28.

They helped me into bed and I rolled gently onto my stomach, which was like sinking into a forgotten, beloved pillow. The nurse left and I remember Will watching me from the chair next to me and shaking his head and smiling.

“Wow,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said.

“All that blood. It was like a slasher movie.” He held my hand and I drifted off to sleep, wondering where he was, the baby, but I was too tired.

Someone turned on a fluorescent light over my head.

“He’s over eight pounds, which means you should try and feed him every three hours,” the nurse whispered, wheeling the baby in, his face slightly magnified from inside the plastic rolling cot. His eyes were open and his mouth was shaped like a Cheerio. The nurse lifted him out, a clump of warm, white flannel with pink and turquoise piping, and aimed him at my boob.

“You want his chin to jut out a little,” she said. “That’s how you know he’s properly on.” But his chin never jutted out. We tried, but he kept closing his eyes and drifting off and then waking up and squirming around. The nurse manhandled his head, nudging his mouth to where it needed to be.

“How about you leave us for a while and we’ll see if we can figure it out?” I finally asked.

“Fine,” she said, picking up a blood-smeared towel at the edge of the bed.

After that it was just me and moon-face, high above town, some lit-up bridge outside our window, and Will, asleep in the bed next to us.

“Hello, little man,” I said. “Are you hungry?” He gazed into the space between us, his cheek pressed against my chest. There was something incredible about speaking to him for the first time, even though he didn’t understand me. It felt almost as though I were speaking to a part of myself who had just been born and who was in the room with us too.

I spent the rest of the night nudging him onto my nipple. He eventually latched on, squeaking a little as he sucked, and at some point I fell asleep with him splayed across my chest. I woke to the sound of heels clomping down the hallway.

Mom arrived with daisies and a bag filled with Pellegrino, pretzels and Milano cookies.

“All the stuff I would want,” she said, looking at Will, who was still asleep. They had not been in a room together since she’d found out I was still pregnant. “I’m only staying a few minutes.”

“Can you wash your hands?” I asked. She paused to take off her coat and put it behind the chair, then headed for the sink in the corner.

“I couldn’t believe it, what she went through,” Will said, sitting up as if he’d just dozed off in the middle of a conversation. “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. She pushed for, like, three hours. I thought her eyes were going to explode out of their sockets.”

“Lovely,” said Mom, drying her hands. “When he came out, did he look angry or did he look worried?” she asked.

“Neither, I don’t think.” I thought of his eyes, blank and searching, when they put him on me.

“He didn’t scream bloody murder? You screamed your head off, but then after a while you got it together.”

“I think I was screaming,” I said.

She peered into the cart, where I’d deposited him at some point when the sky was still dark, and looked at me and Will. “So?”

“We like Ian,” Will said. “Ian Galehouse Weston.”

“Ian,” she said, jiggling the cart lightly with her hand. “You don’t think it sounds too much like Theeeeeaaaaa?”

“That’s part of why I like it,” I said. “Can you like it too?”

“Wasn’t Ian the name of that daft road manager in Spial Tap?” She sat down in the chair next to my bed. “How do you feel?”

“Okay,” I said. Ian stirred, sticking his hand up out of the blanket he was tightly swaddled in. I reached over to pick him up. “He should eat again.”

“He’s a furball,” Mom said, looking at him and forcing a smile, folding her hands in her lap. “Where did he get all that fur?”

“He’s a baby, Mom,” I said, my shoulders stiffening. “Not a monkey.”

Will flipped his feet onto the floor, facing us from the other bed. “Did I ever tell you that my name is not short for William?” he asked, looking at both of us. I thought about where I’d seen his name in print: on a list of AP physics tutor volunteers, in the yearbook, on his gray high school sweatshirt, which was suddenly okay to wear now that he’d graduated. The name was always Will.

“It’s not?” I asked, pushing Ian’s face onto my nipple, which was already sore. He squirmed and butted at me, not latching on.

“My name is actually Willbraham,” he said.

“What the hell is that?” I asked. “It’s like Baberaham. Baberaham Lincoln. What were your parents thinking?”

“I’m named after a town they rode through on a bike trip,” he said, fiddling with the crank at the end of the bed. “They biked through Switzerland on their honeymoon. Can you imagine my mother on a bike?”

Mom crossed her legs and sucked her lips in, which made her lipstick smudge over her lip line.

“Yeah, so …” Will stood up and touched Ian’s head, looking over his shoulder as someone came in to change the wastebasket. “It was this little town where, they said, everything was very plain, very workhorse, but then the houses all had tulips growing around their doorways and it was really simple and beautiful and … crisp. That’s the word they used to describe it.”

“Like crispy tofu,” I said stupidly, looking at Mom. Both of her elbows rested stiffly on the arms of the chair.

“And they spent the night there,” Will said. “In some pensione or whatever.”

“Some dieflockerhaus,” I said, my neck starting to hurt from craning down at Ian.

“Yeah, some dieflockerhaus, and they woke up and sat at the café and they saw all these people riding by on their bikes and they all had kids, little babies riding in seats behind them or in sacks or whatever, and they thought it was very cute. And my mom said that’s when she decided she wanted to have children.”

“That’s kind of sweet,” I said.

“They were such hippies, in a way,” Will said. “What the hell is wrong with William?”

“Why didn’t they name you after your dad?” I asked.

“Mom didn’t want to,” he said, winking at me with his good eye.

As if on cue, Mr. and Mrs. Weston walked into the room in matching Dalai Lama–style jackets with silk cord fasteners. Mr. Weston was carrying a basket from Zabar’s. “I figured you could use food more than flowers,” he said, placing it on the windowsill. “So I believe congratulations are in order.”

Mom stood up. “Lynne, Philip,” she said tightly.

They all stood there until Will went over to hug his parents. Ian’s face was buried behind my nipple and I desperately wanted to cover up, but my hospital gown was stuck underneath me. All of a sudden the room felt too warm and too crowded.

Mrs. Weston searched out Ian’s face, Mr. Weston thankfully hanging back. “He’s beautiful,” she said matter-of-factly, her switch on–switch off smile in action. I hadn’t seen them since that day in Will’s dorm. “What’s his name?”

“We’re going with Ian,” Will said.

“Ian,” Mrs. Weston repeated. “Lovely. Can I hold him?”

“I think he’s finished.” I yanked my gown across my chest and handed him up to her. “He’s supposedly not getting much now, anyway.”

“She didn’t wash,” Mom said accusingly.

“Oh,” Mrs. Weston said. She looked at Mom and handed the baby back to me. “I guess I’ll go wash, then.”

“Thea, can I get you anything before I head out?” Mom asked, gathering her coat from the chair.

“I’m good,” I said. “You’re leaving?” She was inches away from me, but it felt like miles. I looked at her, trying to draw her in closer. “When are you coming back?”

“Are you sure?” she asked, not hearing me. “Just call me if you do.”

Mrs. Weston lifted Ian out of my arms and Mr. Weston was behind her in an instant. “Look at that,” he said, jingling the change in his khaki pockets. They looked like your average, over-the-moon grandparents.

“He’s got Will’s face, from the nose up,” Mrs. Weston murmured. She divided Ian’s face in half with her hand.

“Definitely his eyes,” I said. They carried on gazing as if no one else were there.

“Well, it’s a big day,” Mom said on her way out. “Thea, I’ll ring you later.”

I sat back, shrugging my stiff shoulders. Will moved next to his dad. Both were swaying lightly with Mrs. Weston as she rocked Ian.

“I’m just so happy he’s out and safe and healthy,” I said.

“You should have seen her,” Will said. “I had no idea it was going to be like that.”

Mr. Weston looked at me, then inspected his watch. I wondered just how greasy and limp my hair was, whether my face was still puffy and if my nose still had red dots on it. Mrs. Weston moved to sit down with Ian, laying him on his back on top of her legs. “Will used to love to lie like this,” she said without looking up.

“Did the money land in your account, Will?” Mr. Weston asked, leaning against the windowsill.

Will nodded. “It did, thank you.”

“Thank you, Mr. Weston,” I said, feeling unbelievably tired all of a sudden. The adrenaline rush I’d had since I woke up was quickly evaporating, but I felt an odd relief I couldn’t pinpoint. I opened my eyes and looked at Mrs. Weston, who was still gazing at Ian’s sleeping face. She looked up and smiled at me and it was a completely different expression from the borderline-patronizing looks she shot me that day at Columbia, when she called me forth to face my future as a strong, independent woman. Now she pitied me.

After they left, I called Vanessa. She was with her parents in Maine, and then they were driving her to Vassar toward the end of August. “It’s a boy,” I said. “I was right. I’m glad I didn’t find out, but I had a feeling it was a boy the whole time.”

“Oh my God, I’m shocked. I was so vibing girl. Tell me everything. How bad was it?”

“It hurt like hell,” I said, pulling at a loose thread on Ian’s flannel blanket.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What did you do when you first saw him?”

“I don’t think I could ever describe it,” I said.

“Listen to you,” she said. “How was Will?”

“He was amazing. I’m on a cloud. So crampy. They put me on Percocet.”

“La, la,” she said.

“I know. I’m flying. He’s so beautiful, Ness. Not pruny at all. He’s the most beautiful baby.”

“I know he is, Thee. I’m so proud of you. Will you please email me a pic? Or send me one from your phone.”

“You know my phone is messed up and can only send texts, no pics.”

“Have Will figure it out. Is it weird yet?”

I looked over and smiled at Will, who was sucking on a chocolate milk shake, watching CNN. “Not yet.”

“Maybe it won’t be.”

“Maybe.”

I hung up and dropped my head back on my pillow, watching Ian sleep. I wanted to ask the doctor about Ian’s head, which seemed squishy and too big for his body. I wanted to ask her about his neck. How he didn’t seem to have one. A few hours later my phone buzzed. It was Dad.

“I’d like to meet him. Are you exhausted?”

“Kind of, yeah.”

“Well, it’s getting late. When are you leaving?”

“Tomorrow,” I said.

“How about I pick you guys up and take you home?”

“Okay, if you want,” I said.

“I’ll bring the camcorder.”

I hung up and drifted off to sleep. Will had gone home for the night with instructions to bring the car seat back in the morning. I woke up after a while, feeling acutely sore and spongy, waiting for Ian to wake up, not knowing what to do with myself until he did. Whenever I looked over at him, I got a feeling of déjà vu, like he’d always been there next to me, my little prince, asleep in his plastic throne.