Hello, World

Chapter 4

Nine weeks later, Jackson held Sara's hand in the delivery room, waiting both for the birth of his second son and the buzz of his phone in his pocket with the call that would deliver the verdict on the future of TML.

Had to go into labor the day of the decision, Jackson thought. Thanks Murphy.

How long was labor supposed to last? Jackson had no idea. He never got a chance to witness the birth of his first son with Sara's miscarriage. Jackson was an only child, so there were no foggy memories of the distant birth of a younger sibling. The doctors weren't helpful out of fear they'd say something incorrect and end up with a lawsuit. How was a man supposed to know these things?

Sara whimpered and squeezed his hand harder than he thought her capable of. He let her crush his carpals without complaint; she was clearly still in more pain than he was. It didn't matter how long labor was supposed to last, Jackson realized. He would be there by her side the whole time whether it was ten hours or ten days. As long as Sara and the baby were alright, he didn't care how long it took.

The nurse tapped around on her pager and a few minutes later the doctor came into the room. Doctor Ross usually greeted Sara and Jackson with a smile, but not today. Today was all business.

"Mrs. Jackson, we're going to be moving you to another room. Your baby is going to be delivered via Caesarean section." Calm. Steady. Matter- of-fact.

The doctor's nonplussed demeanor didn't prevent Jackson's stomach from lurching up into the back of his throat.

"Is everything alright?" Sara asked with a tremor in her beautiful voice. Seeing her like that made Jackson more sad than he'd been since Brian Harris' unfortunate passing and the day of Sara's miscarriage before that.

"Everything will be alright, Mrs. Jackson. Your baby thinks you're a waterslide. He's trying to come out feet-first. He's going to be a little daredevil one day but he's going to have to let me get him out my way first."

The doctor's attempt at humor didn't really hit with all the tension of the situation. Sara simply nodded.

"Alright, Mr. Jackson," Dr. Ross continued. "This is where you will have to split off for a little bit. Head out to the waiting room and we'll come for you when we're ready."

Jackson took Sara's hand and planted a kiss on her sweat-streaked forehead. He stared into the endless depths of her sea-green eyes and smiled, as much for his own sake as for hers. "I'll be there for you on the other side. I love you."

She was too choked up to speak but mouthed I love you as Dr. Ross wheeled her away. As the nurse escorted him to the waiting room, Jackson couldn't stop thinking about how even covered in sweat and swollen with life and straining like a weightlifter, Sara was still the most striking woman he had ever known. And she was his.

*****

The first hour of waiting in the lobby was a painful time of anxious pacing and stress-eating vending machine snacks. The second hour was more of the same, just worse, because he had the added stress of an ignored voicemail from the head of Forward Capital's board.

Never before had Jackson ignored a call from Jim Ellison. When Jim Ellison called, he answered, bar none. That's just how it was. Ellison would not be happy about being ignored. Not only that, but after the Brian Harris catastrophe, it was unlikely that Ellison was calling to deliver good news. It would not be a pleasant voicemail. He would listen to it eventually, but not before he knew Sara and the baby were alright.

Jackson bought another bag of pretzels and melted into one of the faux- leather couches in the waiting room. He needed to calm down; his thinking was so rapidly erratic he was getting dizzy. He took in a breath and let his eyes settle on the colorful magazines haphazardly arrayed on the wooden table in front of him. Smiling athletes and actresses stared up at him, the nearly imperceptible creases under their eyes showing Jackson just how much better their lives were than his: not one bit.

He lifted his eyes to the others sitting with him in the fluorescent room. Most people sat alone: an elderly woman with white hair, a man around

Jackson's age, a young woman who was crying. Some sat with others: a man with his arms around a woman, two children crying and looking at the doctor in front of them talking to them on one knee.

Jackson played a game where he tried to guess why they were all there. It made him feel better to imagine the others struggling as much as he was - except for the two kids; he had to look away because whatever was going on there was heartbreaking.

With the others, though, there was a strange sort of unspoken camaraderie between them. Mutual suffering begat instant rapport. Maybe that was why people came back from prison, or war, or even college having made their closest bonds whilst simultaneously struggling through days, weeks, and months which at the time felt truly unbearable. Adversity strengthened the connections between people the way pulling two ends of a string tightened an overhand knot. Jackson hoped this pain and fear would later serve to strengthen what he and Sara had together.

By the time the nurse came through the door to call Jackson back, he had made peace with his anxiety and settled into a comfortable faith that everything would turn out alright. On his way back, his gaze caught the elderly woman in her weary eyes. She, like the children, looked like she had been crying, but still managed to say, "Good luck with the baby," as he passed.

How did she know he was going to see his baby? He never told her.

However she knew, it was the same way he knew she was there for a son with cancer, the man and the woman under his arm were there for their sick

daughter, and the two children talking to the doctor had just lost their parents. Mutual pain, correlated or uncorrelated, revealed mysterious connections. Jackson knew whatever happened, wherever his life went next, he would never forget what he shared with those perfect strangers.

*****

"It's a boy!" Sara practically shouted as soon as Jackson stepped into the room. "You have a little son."

They already knew it was a boy, but hearing her say it again still brought a smile to Jackson's face. "So do you," he said as Sara handed him a little bundle of cloth and pink skin.

The eyes were squeezed shut as Jackson unconsciously swayed back and forth. He held the baby more carefully than he handled lab equipment worth tens of millions of dollars; this small container of life, this seed of potential, was worth more than a dozen of Jackson's labs.

The eyes opened and two sea-green portals matching Sara's looked up at Jackson with an idle curiosity.

The world will be yours, my son. One day you will live forever.