me rest. They took me off the oxygen but
I’m still attached to the IV and I won’t be able to
get up, probably for many more days. I am not
able to close my eyes and I can’t stop thinking
about my baby all alone, who still hasn’t seen me,
who I haven’t been able to hug and let her know
that I’m here.
The door opens slowly and Patrick’s head pops
around it.
“How did you—”
“Shh,” he says, putting his finger to his lips and
giving me one of his ‘pleased with himself’ smiles.
He comes in the room and lets all the others
come in too. Jay is with him and so are Aaron and
Liam and all of them seem to have a guilty
expression on their faces.
“You guys? What the heck?”
“Patrick knows how to be very convincing,” Jay
says, winking at me before lowering the bar on the
bed.
Liam comes to the other side doing the same
and smiling at me, and Aaron stands guard at the
door.
“All clear,” he says, making a sign for us to
move. Patrick goes behind me and starts pushing
the bed towards the door.
“Are you ready?” he asks, kissing my forehead.
“Ready for what?”
“To meet your daughter.”
~ ~ ~
We go along the semi-deserted corridor. The few
nurses we pass wink at us as we go. I imagine that
Patrick must have used a bit of his charm to get us
this little favor.
We get to the window but I am lying down and
can’t see anything. Patrick helps lift me and I grab
on to my abdomen tightly to avoid any shocks.
“Bed number 12,” he whispers in my ear before
sitting next to me.
The guys disappear discreetly in silence but I
am not able to hold back my tears.
Patrick smiles at me and holds my hand, before
having me rest my head on his shoulder.
“She’s—”
“She’s beautiful, just like you, but she still
doesn’t have a name and I think we need to fix that
because we can’t go on calling her baby number
12.
”
“You’re right, but I still haven’t thought of it. It
needs to be something appropriate, something that
fits her perfectly.”
“Lily,” he says.
“Lily?”
“When I look at her the first thing that comes to
my mind is perfection, because that’s what she is,
she’s pure and absolutely perfect and I would do
anything so that she remains that way forever.”
And in this moment, next to the most imperfect
man that the world has brought forth, I see
everything very clearly before my eyes.
I see two hands that make a little dark haired
girl with wavy hair jump.
I see a man on the couch asleep with her on his
chest.
I see a house full of chaos, love and laughter. I
see the face of a man that my daughter will call
daddy, because this little girl has only ever had one
man as her father.
Only one wonderful man.
A man that he will love her more than anything
in the world.
“Lily … Our Lily,” I say, and he squeezes my
hand tight.
Patrick
Erin came home today. Now, after two weeks,
she’s able to stand up and take a few steps, but she
can’t be alone and her mother wants to be there for
her until she has to return to America, so she’s
decided to stay at her father’s house for now, until
she’s better and then she can make a decision
about the future.
I don’t want to pressure her or force her to make
a decision right away. Everything that’s happened
will give us time to reflect and understand what we
are to each other and what it is we want.
God, I already know. If it were up to me, I’d
bring her home with me and take care of her every
minute, but Erin is a mother now and she wants to
understand what to do with her life.
We are all in the hospital to visit the baby. Lily
will have to stay here for a few more weeks and
Erin is hesitant to leave her, but until the situation
stabilizes the doctors cannot release her.
I find everyone in the corridor in front of the
nursery window. That includes the entirety of my
big mess of a family.
My mother is beside herself with joy. She’s told
everyone in the neighborhood that her
granddaughter was just born and she can’t wait to
bring her home.
Erin is inside, by now they let her spend a little
time with the baby but she doesn’t want to let her
go. Every time she has to put her back in the
incubator she cries for an hour and I’m there to