~Six Years Ago~
(Rebecca's POV)
Jack is born at 3:47 a.m.
I watch the clock through every contraction — white face, black hands, the second hand ticking straight through me. Antiseptic and sweat in the air. A curtain pulled, voices moving around my body like I’m furniture.
Then he’s here.
They set him on my chest and he’s slick and outraged and lighter than I think a person can be. His mouth opens like a little hinge. One fist finds my collarbone and clamps there. His cry is thin and sharp and it cuts the room clean.
I hold him. I shake. I laugh and it turns into a sob and back again. I press my face to the top of his head — warm, damp, that new-skin smell that hits me behind the eyes.
Forty minutes later, Sean arrives.
I hear him first — shoes on linoleum, a muted exchange with t
