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I was thankful that so many people stopped by the house, but the only person I really wanted to be with—who I could be with—was Madeline. I hated that she had missed her own mother’s funeral, but there was no other option. She was not ready to come home from the hospital and, according to the doctors, might not be for another seven weeks. I grew more and more anxious to see her as the crowd began to disperse. I pulled A.J. aside. “I’ve got to go see Madeline.” I took him up on his offer to drive me back to the hospital, sneaking away from the people drinking in my back yard.

Still in my suit and tie, I walked through the hospital to the NICU. A few minutes later I was sitting in the now-​familiar blue chair, staring at Madeline’s yet unopened eyelids. I rocked back and forth, soothing myself as much as I soothed her. The nursery shades were open, and through the window I saw a few friends who had stopped by the hospital on their way out of town. I let them snap some photos before I asked one of the nurses to close the shades for me. “I’d like a few minutes alone with Madeline,” I said.

With as much privacy as we could get in a room full of nurses and sick babies, I whispered to Madeline some of the stories I had shared at the funeral. While she fell asleep in my arms, I told her how much her mom loved her and promised to give her the best life I possibly could. I held her for a few minutes before returning her to her incubator, thanked the nurse, and made my way to the door.

As I reached to push it open, I remembered the photo in the pocket of my suit. I turned back toward Madeline, stopping at the doctor’s desk to get a piece of tape. I opened up the incubator’s arm holes and reached in to tape the photo of Liz inside. I pulled my hand out, then kissed the tips of my fingers two times, reached back in, and gently touched Madeline on the forehead. “One kiss from me, and one from your mother.”

Part II

Chapter 12

excitement.

fear.

happiness.

sadness.

dread.

confidence.

i felt all of that

when we walked up the stairs

to our house.

It must have looked odd, a grown man sitting in a wheelchair, a newborn baby in a car seat on his lap, being wheeled out of the hospital. A woman, presumably the mother, walks ahead of them, snapping photos. I’d been spending all of my time, awake and asleep, at the hospital for over five weeks at this point, and I’d seen countless new moms in the exact same position I was in.

“Did you see the nasty look that old lady just gave me?”

“I did,” Anya said, laughing.

“She must think I’m the biggest asshole in the world.”

I hadn’t given it much thought, but I always assumed that the wheelchair exit had something to do with the new mother’s inability to walk out of the hospital on her own. What I couldn’t figure out is why I had to be pushed out of the hospital.

“What’s with the wheelchair?” I asked the NICU nurse, as I complied with her directions and sat down.

She explained that it was done for liability reasons. Apparently the safest way for a baby to leave the hospital was in someone’s lap in a wheelchair. I had to laugh. The hospital staff didn’t trust me to walk out of the building, but they were going to let me take my daughter home? Sitting there, I wondered if this was the same wheelchair that should have delivered Liz safely to our baby exactly two weeks ago today.

After saying good-bye to the NICU staff, I asked the nurse to push me around the hospital so I could show Madeline off to all of the friends I’d made during my time here. We stopped by the high-risk ward to say good-bye to Liz’s nurses and went to the cafeteria and coffee shop to thank the staff for taking such good care of my family.

My dad pulled my car up to the entrance of the hospital just as the sliding glass doors opened. After she pushed us through the doors and onto the sidewalk, the nurse patted me on the back, making it apparent that I had been granted the freedom to walk and carry my baby. I stood up, both