The Hunter

by Jessica Gunn

  I helped Sandra into a chair underneath the tent. Sweat slicked my brow from the walk over, and if I was hot, I could only imagine how warm Sandra felt. When she was all set, I clambered over coolers and towels to Michael’s side.

  Clapping him on the shoulder, I said, “Thanks for today. Think we both needed it.”

  “About ready for our new Jets fan to be born?” Michael cocked an eyebrow to let me know he was joking, but I knew from experience it was only a half-joke.

  “Keep that up and they’ll lose more than they already do,” I jabbed back.

  He grinned. “We’ll see who gets the last laugh once the little guy’s room is transformed while you’re at the hospital.”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  Michael shrugged. “Would I? Beats me. Guess it’ll be a spur-of-the-moment-type thing.”

  “Ben!” Rachel shrieked.

  My head turned of its own accord, so fast I thought it’d break off or give me whiplash. Sandra was bent over, eyes squeezed shut tight. Her hands wrung the sides of the lawn chair, her knuckles white.

  “Sandra!” I ran over to her, sliding to my knees in the sand in front of the chair. I rubbed her back, my free hand traveling to her stomach out of habit by now. “What’s wrong?”

  She shook her head. “I should have said something. I didn’t say anything.”

  Rachel met my eyes and I tilted my head. Had she told Rachel something? Rachel shook her head and pulled out her phone.

  “Say what?” I asked Sandra.

  She glanced up at me through one eye, then opened both, blinking rapidly. “I started having those fake contractions last night. Or at least, I thought they were fake. Now I don’t know.”

  My heart stopped, coldness sweeping through me. Contractions? Was the baby on its way? That was impossible. “You’re early.”

  “Guess Riley’s just as impatient and stubborn as his father, then,” she said, breathing deeply to catch her breath. “Hospital. Now, Ben.”

  But thirty-six weeks was too early. Not impossibly early, but it wasn’t all the way and somehow that didn’t sound like a good thing.

  Rachel tapped the side of my head. “Earth to Ben. Let’s go.”

  I blinked, snapping out of it in an instant, and was up and throwing Sandra’s arm around my shoulders before I’d taken another breath. Michael helped me get her to the car, and then we were off.

  Warmness, pure elation, rushed through me so fast, I barely held my ground as we crossed the hill to my car.

  Riley was coming. He was almost here.

  They admitted Sandra ahead of me, leaving me to fill out piles of paperwork. I groaned, scrubbing a hand over my face. Rachel hung back with Michael in the waiting room, the both of them pacing anxiously, but Amanda stuck by my side. She bounced from foot to foot, smacking her gum loudly.

  She smacked it again and I turned to her. “Okay. Enough with that.”

  Amanda grinned. “Sorry. Habit.”

  “I remember.” Clearly. She’d been blowing bubbles and snapping her gum since she’d first tried the damn stuff as a child. I remember the first time she’d blown a bubble, the memory so clear I still felt the sun on my skin. She’d been four years old and covered in sand from the beach along the lake. And now here I was. About to have a child of my own.

  The world swayed on end and I groaned as I grabbed for the counter to ground me.

  Amanda put one hand on my arm. “Ben? Are you okay?”

  My hand shook as I tried to fill out Sandra’s paperwork. The words melded together into a single grey blur on the white sheets of paper. “No. I’m about to be a father.”

  Amanda’s expression brightened and she tossed back her blonde hair. “Exactly. Isn’t that exciting? I can’t wait to meet my nephew.”

  I chuckled roughly. “I’m sure he feels the same. It’s just me I’m worried about him meeting.”

  Her eyebrows scrunched together. “Why?”

  “I don’t think I’m ready for this,” I mumbled. Up until this very moment, I was. One hundred percent. But now that we were at the hospital and Sandra was in labor…

  “Of course you are,” Amanda said as she dragged me away from the counter and over to a row of seats. She sat me down beside her. “You’re going to be a fantastic dad. You’re already a great brother when you’re not teaming up with Michael to give me hell.” She grinned, looking up at me with the same blue eyes I had. Our mother’s eyes. Would Riley have them, too?

  “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but in case you forgot, we haven’t exactly had a father figure in our lives,” I said. “I don’t have any point of reference.”

  Her eyes wrinkled. “Is that what this is about? Mom and Dad dying? We’ve had Rachel and Michael’s dad since we were kids. They’re practically our parents, too.”

  Except, they weren’t. I looked away, dropping the pen and clipboard filled with paper onto my lap. “What if that’s what I end up doing to my son?”

  Amanda didn’t answer right away, letting a brick of silence fall between us. Then she shook her head. “No one knows when their time will come, Ben. Mom and Dad sure didn’t. But they still loved us the best they could. I don’t remember much about them, but I do remember that. I think that’s what they would want most from you right now—to love Riley like none of what we experienced ever happened. Or mattered.”

  I turned to Amanda, jaw slack. “You’re one wise kid, you know that?”

  She smirked. “One of us has to be the smart child. Lord knows Rachel and Michael aren’t.”

  I chuckled, but it quickly grew into a full-belly laugh. Amanda’s words hadn’t been that funny, but I’d needed that release, that lifting of tension, much more than I’d realized. “You’re so right.”

  “Of course I am.” She pointed to the clipboard in my hands. “Now fill that out and go be with Sandra. Riley is almost here.”

  I nodded, then wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “Thanks.”

  “Anytime, Ben. That’s what siblings are for.”

  It wasn’t long before the nurses let me see Sandra. I now sat in the bed with her in our delivery room. The nurses said she still had a bit to go, but all I knew for sure was that Sandra’s pain got worse with every contraction, and that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it but hold her hand. That helpless feeling that filled my gut as I watched her pain crumple her face made me want to rip my hair out.

  “You’re gonna be okay.” I grabbed her hand and let her squeeze mine as hard as she needed to. “You’re stronger than this. Besides, Riley’s waiting.”

  She smiled tightly. I’d never been more proud of her right now, doing this. Giving birth. Something I’d never experience. And to be honest, I wasn’t sure I wanted to. But Sandra had this in the bag. Just a few more hours.

  “Thank you, Ben.”

  I stroked her cheek with my other hand. “Anytime. I’m here for you.”

  She nodded slowly, then lay her head on my shoulder. “I’m scared.”

  “Me too.”

  “No, not of giving birth. Of doing all of this, right up until and forever after Riley is born,” she said. “What if I’m not going to be a good mother? What if he hates me?”

  “He won’t hate you,” I said. “That’s impossible. And you don’t need to be afraid. You’ll make it through this and then we’ll be a family.”

  She didn’t answer right away, and it was enough to tell me I hadn’t gotten through to her. I’d have to try a different approach.

  “I was scared the entire time,” I said, so softly it might have been a whisper.

  She looked up at me. “When?”

  “When I was in a coma.” I hadn’t told anyone about this, not really. And I didn’t remember too much about my time in the void anymore. But if it helped Sandra right now, I’d try to remember. “I was terrified I’d never make it out alive.”

  Her eyes widened. “You remember being in a coma?”

  “A little. Bits and pieces. It was like th
is dark, expansive void of nothing except for a small rowboat, a lake, and the shore.” And sometimes thunderstorms. But I knew where those came from.

  Sandra’s eyebrows threaded together. “If you remember being there… Were you lonely? I mean, you were in a coma for three months.”

  “Yeah, I was lonely,” I said. “But mostly terrified.”

  “Of the darkness?” she asked.

  I shook my head and pulled her close. “Of never getting home. Of not waking up. But I forced my way through the void. I woke up.”

  Sandra stared down at her hands again before gripping mine. Her entire body seemed to clench with the force of another contraction. “You were scared and kept on going anyway.”

  Nodding, I said, “Pretty much. Don’t fear this. If it was that bad, no one would have more than one kid.”

  She jabbed her elbow into my stomach. “Easy for you to say. You did this to me.”

  I smirked and helped up a finger. “Uh, no. Actually, I have a distinct memory of it being you who seduced me that night.”

  She laughed, her whole body shaking, but the moment passed into another contraction. They were coming super close together now. I was sure they’d be pushing soon.

  And I was right. Not long after, I was standing at her side. An agonizing hour later, Riley came crying into the world with the biggest set of lungs I’d ever heard. He was definitely my kid.

  Sandra cried. I cried. And the moment I saw his little scrunched-up alien face, I fell in love. Real love. The kind of love that superseded everything else in the universe. It was the love I felt for my family, three-fold, magnified with the love I had for Sandra but dialed up a thousand different levels.

  I managed to sneak in as the nurses whisked him away and offered Riley my finger, which he grasped on to like his life depended on it. And in that connection, that single moment of touching, my heart shattered and rebuilt itself, melted and churned, a hundred thousand times over. Only when I held his hand did he stop crying.

  “Shh,” I told him. “Be a good boy for Mom when you see her, okay? She worked really hard to get you here.”

  He seemed to smile, eyes open and taking in the world. He was so tiny, my own little football-sized human.

  Finally, the doctors finished their work and handed Riley over to Sandra, who pretty much lost it when she held him for the first time.

  I didn’t blame her one bit.

  I hovered over her shoulder, put my head there so I could see Riley at eye-level, and said, “We did it. Look at this family.”

  Family.

  My favorite thing in the world.

  The doctors pretty much forced Sandra to get some rest, what little she’d get, later that night. She’d succumbed to the doctors’ orders and her need for sleep about an hour ago, leaving me to sit up with Riley and hope I didn’t screw anything up.

  “So far so good, kid,” I whispered down to him. I had him nestled in my arm, too afraid to walk with his tiny, fragile body. We’d curled up on the couch, a single soft light above me so I could watch Riley. And so he could see me. He didn’t stop staring at me for the longest time until sleep overcame him, too.

  I couldn’t help it: I’d fallen in love with this kid immediately. I’d heard stories about how guys didn’t connect to their babies for days or even weeks. That was bull. At least for me. This connection had been here for months now.

  “I can’t wait to teach you about football,” I told him. I’d been talking to him the whole time, too. Trying to make up for lost time. Sandra had talked to him for a whole nine months before I got to, really. “And baseball. Oh, and hockey. Whatever sport you want to play, I’ll teach you.”

  Riley didn’t respond to that. I wasn’t sure if he was awake, but his eyes stayed shut.

  “Or the arts,” I amended. “Paint something. Take pictures and write about it like your mom and aunt Rachel. Doesn’t matter to me, kid.” I leaned down and kissed his forehead. “That’s a lie. It does. It’s pretty much my dream to teach you how to play football. But I’ll survive not doing it.”

  Riley’s eyelids twitched open, and he looked up at me with the bluest eyes I’d ever seen in my life. Like two deep pools of sapphire. It was probably the only feature Riley had of mine from the get-go. The rest of him looked exactly like Sandra.

  “Arts kid, then?” I shrugged. “That’s fine. Just promise me one thing, all right?”

  He didn’t respond. Obviously.

  “Promise me that you’ll do only things that make you happy,” I said. “That’ll be enough for me. I know that’s all my parents would want from both of us.” I frowned. “They would have loved to meet you, you know. Your grandparents. They were awesome people.”

  Riley gripped my finger like some weird sort of reassurance gesture from a newborn. It warmed my heart and sent happiness soaring through my whole body. My heart melted just that much more. And that wasn’t a feeling I thought actually existed in real life. Turned out I was one hundred percent blissfully wrong about that.

  “Look,” I told him. “There will come a day when you ask about them. I know that. And I promise I’ll tell you how it happened, even if I don’t know why they aren’t here anymore. But I need to promise you something else, Riley.”

  He looked up at me in that newborn, possibly-not-really-all-there, definitely-not-understanding-me-but-still-engaging-me-anyway, sort of look.

  “I promise you, Riley Michael, that no matter what happens or where we go or whatever life throws in our faces, I will be there for you. I will not disappear or die or leave you or your mom in any way. Please remember that.” I kissed his forehead again. “I love you, kid.”

  More than anything I’d ever known.

  Chapter 9

  Three weeks later…

  I startled awake, though I’d never actually fallen asleep. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d actually slept, never mind for longer than twenty minutes. Even with both Sandra and me, caring for Riley seemed to be a two-person round-the-clock job. Which was fine and all, but I was getting really annoyed with, and tired of, these falling dreams.

  Sandra had Riley in her arms, though her attention had zoned out on the television. We’d taken to binge-watching everything under the sun since neither of us ever slept. I didn’t want to even count the number of shows we’d watched in the three weeks since Riley had been born. And, last week, our parents had finally left us to sink or swim on our own. We’d been lucky that Sandra’s parents had let us rent this second home from them, but I still kind of wanted them to come back and make sure we didn’t screw this up.

  Sandra nodded off again, her eyelids drooping. I hadn’t felt droopy in a good few hours, so I cracked my stiff neck and rose from the reclining chair I’d passed out in a half hour ago.

  “Let me take him,” I said to her, quietly so as not to wake Riley. “We’ll go for a walk in the park or something. It’ll do the both of us some good.”

  “He’s too young,” she mumbled.

  I smiled. “No, he’s not. We’ll be back in a half hour.”

  The park down the street was only a ten-minute walk away. Ten minutes down, then minutes there, then ten back. Easy. Maybe the fresh air would wake me up enough to function. And if it didn’t, I’d grab a coffee on the way back.

  “Are you sure?” Sandra asked, peering up at me with half-hopeful, half-worried eyes. “Will you be fine?”

  I smiled at Riley. “Yeah. I think we’ll make it. We can handle a walk outside.”

  Sandra lifted Riley into my arms, then sank back into the couch, eyes closed. “Thank you. You are a godsend.”

  Grinning, I said, “Hear that, kid? Mommy thinks we’re awesome. We just have to keep that up for another couple years and we’ll be golden.”

  “Ha ha.” Exhaustion reigned thick in her voice. Within seconds, her breathing evened out. She’d be out for a good long while.

  I walked over to the stroller we’d put together weeks ago and strapped Riley in on his back. I should ha
ve just put him in his car seat or something. It seemed like a sturdier idea. But my aunt had okayed this, so… Here we go?

  Riley peered up at me with the weirdest open-eyed look on his face.

  I took it as a thumbs up.

  Riley slept the entire walk to the park. I wish he slept like this when Sandra and I needed sleep. But from what I gathered, that went against every infant law in the book.

  Whatever.

  I plugged one headphone in my ear and brought up a replay of last night’s baseball game on my phone to watch as we made loops around the park’s walking paths. It was still early morning, so the pathway was wide open for us to use. Then this place would be flooded with kids and their parents, and Riley and I would have to find a new spot to hang out in.

  The sun hadn’t risen enough to do much else other than warm my skin, but the air grew thicker as the morning ticked by. It’d be pretty humid out today, which meant we’d have to crank up the AC. Fantastic. Another bill we couldn’t afford right now.

  But it didn’t matter. As long as Riley was safe and taken care of, the rest would fall into place.

  Or so they said.

  I glanced down at him again as we stepped onto the path for loop number three. My feet itched to pick up speed. Not quite sprint like I used to on the football field, but at least go jogging. Maybe when Riley was a bit older in the fall I’d get one of those jogger strollers and take that for a spin.

  The crowd on the game I was no longer watching cheered. My team had scored. “Yes,” I said, fist-bumping the air. “Thank you for not failing that.”

  Riley stirred in the stroller, his head visible through the window on the top canopy. I plucked the headphone out of my ear and pulled the canopy back.

  “Don’t cry, Riley. Our team’s winning.” I put a hand on his chest, trying to soothe him. He looked up at me with those big blue eyes as if our team winning was the greatest travesty to mankind. “Whoa—are you telling me Uncle Michael turned you into a Yankees fan already?”