IN THE SHADOW OF A PROMISE

    Nothing could compare to the moment Henry held his son in his arms for the first time. He was tiny. Henry felt freakishly large. Sam’s hand was like an atom in his father’s, and his breath was light as a feather. One wrong move, and he’d shatter.

   It would have been a lie to say that Henry’s anxiety when the nurse handed Sam to him was new. It had started months, before when he’d returned home from work to find Julie waiting for him with a pregnancy test. Henry had kissed Julie, not caring that the sawdust on his jacket had embedded in her hair, or that the dust on his hands had smeared her cheeks. And he’d cried tears of joy, which made her cry, then laugh, because she’d never seen him like that before.

    A mother spends nine months with her child before they are even born. Julie felt each kick and flutter as she grew with Sam. Their connection was immediate, unbreakable. Henry’s encounters with Sam were limited to faint heartbeats and glimpses at a grainy ultrasound screen.

    So, Henry connected with Sam in the only way he knew how, by crafting his room. He baby-proofed the stairs and cupboards, and scoured through books to find the safest paint for the nursery walls. He carved a cradle, sanding more than was necessary, to ensure that no slivers remained behind.

    On quiet evenings, Julie would sit in the setting sun’s glow, stroking her rounded belly and whispering to the unborn baby whose DNA was changing her own. Henry watched with the distinct feeling that he was an outsider. He was intruding on something sacred, something he could never fully understand. He counted down the days to the moment he would meet their baby—to the moment he would know Sam as Julie did.

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    The days passed and his anxiety grew. The sight of Julie balancing on a ladder as she painted a mural on the wall nearly gave him a heart attack. Every twitch or false labor pain sent him into a frenzy—leaping out of bed in a tangle of sheets, Julie laughing as he face-planted on the floor. Buttoning his shirt all wrong and feeling distinct disappointment when the doctor said their little boy wasn’t ready to emerge yet.

    The day came, and Sam was born with a shock of dark, curly hair. That hair, passed down from grandfather to father to grandson, had been growing all these months. A piece of Henry that he hadn’t known was there. Sam smiled in his sleep, a finger curling at his lip, just like it had in the ultrasound. Henry never wanted to let go.

    Julie often joked that instead of the hospital accidentally swapping their baby, her husband had been switched. When she’d fallen asleep after labor, Henry was fretting and worrying over Sam. But she’d awoken to a calm father who never seemed anxious about what to do.

    It was hard for Henry to remember the sparkle in Sam’s eyes now, to remember the way one tooth crooked over the other, or picture the way his cheeks dimpled when he smiled. Those things slipped out of his grasp—but Henry remembered with perfect clarity that curled finger as Sam slept in his arms, and the promise that had given him new purpose.

    I will never let you go. That vow had been broken. Hadn’t it? Sam was gone, so someone had let go; though that letting go felt more like a tearing away.

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    All that was left of Sam was the ghostly patter of feet in the hallway in the evening shadows. At night his cries woke Henry, sending him flying to an empty nursery. Sam was gone, except in that hazy space between sleeping and waking—and those illusions were fleeting and only deepened Henry’s sorrow.

    Julie was wrong. Henry hadn’t become a different man. Sam had given him the strength to be calm and steady. His anxiety never fully left, but he learned to hide it for Sam’s sake. And now, without his son, that fear had a strangling grip that Henry couldn’t break—a grip that threatened to drown him with each passing day.

    That broken promise taunted now—and it dared him to make a new one. I will see you again.

    With Sam at his side, Henry might have been brave enough to hope. Alone, he couldn’t face another disappointment, and neither could his son. The promise was left unspoken, a silent prayer in the dark of night heard only by the Father who never let go.