The baby did not stop immediately.
That’s not how it works. Not in movies, not in real life.
For about ninety seconds, Baby Boy Nolan screamed against Wade’s chest, and I stood close enough to intervene if the monitors said anything I didn’t like.
Wade didn’t flinch.
He didn’t look up for reassurance. Didn’t check my face to see if he was doing it right. He just rocked, slow and steady, and kept talking in that low rumble, words I couldn’t fully make out, something about bears and mountains and a river he knew somewhere.
Then the crying softened.
Then it stopped.
The room didn’t go silent in some dramatic way. The monitors kept beeping. Someone’s IV pump beeped twice down the hall. A colleague of mine, Denise, was typing at the nurses’ station with the same rhythm she always used.
But the baby stopped crying.
And Wade closed his eyes.
Just for a second. Like he was the one who had needed it.
I wrote it in my notes and went back to work.
