Chapter 5 - Meeting My Son
A nurse came in a few minutes later. "Mr. Calloway? You can go see him now."
I turned to Marin. "Does he have a name yet?"
She shook her head. "I wanted to hold him first."
The NICU was quieter than I'd pictured. Dim light. The soft, steady beeping of a dozen monitors. Nurses moving between the incubators like they were walking on glass.
Then I saw him.
My son.
He was impossibly small. A tiny knit cap on his head, a thin tube taped under his nose to help him breathe.
I've stood on the open steel of half-finished towers in a lightning storm and felt nothing. Looking at that baby, my hands were shaking.
A nurse showed me how to slip one finger through the port in the side of the incubator. "Gentle," she said.
I reached in.
His whole hand closed around my finger.
That was it. That was all it took.
I turned my head away because my eyes had filled without warning.
"Hey, buddy," I said. My voice came apart in the middle. "Sorry I'm late."
May you like
His fingers stayed wrapped around mine.
And something in my chest that had been welded shut for years just gave way. It didn't hurt. It felt more like a door finally opening that should've been open a long time ago.
