Chapter 5 - The Touch of a FatherAt 4:05 p.m., the heavy sterile glass door of Room 4B clicked shut behind me.
The room was warm, smelling of baby lotion, clean linen, and medical oxygen.
I stood beside the clear acrylic incubator wearing a bright yellow surgical gown and mask, my massive, calloused hands scrubbed raw and sanitized.
Inside the incubator, five-week-old Lily lay on her side, wearing a tiny white diaper and a small pink knitted cap. Her breathing was steady, her small chest rising without the mechanical hiss of the large ventilator.
Slowly, reverently, trembling with a fear I had never felt in my entire life, I reached my broad hand through the circular port opening of the incubator.
My index finger gently touched her tiny palm.
Lily’s small, warm fingers instantly curled around my finger, clutching it with a surprising, fierce grip.
A wave of pure, overwhelming, and blinding emotion exploded through my chest. Tears flooded my eyes, soaking into my surgical mask as I dropped my head close to the plastic dome.
"Hi, sweetie..." I wept softly, my deep baritone shaking with a raw, eternal warmth. "Hi, Lily... It's Daddy... Daddy is right here..."
She opened her tiny eyes—wide, dark blue eyes that locked onto my face through the plastic.
Standing on the opposite side of the incubator, wearing her own yellow gown, watching us with quiet, wet hazel eyes, was Grace.
She didn't speak. She reached out her hand, covering my broad wrist as my finger remained locked in our daughter's tiny grip.
"She knows your voice, Vincent," Grace whispered, a single, clear tear cutting down her cheek. "She listened to you reading those pediatric journals outside the door every afternoon."
I raised my head, looking across the incubator at my wife—seeing no longer the betrayed, broken woman who had left a pink ribbon in an empty crib, but the sovereign queen who had saved our daughter's life and brought me back from the dark.
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"I don't deserve this, Grace," I sobbed quietly into my mask. "I don't deserve either of you."
"No, you don't," Grace agreed softly, reaching out her other hand to touch my cheek through the mask. "But Lily deserves a father who stays."
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