“Thankyou.Youtoo.”
Ihung up and dropped my phone to the counter as I muttered, “Have a wonderfulday. Right.”
“What’sup?” Goose asked, sidling up next to me.
“Theywant to do the surgery on Thursday.”
“Wow.That’s soon.”
“Noshit. And the only people allowed are me and the baby’s father. So, do youthink I should call up Brendan and ask if he’d like to suddenly be a dadtoday?” I snickered bitterly, shaking myheadandlaying my face in my hands. “God, I was not cut out for this shit.”
“Yes,you were. You wouldn’t be going through it if you weren’t,” Goose said. “And I’llgo with you.”
“Butthey said—”
“Theysaid the baby’s dad, and how do they know I’m not?”
***
OnThursday morning, Goose came with me to the hospital bright and early at sixo’clock in themorning, andgot to meet Alex for thefirst time.
“Hey,buddy,” he said, speaking quietly outside of the operating room. “You’regonnabe fine, right? Yeah, you are, so tell your mom tostop worrying, okay? She won’t listen to me.”
“Ican’t stop,” I muttered, as I felt the expansion of my heart invade my lungs.
“See?”Goose said to Alex. “Yougottaget out of here, kid.I don’t know how much longer I can put up with this by myself.”
Thesurgeon and nurse came in to prepare him for his surgery and said it was timefor us to leave. I made the decision to be strong, to hold my head high andallow my baby boy to feel my determination to make it through another day ofthis ordeal. As Goose stepped aside, I reached into Alex’s crib, took his hand,and whispered, “You got this, baby boy. I’ll be here when you get out.”
AsI exited the room, I left behind a piece of my heart. God, I was so sick andtired of walking away, of leaving him and putting my faith in the hands ofstrangers. Suddenly, my bones were too heavy for my skin to hold and I sagged,like the wispy branches of a willow tree, and let go of a ragged sigh.
Goosewrapped an arm around my shoulders, keeping me up, keeping me from collapsingon the hospital floor, and said, “So, I was a pretty weird kid. Like, whenall ofmy friends were beingSpider-Manfor Halloween,I wanted to be Bob Ross. My parents called it eccentric, but that was just niceway ofsayin’ I was prettyfreakin’weird.”
Hesteered me into the waiting room and to a chair, as he continued, “Anyway, mymom was awesome. She always went all out for us when our birthdays rolledaround. And when I turned six, I didn’t want aNinja Turtlesparty orany normal crap like that. No, of course not,‘causemy school’s playground was always crawling with thesefreakin’Canada Geese and I was obsessed with them. So, naturally, I wanted agoose-themed birthday party.
“Andthe cool thing about my mom was that, even while my friends thought I was afreakin’ whack-job, she never made me feel weird. She justsaid, okay, and threw me the most kickass goose party ever. The woman actuallycalled a petting zoo and told them only geese were welcome.”
Hissmile was one of melancholy and nostalgia, and he sighed heavily. “She startedcalling me Goose after that, and it justkindatookoff.”
Ileaned against his side, too drained to hold myself up. “That’s a way cuterstory than I thought it would be.”
“Inever said what kind of story it was,” he chuckled.
“Yourmom sounds like a really great lady.”
Henodded faintly and replied, “She really was. You would’ve liked her. The womancould cook like no other and she had this way of making everybody feelimportant. Like whatever you were saying to her was the best thing she hadheard all day.”
Stretchinghis legs out, he wrapped an arm back around my shoulders and said, “Shewould’ve liked you, too.”
***
Hourshad passed, and with all the worrying I was doing, I could have sworn I’d lostyears from my life.
Goosehad filled the time with stories about his mother, questions about what I wascurrently attempting to work on, and what my childhood had been like growing upas an only child. The persistent conversation hadn’t stopped my nerves fromrunning on overdrive, but I was grateful for the distraction.
Ipaced the length of the waiting room and back again, as I said, “God, they saidit would only take about two hours. It’s been three now. What the hell istaking so long?”
“Idon’t know,” he muttered,shruggingand offering anapologetic look.