For a brief second time stood still.

A flickering assortment of moments shuffled through his mind—from the first day he really noticed Jenny to the first time they kissed to the moment she said yes to the moment she told him she was finally pregnant with Gregory.

“Okay,” he said.

Adrenaline took over and they were ready.

Ready to start.

Ready to go.

Ready for whatever this looked like.

Stay calm for Jenny. Stay calm.

“Call my mom,” the calmer of the two said.

“Okay,” Kevin said.

“And get my bag.”

“Okay.”

He turned on the lights and gathered her bags, then called Jenny’s mom and started to go to get Gregory out of bed when Jenny got his attention.

“You might want to put some clothes on.”

Kevin looked down to see that he was only wearing boxers with his shoes and coat. Old boxers that Gregory had picked out with Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on them.

“Yeah, okay,” he said to Jenny.

He could feel the tremors going through him. With so many thoughts rumbling inside his head, Kevin couldn’t seem to say a thing.

It was okay.

This wasn’t a time to talk. It was a time to act.

There was no crazy delirious scene of Kevin getting in the car and forgetting Jenny. Everything was slow and steady so as not to cause her any more distress. She wasn’t hurting but her worry wrapped itself all around her expression and motions. Jenny’s mom was going to meet them at the hospital. Kevin had gotten Gregory up and put him in the car seat and thankfully a few minutes into the drive he was already going back to sleep.

Kevin held her hand tightly as they drove.

“It’s going to be okay,” he told her.

Jenny nodded but they both knew that it might not be okay. A lot of things in life weren’t okay and this could turn out to be one of them.

The night seemed asleep with everybody resting up for the Christmas holiday. This was not the right time. It wasn’t even Christmas Eve or Christmas day. It was the twenty-third.

He’d been distant from God for a long time. But now he didn’t hesitate.

Lord, please let them be safe, please.

He knew that in the silence Jenny was praying too. Her prayers probably held far more weight. She was the mother after all. She was the one who had more faith and who had gone before God more than just a few feeble times.

Please, God, please help Jenny and keep her strong.

Everything about the drive felt like slow motion. Everything. He was going a little above the speed limit. But the time seemed to sludge by and the street signs blurred while the thoughts and the memories and the fears inside of him blasted like hornets escaping a burst nest.

Suddenly all the thoughts and feelings and worries about work that had been plaguing him for the last few days and weeks and months seemed to melt away.