One afternoon, Anna found him measuring the little room beside the kitchen.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to decide whether the cradle should go near the window or beside the stove.”
“Why?”
“The window gets cold at night.”
Anna looked at the cradle, then at him.
“You've been thinking about this.”
“Someone has to.”
She laughed.
Samuel looked pleased with himself.
Then Anna took his hand and placed it against her stomach.
The child moved.
It was a small, unmistakable movement beneath his palm.
Samuel froze.
Anna smiled.
“There.”
He stared at her.
“Was that—”
“Yes.”
He kept his hand where it was.
For several seconds, neither spoke.
Then the child moved again.
Samuel's face changed in a way Anna would remember for the rest of her life.
The hard lines around his mouth softened. His eyes filled with tears, and he bent his head as though he had been entrusted with something too precious to look at directly.
“Hello,” he whispered.
Anna laughed through her own tears.
Samuel looked at her.
“I think the baby heard me.”
“Perhaps.”
He placed his other hand against her stomach.
“I've been waiting a long time to meet you,” he told the child.
Anna leaned against his shoulder.
The room was quiet except for the wind moving through the cottonwoods and the distant sound of cattle in the pasture.
For the first time in fourteen years, Samuel did not feel that the future was something he had been denied.
He felt that it was something he was allowed to enter.
The day the baby arrived, a spring storm rolled across the valley.
Rain struck the roof, and the creek rose against its banks. The road to town became difficult, so Samuel sent a ranch hand to fetch the midwife while he remained beside Anna.
He had prepared himself for this moment for months.
He had read every medical pamphlet Dr. Mercer had given them. He had stocked clean linens, boiled water, and repaired the stove. He had asked questions until the midwife told him that if he asked one more, she would put him outside.
Now, as Anna labored in the bedroom, he discovered that preparation could not make a man feel less afraid.
He stood beside the bed, holding her hand.
“You're doing well,” he said.
Anna gave him a look of exhausted disbelief.
“You have no idea what I'm doing.”
“No,” he admitted. “I don't.”
“Then stop telling me I'm doing well and keep holding my hand.”
Samuel obeyed.
Hours passed.
The storm grew louder.
The midwife worked calmly, offering instructions and reassurance. Samuel followed every request, fetching water, changing cloths, and remaining close enough for Anna to reach him.