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I took offense to that. “I’m sure I wanted to.”
Regardless, I wouldn’t wake up, she explained. Even though I understood what she was talking about, I was overwhelmed with emotions. Feeling like I was on my period times one hundred, I cried at the drop of a pin. Though, I wasn’t exactly sad. I was so happy that the feeling had circled back on itself, overlapping sorrow.
Come time to find out, they put me in a coma so I could recover from the preeclampsia. At least, hoping I would since I’d already given birth. Therefore, it’d essentially been three weeks. I spent one week under and two weeks coming out of it, she revealed. I didn’t remember all the horrible things she described, like me fighting a breathing tube coming out of my throat. But what she described sounded more like a nightmare than anything I’d dreamed.
I felt grateful, I couldn’t recall a thing about it.
Kingpin agreed, I was lucky in that respect.
The nurse expounded, our baby was smaller, but he’d catch up. He also had a little heart murmur, that was no never mind. Kingpin remarked that it ran in his family.
I sighed at the reminder the baby was his.
The nurse went on, and said, soon I’d be able to breastfeed like I intended to. She said that’d help him put on weight. They were simply waiting for medicines to be flushed out of my system before I could attempt to.
“You think she’ll remember any of this tomorrow?” The nurse asked Kingpin like I wasn’t even there.
Apparently, we’d had this conversation before.
“She’s stubborn,” Kingpin told the nurse, petting my head like a dog.
I spoke to the baby who I couldn’t take my eyes off. “If I realized I’d be staring at the most beautiful boy in the world, maybe I would’ve woken up earlier.” The baby talk had already started.
“He looks just like his daddy.” Kingpin rocked on his heels. As always, he couldn’t miss a moment to praise himself.
The nurse gave me an exasperated look as she left the room.
I must’ve made a face back because Kingpin gazed over his shoulder.
“Poor woman has been dealing with you,” I said, as explanation, when his scrutiny met me.
He sank down in the chair beside my bed. “Ought to be glad I’m here. They would’ve just let you sleep. Look at him. He’s so precious, the nurses wanted him all to themselves. They’ve only gotten you up to get rid of me.” He winked.
“You’re insufferable.”
I remembered the birth like it was just yesterday. Valentine’s Eve. That crazy night was fresh in my mind. All the shame and heartache came back to me, reddening my face. But in reality, that night was long gone. All that remained was Kingpin and this baby in my arms.
“You’ve been here the whole time.” It wasn’t a question.
“Mostly, when they let me. I ain’t your husband. I had to convince them I was the father. Someone had to be in charge. I took a test since you had someone else listed as the father. But don’t go thinking I didn’t already realize this little guy was mine. He has my brother’s dimples.”
“I assume you have them too, under that beard.”
“Maybe,” Kingpin said, acting coy.
I didn’t need to ask if Hallow was around. Obviously, he wasn’t. Besides, that ship had sailed. My focus was the baby in my arms.
“You didn’t name him without me?” I asked Kingpin who was just as busy studying him.
“No,” he said, his eyes on the baby. “Though I’ve decided.”
“You’ve decided?”
“I’m the father,” he said as an excuse, finally meeting my eyes. I realized the baby did have his dark eyes, though the tuft of hair was white as mine was as a child.
“I carried him,” I argued. “We’re not married.”
“We can change that,” Kingpin said casually. But the expression on his face said it all. He regarded me with an intensity I could feel down in my toes. He was dead serious.
