Again, I start to hang up but she yells my name and starts firing off another question.
“Lucy,” I say calmly, interrupting her. “I’ll have to call you about all this tomorrow. I think my water just broke.”
There’s a pause. “Oh. OH! GO!”
I hang up right when the first sign of pain shoots through my stomach. I wince and start dialing Ryle’s number. He picks up on the first ring.
“Do I need to turn around?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, God. Really? It’s happening?”
“Yes.”
“Lily!” he says, excited. And then the phone goes dead.
I spend the next few minutes gathering everything I’ll need. I already have a hospital bag, but I feel kind of gross, so I jump in the shower to rinse off. The second burst of pain comes about ten minutes after the first. I bend forward and clench my stomach, letting the water beat down on my back. Right when I near the end of the contraction, I hear the bathroom door swing open.
“You’re in the shower?” Ryle says. “Lily, get out of the shower, let’s go!”
“Hand me a towel.”
Ryle’s hand appears around the shower curtain a few seconds later. I try to fit the towel around me before pulling the shower curtain aside. It’s odd, hiding your body from your own husband.
The towel doesn’t fit. It covers up my boobs but then opens like an upside-down V over my stomach.
nother contraction hits as I’m stepping out of the shower. Ryle grabs my hand and helps me breathe through it, then walks me into the bedroom. I’m calmly picking out clean clothes to wear to the hospital when I glance over at him.
He’s staring at my stomach. There’s a look on his face I can’t decipher.
His eyes meet mine and I pause what I’m doing.
There’s a moment that passes between us where I can’t tell if he’s about to frown or smile. His face twists into both somehow, and he blows out a quick breath, dropping his eyes back to my stomach. “You’re beautiful,” he whispers.
A pang shoots through my chest that has nothing to do with the contractions. I realize this is the first time he’s seen my bare stomach. It’s the first time he’s witnessed what I look like with his baby growing inside of me.
I walk over to him and take his hand. I place it on my stomach and hold it there. He smiles at me, brushing his thumb back and forth. It’s a beautiful moment. One of our better moments.
“Thank you, Lily.”
It’s written all over him, the way he’s touching my stomach, the way his eyes are looking back at mine. He’s not thanking me for this moment, or any moment that came before this one. He’s thanking me for all the moments I’m allowing him to have with his child.
I groan, leaning forward. “Fucking hell.”
The moment is over.
Ryle grabs my clothes and helps me into them. He picks up all the things I tell him to carry and then we make our way to the elevator. Slowly. I have a contraction when we’re halfway there.
“You should call Allysa,” I tell him when we pull out of the parking garage.
“I’m driving. I’ll call her when we get to the hospital. And your mom.”
I nod. I’m sure I could call them right now, but I kind of just want to make sure we make it to the hospital first, because it feels like this baby is being really impatient and wants to make its debut right here in the car.
We make it to the hospital, but my contractions are less than a minute apart when we arrive. By the time the doctor scrubs in and they get me to a bed, I’m dilated to a nine. It’s only five minutes later when I’m being told to push. Ryle doesn’t even have a chance to call anyone, it all happens so fast.
I squeeze Ryle’s hand with every push. At one point, I think about how important the hand I’m squeezing is to his career, but he says nothing. He just allows me to squeeze it as hard as I possibly can, and that’s exactly what I do.
“The head is almost out,” the doctor says. “Just a few more pushes.”
I can’t even describe the next few minutes. It’s a blur of pain and heavy breathing and anxiety and pure, unequivocal elation. And pressure. Such an enormous pressure, like I’m about to implode, and then, “It’s a girl!” Ryle says. “Lily, we have a daughter!”
I open my eyes and the doctor is holding her up. I can only make out the outline of her, because my eyes are full of too many tears. When they lay her on my chest, it’s the absolute greatest moment of my life. I immediately touch her red lips and cheeks and fingers. Ryle cuts the umbilical cord, and when they take her from me to clean her up, I feel empty.
A few minutes later she’s back on my chest again, swaddled in a blanket.
I can do nothing but stare at her.
Ryle sits on the bed next to me and pulls the blanket down around her chin so we can get a better look at her face. We count her fingers and her toes. She tries to open her eyes and we think it’s the funniest thing in the world. She yawns and we both smile and fall even more in love with her.
After the last nurse leaves the room and we’re finally alone, Ryle asks if he can hold her. He raises the head of my bed to make it easier for both of us to sit on the bed. After I hand her to him, I lay my head on his shoulder and we just can’t stop staring at her.
“Lily,” he whispers. “Naked truth?”
I nod.
“She’s so much prettier than Marshall and Allysa’s baby.”
I laugh and elbow him.
“I’m kidding,” he whispers.
I know exactly what he means, though. Rylee is a gorgeous baby, but no one will ever hold a candle to our own daughter.
“What should we name her?” he asks. We didn’t have the typical relationship during this pregnancy, so the baby’s name hasn’t been something we’ve discussed yet.
“I’d like to name her after your sister,” I say, glancing at him. “Or maybe your brother?”
I’m not sure what he thinks of that. I personally think naming our daughter after his brother could be somewhat healing for him, but he may not see it that way.
He glances over at me, not expecting that answer. “Emerson?” he says. “That’s kind of cute for a girl name. We could call her Emma. Or Emmy.” He smiles proudly and looks down at her. “It’s perfect, actually.” He leans down and kisses Emerson on her forehead.
After a while, I pull away from his shoulder so I can watch him hold her. It’s a beautiful thing, seeing him interact with her like this. I can already see how much love he has for her just from the little time he’s known her. I can see that he would do anything to protect her. Anything in the world.
It isn’t until this moment that I finally make a decision about him.
About us.
About what’s best for our family.
Ryle is amazing in so many ways. He’s compassionate. He’s caring. He’s smart. He’s charismatic. He’s driven.
My father was some of these things, too. He wasn’t very compassionate toward others, but there were times we spent together that I knew he loved me. He was smart. He was charismatic. He was driven. But I hated him so much more than I loved him. I was blinded to all the best things about him thanks to all the glimpses I got of him when he was at his worst. Five minutes of witnessing him at his worst couldn’t make up for even five years of him at his best.
I look at Emerson and I look at Ryle. And I know that I have to do what’s best for her. For the relationship I hope she builds with her father. I don’t make this decision for me and I don’t make it for Ryle.
I make it for her.
“Ryle?”
When he glances at me, he’s smiling. But when he assesses the look on my face, he stops.
“I want a divorce.”
He blinks twice. My words hit him like voltage. He winces and looks back down at our daughter, his shoulders hunched forward. “Lily,” he says, shaking his head back and forth. “Please don’t do this.”
His voice is pleading, and I hate that he’s been holding on to hope that I would eventually take him back. That’s partly my fault, I know, but I don’t think I realized what choice I was going to make until I held my daughter for the first time.
“Just one more chance, Lily. Please.” His voice cracks with tears when he speaks.
I know I’m hurting him at the worst possible time. I’m breaking his heart when this should be the best moment of his life. But I know if I don’t do it in this moment, I might never be able to convince him of why I can’t risk taking him back.
I begin to cry because this is hurting me as much as it’s hurting him. “Ryle,” I say gently. “What would you do? If one of these days, this little girl looked up at you and she said, ‘Daddy? My boyfriend hit me.’ What would you say to her, Ryle?”
He pulls Emerson to his chest and buries his face against the top of her blanket. “Stop, Lily,” he begs.
I push myself up straighter on the bed. I place my hand on Emerson’s back and try to get Ryle to look me in the eyes. “What if she came to you and said, ‘Daddy? My husband pushed me down the stairs. He said it was an accident. What should I do?’ ”
His shoulders begin to shake, and for the first time since the day I met him, he has tears. Real tears that rush down his cheeks as he holds his daughter tightly against him. I’m crying, too, but I keep going. For her sake.
“What if . . .” My voice breaks. “What if she came to you and said, ‘My husband tried to rape me, Daddy. He held me down while I begged him to stop. But he swears he’ll never do it again. What should I do, Daddy?’ ”
He’s kissing her forehead, over and over, tears spilling down his face.
“What would you say to her, Ryle? Tell me. I need to know what you would say to our daughter if the man she loves with all her heart ever hurts her.”
A sob breaks from his chest. He leans toward me and wraps an arm around me. “I would beg her to leave him,” he says through his tears. His lips press desperately against my forehead and I can feel some of his tears as they fall onto my cheeks. He moves his mouth to my ear and cradles both of us against him. “I would tell her that she is worth so much more. And I would beg her not to go back, no matter how much he loves her. She’s worth so much more.”
We become a sobbing mess of tears and broken hearts and shattered dreams. We hold each other. We hold our daughter. And as hard as this choice is, we break the pattern before the pattern breaks us.
He hands her back to me and wipes his eyes. He stands up, still crying. Still trying to catch his breath. In the last fifteen minutes, he lost the love of his life. In the last fifteen minutes, he became a father to a beautiful little girl.
That’s what fifteen minutes can do to a person. It can destroy them.
It can save them.