Chapter Text
11:54 PM, 5th of July, 1979.
The baby’s cries filled the hospital room, a sound that was like heaven’s callings, a sound that filled their hearts with eternal sunshine.
“He’s here,” Peter let out a breath that had held the past nine months’ worth of anxiety. “I can’t believe he’s actually here.”
“Do we have a name?” The nurse asked, she herself almost moved to tears.
“Yes. Shane,” Mae replied, then whispered it again to herself. Shane. Shane FIlan. Shane. The syllables themselves made her smile.
The nurse wrote down the name on the form in front of her, ticking boxes that she had to record. “Are you ready to read his palm?”
Peter and Mae looked at each other. They’d heard how hard this was. Or how hard it could be. A moment that could sweep away this entire day’s miracle, or a moment that could brighten it even more, flooding relief into their minds.
“It’ll be okay.” Mae held her son’s small hand tight in hers. She would no matter what. No matter how many days his palm says he can live, she would be there to hold this hand.
Peter nodded and took a deep breath. Those two seconds he had to wait until his wife turned over Shane’s hand felt longer than his entire life, than his own counted down days.
The numbers lit up in green on his palm.
An uncomfortable silence circulated the room until one of the nurses sighed.
14317 .
“Wait, what… How many years is that?” It sounded awfully short. Peter looked down at his palm. His own number was larger than his newborn’s. His lips started shaking.
“Fourteen thousand, that’s… that’s not even forty, is it?” Mae looked up at a nurse who was pursing her lips apologetically, who wasn’t saying anything. Jesus Christ, she wanted her to say something. Anything. She then looked at her husband, the tears in his eyes holding a very different meaning to the ones when Shane had just been born.
She looked back down at Shane’s palm, the number rooted upon his precious precious skin.
The clock hit 12:00 AM.
She felt her heartbreak when the number went down.
14316 .