I looked
through the glass.
The bassinet was closer now.
A nurse had moved it.
Tiny face.
Dark hair.
Eyes closed.
“I want to apply for her,” James said. “Whatever that process means. Foster placement, guardianship, adoption later if that’s possible. I want to bring her home.”
His voice dropped.
“If this is too much, tell me, and I’ll never mention it again.”
I laughed once through tears.
Not because it was funny.
Because I finally saw what he’d been bracing for.
“You think I’m jealous?”
He said nothing.
“You thought I’d
hear Anna’s name and think this was about her?”
“I didn’t know what you’d think.”
I wiped my face.
“I thought she might be your baby.”
His eyes widened.
“Okay. That’s worse.”
Despite everything, I laughed again.
Then I cried harder.
James reached for me this time.
I let him.
I kept thinking about Anna.
Not the woman James almost married.
Not the ghost of some relationship before mine.
A woman alone in a hospital bed.
Using her last clear thought to make sure her daughter didn’t disappear into the
world without somebody knowing she existed.
She got one name out.
She spent it on her child.
“Can I hold her?” I asked.
James looked stunned.
The nurse smiled.
“I’ll ask.”
Ten minutes later, I was sitting in a chair with a newborn girl against my chest.
Six pounds and something.
Twelve hours old.
Hands like nothing.
Her fingers opened once against my shirt.
I stopped breathing.
James knelt beside me.
“Are you sure?”
I looked at him.
“Because if you’re not—”
“We spent years wishing our boys could have
a little sister.”
He went still.
I looked down at the baby.
“Maybe we were just waiting for the wrong miracle.”
James covered his face.
That was the second time I ever saw him cry.
Nothing became simple after that.
The legal side took nine months.
Nine long months.
Home studies.
Don’t miss
