It’s a simchah, it’s a baby, a son for him and Batya. So what if the word son rips his heart clean in two, so what if his insides wrench from the pain of it

The curtains are paper-thin; pale, opaque sheets masquerading for walls, a futile attempt at privacy. In the next cubicle, loud voices clamor in a foreign language, punctuated here and there by a newborn cry.

“If you’ll just excuse me,” says a nurse, pulling back the curtain that brushes Uri’s shoulder. She’s trying to maneuver an IV pole across the ward, a tangle of wires and awkward rubber wheels. Uri shuffles his plastic chair closer to where his mother-in-law stands, cooing over the hospital crib. Something in the way she leans toward the baby, placing two hands on the rim of the bassinet in an almost possessive gesture, irks him.

“So I think we’re gonna be discharged later today, isn’t that amazing?” Batya’s giddy with adrenaline, her words are looping over and around each other like they’re on a roller coaster ride. It’s the fourth time she’s told him about her anticipated discharge. His mind flicks back, another hospital, another birth. He squelches the memory.

“It’s great,” he starts to say, then realizes Batya had directed that last comment to her mother. The words die on his tongue.

Blue eyes flutter open, and Uri leans forward reflexively, but his mother-in-law swoops in first, wrapping her arms around the baby and nestling her cheek against his tufty hair. He shrugs, even though something tells him to stake out his rights as father. But there will be plenty of opportunities to hold the baby.

The baby fusses. Batya’s mother adjusts the swaddling blanket, clucking her tongue rapidly. “There, there, bunchkin, it’s alright, your Mommy is right here... What a beautiful little boy, Batya, kein ayin hara. Just look at that dark hair! Nothing like your girls, is he?”

Batya giggles. “I know, right? Well, Deena had no hair, and Racheli’s blonde. But it’s not just that, Ma, he just has a different face from them, it’s rounder...”

Uri watches his mother-in-law twist her neck to view the baby in her arms from a different angle. “Well, that mouth is definitely a Weinbaum mouth. Chavi and Shaina and you all had exactly the same.”

Batya shrugs. “Really? I can never see these things... I’m sooo happy we’re coming home today, the girls are so excited to meet the baby, and besides, it’ll give us time to prepare the shalom zachar and everything, isn’t the timing great?”

Shalom zachar. He’d known it but somehow hadn’t realized it until now. Something cold spears his heart, glides to his fingertips. He grasps the bedside table, steadies his breath.

“...those eyes, look at those deep blue eyes, he’s a beautiful one,” Batya’s mother says, still immersed in her feature-by-feature analysis.

“Baruch Hashem,” Batya murmurs happily. The baby blinks, then emits a sudden wail. “Here, let me feed him, Ma.”

He still can’t believe this is real.