Page 186 of Clinically Bewitched
You can do this. You’re a neurosurgeon. You’ve performed hundreds of complex surgeries.
You’ve saved lives. You can handle this.
You can—my phone buzzed.
A text from Nathan:Stop sitting in your car and go see your wife.
How did he—another text:Fitz is streaming this live on YouTube.
WHAT?!
I looked around the parking lot.
Spotted Fitz’s car three rows over.
He waved.
I was going to kill him.
But first, I needed to see Athena.
The maternity ward was on the fourth floor.
I’d been here dozens of times for consultations, but I’d never been here as a patient’s husband.
As a father.
Father. I’m about to be a father.
To three children.
Simultaneously.
My eye twitched harder.
“Dr. Darcy!” One of the nurses, Jennifer, whom I had worked with before, smiled when she saw me. “Congratulations! Your wife was just brought in.”
“Is she—how is—are the babies—”
“Everyone’s doing great. Dr. Morrison is with her now. Room 412.”
I walked down the hallway, my legs feeling increasingly unstable.
I stopped outside the door and took a breath.
You can do this.
I opened the door and saw Athena. She was sitting up in the hospital bed, one hand on her enormous stomach, the other holding what appeared to be a smoothie.
She was smiling.
Not grimacing in pain. Not crying. Not looking terrified.
Smiling.
“Julien!” she said brightly. “You made it!”
Something in my chest, the tight, panicked thing that had been squeezing my lungs since Winnie had burst into the conference room, suddenly released as I walked over to the bed and sat down in the chair beside her.
