Another Door Opens

57 - River

- EDEN -

I feel like utter shit.

I'm bleeding like a tap, I have what I think is the beginning of a migraine, and my uterus feels like it's either trying to claw its way out of both my spine and my stomach simultaneously, or fall out my ass. Maybe both. This is arguably the worst cramping I've ever experienced, and no amount of drugs seems to be helping. I may be close to an overdose with how much I've taken already this morning after waking up. So much so that I didn't think I was safe to drive and instead walked down to the hospital to visit with Luna and her new baby. It wasn't too far, and I thought the movement and fresh air might help me feel a little more alive.

As I'm walking down the maternity ward hallway, hearing wailing babies trying to perforate the eardrums of every person within a 1km radius of the hospital, let alone this particular wing, I'm starting to wonder whether I might have been better to wait and see Luna when I was feeling less like death myself. I feel so faint that I'm almost convinced I'll pass out, most likely due to the heavy blood loss and subsequent lack of iron in my bloodstream, as well as the lack of fresh air inside these sterile rooms.

But instead I popped a few more painkillers I received yesterday, nipped into the bathroom to changeover yet another pad to avoid leaking everywhere during my visit, sculled a bottle of Gatorade from a vending machine in the hallway---more for the sugar rush than the probably non-existent electrolytes---put on a brave face and walked quietly into Luna’s room.

She was asleep, laying back in the hospital bed with an IV inserted into her hand, and Wolfe was sitting in an armchair next to her surrounded by balloons and bears and flowers and chocolates, holding his son adoringly.

I crept over to him quietly, trying not to wake Luna who I'm sure needs her sleep even more than I do at the moment. I at least didn't have to go through the physical exertion of getting something out of me. I thankfully had a team of doctors and nurses who did that for me.

"Hey, Dad," I whispered to Wolfe, peeking down at baby River in his arms as I wrapped my own around his new father. He was so tiny, and so very like both Luna and Wolfe it was hard to say who he most resembled. He had her olive skin and dark eyes, but Wolfe's pouty lips and straight nose. "Wolfe, he's just beautiful. You guys have done so good."

"It was all Lune," he said quietly, looking up at Luna asleep in bed with more respect and reverence and love than I've often come to see in anyone's facial expression. "I've never been more terrified in all my life, but she was just like, 'Okay, let's do this.' Like she'd been waiting forever to become a mum to this baby. Our baby, River."

Wolfe's voice cracked and his eyes glazed over as he thought about his family, and mine did just the same at seeing how happy and fulfilled he was with his life and the one he's been able to help Luna craft for herself. With the news of Dalen's death almost two years ago now, I thought losing him would break her entirely, but if anything it's just helped her find herself even more through her relationship with Wolfe, and it's just gorgeous that they both decided to name their baby River in memory of him. Based on the occasions I got to hang out with Dalen Rivers over the years before he died, he'd have considered there to be no higher honour, and I hope he's around somehow right now to see the family his life helped bring about and the joy his namesake will bring to Luna, Wolfe and all our lives.

"Can I hold him, Wolfe?" I asked, not wanting to interrupt his obvious father-son bonding, but hoping also to get to touch and cuddle this beautiful masterpiece he co-created with my best friend.

He, of course, said yes and handed the tiny babe over to me, and it took about fifteen seconds for me to first get comfortable holding something so precious in my arms and then realise that I'm perhaps slightly too emotionally fragile in my current state than I really want to be for this scenario.