Marcus was pushed away from the table, and the team went to work. He couldn’t see everything that was going on, and it was all happening so fast. But he heard a gurgling sound as the scalpel plunged into his wife’s belly. He saw blood gushing from her, blood mixed with amniotic fluid. It was spraying everywhere. His hand immediately went to his mouth, covered though it was by the surgical mask. He felt light-headed. Tears poured from his eyes, though he dared not make a sound. He took several steps back, then felt the reassuring touch of a nurse’s hand on his arm. He’d seen more blood than this. On that mountainside in Afghanistan and in that cave. But he’d never seen it flowing out of his wife. He hadn’t prepared himself for this. Neither of them had. They’d never seriously considered a cesarean might really be necessary. That was foolish, of course. He’d been trained to not only consider but plan for every eventuality. But he hadn’t, and now he regretted it.
Elena had been given general anesthesia, so she was out cold, and for this he was grateful. Because the baby—covered in blood and mucus—was not crying, was not making a sound of any kind. Everything in him braced for the worst. This baby was dead. He was sure of it now. Elena was giving birth to a stillborn child. He was watching it happen with his own eyes, and when Elena awoke, he would have to be the one to tell her. He didn’t know if he could.
But suddenly he saw the legs begin to flutter, then heard a cry and then wailing.
No sound had ever seemed so precious.
25
“It’s a boy!” Marcus shouted as he rushed into the waiting room.
Marjorie Ryker burst into tears and flung her arms around him. “I don’t believe it,” she said as she held him tight. “I’m so proud of you.”
“Congratulations, Grandma,” he said. “How long have you waited to hear that?”
“Too long!” she cried. “Is he healthy?”
“Healthy and beautiful and I can’t wait for you to meet him.”
“Me, either,” she said, laughing through her tears, then finally let him go after a moment and fished some tissues out of her purse. “You should call your sisters,” she said as she dabbed her eyes. “They’ll be tickled pink.”
“Blue,” Marcus corrected.
“What?”
“It’s a boy, Mom—they’ll be tickled blue.”
She laughed again and the elevator dinged. When the doors opened, Mr. and Mrs. Garcia and Elena’s sisters—now teenagers—rushed out, flowers in hand. Mrs. Ryker couldn’t contain herself, blurting out the news before Marcus could, and the whole family squealed with delight.
“Congratulations,” Marcus said to the girls. “Today you are both aunts.”
They oohed and aahed, and he answered their questions and gave them all the details he could think of, only omitting for now any mention of fetal distress and the touch-and-go moments.
Mr. Garcia beamed as he shook Marcus’s hand vigorously. “You’re going to make an excellent father, Marcus,” he said in that elegant and distinctive Spanish accent. “You just need to get a job that’s safer than the Marines.”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
“Sorry, son; if Kandahar was your best, you’re going to have to do a lot better.”
They laughed together as Elena’s ob-gyn approached.
“Mr. Ryker?”
“Yes.”
“Your wife is out of surgery now. She did fine. Everything went very well. The C-section was picture-perfect. No complications.”
Marcus breathed a sigh of relief.
“She’s in recovery. She’s awake—a bit groggy still, but awake—and she’s asking for you. Can I take you to her?”
“Yes, please,” he said. He turned to make sure everyone else was okay. They told him they were, especially with this reassuring news, and urged him to go and give Elena their love. They would see her soon enough.
The doctor led Marcus through a set of secure doors and down several hallways until they reached the recovery room. Marcus poked his head between the curtains. Elena was holding their baby, and when she saw Marcus, her eyes lit up.
“Hey, madre,” he said with a smile, coming over to her side and giving her a kiss on the forehead.
“Hey, padre.” She smiled back.
“How are you feeling?”
“Tired, but good.”
“Pain?”
“Not yet.”
“Keep those drugs comin’!”
“Amen.”
“Your folks are outside, and your sisters,” he said.
“That’s fun. And your mom?”
“Right there with them. I just gave them a briefing. They all send their love and can’t wait to see you.”
Marcus leaned down and looked into his son’s eyes, milk-chocolate brown like Elena’s. “Pretty cute, huh?” he said.
“Adorable, just like his father.”
“I don’t know,” Marcus said. “He looks a lot like your side.”
“True, I was just trying to be nice,” Elena teased, punching him playfully in the arm. “So what are we going to call him?”
“I don’t know. You don’t like any of the names on my list.”
“That’s because all of your names are ridiculous,” she teased. “Zadok? Really?”
“Zadok is a great name,” he protested. “Right out of the Bible. He was a priest, for crying out loud.”
“It’s never going to happen.”
They went through several other names, rejecting each for various reasons.
“What if we name him after your father?” Elena said after a long pause.
“Lars?” he asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “He’s always been your hero. It’s a great name. Strong. Masculine. Dutch. And it certainly goes with Ryker.”
He smiled again. He loved this girl and never ceased to be amazed by her.
“What if we give him your father’s name, too?” he asked.
“Lars Javier Ryker?” she asked.
“In a country of 300 million people, I seriously doubt there’s another one like it.”
They kissed to seal the deal. But there was more to discuss.
“So listen,” Marcus said, easing into the pool, “I’ve been giving this a lot of thought, and I’ve decided not to re-up.”
“What?” Elena asked. “I thought you wanted to be an NCO.”
“I did, but this changes everything.”
“But the Marines love you, and you love being a Marine.”
“What about your father?”
“Once you became a hero, he seems to have made his peace with it.”
“Still, I don’t want to be an absentee dad. I want to get a little house with a white picket fence and a big backyard where Lars can play—here, on the Front Range, if God lets us. I want to teach him to ride a bike and throw a football and go fishing and hiking and white-water rafting, and I can’t do that in the Marines, not the way I want.”
“So what would you do?” she asked.
“I think I could find a decent job of some kind in law enforcement—and if not here, then somewhere farther out west. How does San Diego sound?”
“Lovely.”
“What about Seattle?”
“Rainy, but great coffee.”
“Exactly, or Santa Fe or Salt Lake City…”
“Any place that starts with an S,” she quipped.
“Anywhere we can be together,” he replied. “Deal?”
“Deal,” she said with a smile and another kiss. “You can’t shake me, Ryker.”
“And I don’t want to, Ryker. I’ll stick to you like glue.”
26
MOSCOW—2 JULY 2008
After two bitter miscarriages, Marina delivered their first child.