I am so very young, Piper thinks.
Another contraction on the horizon, like a Mack truck, and Piper knows it’s headed right for her.
Peyton is proud of the job she’s doing as birthing coach. She’s the only family member who hasn’t made Piper cross. But Peyton is tired. It’s nearly three o’clock in the morning and she’s starving. Her parents promised her a huge Downyflake breakfast as soon as Piper and the baby went into recovery, and so that’s what Peyton thinks about: blueberry pancakes with blueberry syrup, a plate of crisp bacon, a glass of fresh OJ.
“Here comes the head,” the doctor says. “Give me one more big push.”
Piper grits her teeth. The epidural has all but worn off. Nothing in the world prepared her for how this feels.
“One more,” the doctor says.
“I can’t!” she screams.
“I have the baby’s head,” the doctor says. “I need one more big push.”
Arch sends her a surge of energy. This is, after all, his grandchild.
Piper takes a deep breath and thinks, though she’s not sure why, of Nantucket as a baby, floating in an amniotic ocean. Then, even stranger, of Nantucket as her mother.
She hears her baby cry. Feels a hot, wet weight on her belly.
Piper grasps for the child and it is brought up to her, close, where she can smell the tang of blood and fluids from her own body.
“It’s a boy,” the doctor says.
A boy, Arch thinks.
A boy? Piper is confused. She’d been so sure…
“A boy!” David cries. He kisses Piper’s forehead and hugs Peyton. He has never been so proud of his daughters. Then he’s out the door and nearly knocks over Beth and Rosie and Garrett. “It’s a boy!” he proclaims, so elated by the news that he doesn’t have time to wonder if Beth knows that he and Rosie are back together and that he has finally let what’s passed be the past. He kisses both women.
There is laughter and crying. Beth hurries down the hall to wake Winnie and Marcus. Garrett slides down the wall until his ass hits the floor. A boy. A son of his own, just like he always thought he wanted.
They name the baby Archer Newton. The adoptive parents will add their own last name-they may even change his first and middle names-but for the next twenty-four hours when the baby is in the arms of the people around him, the people who loved him first, he will be Archer Newton.
No one is surprised by the name except, perhaps, Arch himself. The way that life continues, the way that human beings persevere, regenerate, keep going, summer after summer, season after season, generation after generation, amazes him. Even now.
Acknowledgments
Thank you-
To the professionals: Michael Carlisle, Jennifer Weis, Jennifer Reeve, Sally Richardson, George Witte.
To Becca Evans, Lauren and Mara Rosenwald, Julia Chumak, Amanda Congdon, Margie Holahan and Sally Hilderbrand, life-savers all.
To Clarissa!
To Congdon & Coleman Insurance, Wendy Hudson at Book-works, Roberta White at Mitchell’s Book Corner-and Wendy Rouillard of Barnaby fame, because everyone should have a friend in the business.
To my inner, inner circle-Eric, Randy, Heather, and Doug- and to Judith Hilderbrand Thurman, for keeping the spirit of our shared childhood with Dad alive.
Finally, a big hug and kiss to my steadfast cheering section, my source of endless sunshine and encouragement and love, my very own “boys’ club”: my husband, Chip Cunningham, and our sons, Max and Dawson.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elin Hilderbrand made a paper angel ornament in third grade that is still in her family’s custody. She celebrates the holidays by making batches of mustard and chive pine-nut dip and gifting them to her friends. Her favorite carol is “O Holy Night.” Winter Stroll is her sixteenth novel.
elinhilderbrand.net/
