He kissed my belly at the gangway, one side and then the other, and said, “Hold the fort, Nurse Shannon.”
Two months later, I welcomed our daughters into the world without him by my side.
Scarlett came first, at 3:12 in the morning, six pounds two ounces and furious about it.
Eloise followed eleven minutes later, five pounds eleven ounces and perfectly calm.
My mother, Rosanne, drove forty minutes in the dark and held my hand through all of it.
Dillon watched on a video call from the middle of the Pacific, and the connection froze at the exact moment Scarlett cried.
He called back an hour later with tears in his voice.
“I can’t wait to hold them,” he said.
“I can’t wait to be home.”
I believed him.
After that, the months blurred together.
I learned the smell of sour milk and baby shampoo, and the particular sound of two infants waking at staggered intervals so that I never slept for more than ninety minutes.
