Hospitals were the bearer of bad news and good new equally and today, today would be filled with good news. It was a late October afternoon when the shriek from his wife made him run to check on her. Her face lit up and he knew and within the next hour, he had grabbed the bags and gotten her to the hospital. Their excitement rose through the roof, as the thing they had prepared for the most, was arriving. Their perfect little family of three was going to finally be completed.
What happened next, was unexpected. Evangelina's heart rate monitor began to go off and she turned pale, which made him sick to his stomach. Fear clenched him and he grabbed her hand, the coolness of her skin scaring him further. Her body convulsed and the Healer drug him out of the room, giving him the news of her state. It was her or their daughter and it was her choice. They got her to stop convulsing long enough to hear her tell them to save the baby and Nathan kissed her, out of pure shock before they carted her to the OR for an emergency cesarean. He watched as she rolled around the corner, the words "I love you" on the tip of his tongue but never able to tell her again. He stood in the middle of the hallway for what felt like hours before someone grabbed him and took him to a small room near the nursery.
They proceeded to tell him that his wife did not make it, despite the fact that he already knew that. She had hemorrhaged in her brain and they couldn't save the both of them. Sometime within the next hour, a small human wrapped in a pink blanket and hat was placed in his arms. She looked exactly like her mother and he held her and loved her, like he did Evangelina. He was numb, unable to understand how this perfect day flipped itself around. He was unable to communicate the feelings he was feeling and the worst part was their families were in the waiting room, but he couldn't break the news. For the first time that day, he cried. He had feared that if he cried the tears wouldn't stop and he was right.
As his daughter lay in his arms asleep, his arms clung to her and his body shook from sobs. No one came in, no one disturbed him and most importantly, no one asked how he was until the next day. They were asking for her name for the birth certificate so he could take her home, without his wife. Mirabelle Eliza Kovak, his mind said, but he never spoke it. Instead, a quiet voice whispered out, "Evelyn Joy Kovak." She deserved to be named after her mother, the woman that brought him so much joy. It would be an honour, she was such a beautiful, loving, caring woman that her daughter deserved to have that same destiny.
They taught him to care for her in the simplest of ways and sent him and Evelyn away to an empty home with no Evangelina. There was no one to help Nathan out or to teach him how to cope without her, there was only the mere human that looked like her to keep him alive, to keep him going through daily motions. He knew he had to be strong, if not for himself, for this little baby that was now his responsibility. In another life, he would've made her stay because there was no way he could live without her, but he knew that she couldn't have lived with the thought that she let her daughter die. For that choice, Nathan respected Evangelina even more and it made him love her more.
