“Alison, sweetheart, just when I think you couldn’t possibly give me anything else, you prove me wrong. Honoring Angela’s memory like this—it’s incredible. Wonderful. Thank you, darlin’. Thank you so much.”
He moved over to sit on the bed next to me, sliding his arm around my waist as we both gazed down at our daughter Evangeline.
“Yesterday . . . God, was it really only yesterday?” He laughed hoarsely. “You asked if I’d be all right with our baby being born here at St. Agnes. I was thinking about it all last night and this morning. It’s actually almost poetic. It’s the circle of life. In this hospital, I said goodbye to the woman I’d loved for most of my life. I watched her die, and I thought my heart would be broken forever. But then today, I watched my daughter take her first breath here, and I realized that my heart is still beating. It can still love.” He offered the baby his finger, and she gripped it tightly, her eyes blinking open for a moment as she nursed. “Life ended here, and life began here. I have to believe that somewhere, Ang knows we brought this soul into the world, and she’s dancing with joy.”
“Joy.” I smiled as I turned my head to look at Noah. “I was trying to think of the perfect middle name for her. I thought of Daneen, but Evangeline Daneen sounds like she should be in a children’s book of rhymes. I thought about Lana, but it’s not exactly right, either. But what about Evangeline Joy?”
“Perfect.” Noah nodded. “Will she be Wakely-Spencer or Spencer-Wakely?”
“Just Spencer,” I replied. “My last name was borrowed from someone else. I don’t feel the need to pass it on.”
“You may have borrowed it, but you also made it a name to be proud of,” Noah objected.
“Maybe, but still I’m okay with not giving our daughter that burden. Evangeline Wakely-Spencer—that’s a mouthful. Let’s leave it at your name.”
We sat there together, unable to look away from our daughter. At the beginning of my pregnancy, I’d bemoaned the fact that motherhood was unfair to women, burdening us with the tasks of carrying, bearing and nursing our young. But now I knew the truth. These were not burdens to tolerate. They were blessings reserved only for the females of the species.
And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
Chapter 17
Noah
Parenthood was amazing, fulfilling, beautiful, awesome . . . and exhausting.
The first few weeks of baby Evangeline’s life at home were a blur, a constant, never-ending whirlwind of feeding, and changing, and washing, and catching whatever small bites of sleep we could whenever she slept. People came to visit and brought gifts and food, and I was pathetically grateful for that, because I didn’t have the energy to cook, and both Alison and I were tired of takeout.
The one factor that made everything survivable was the baby herself. God, I hadn’t known how much I was going to love this ten-pounds of tiny, perfect human. I’d never anticipated that staring at her sleep for an hour was better than four quarters of football. Or that catching whatmighthave been a smile could make me feel as though I’d just witnessed greatness. What was some missing sleep compared with noting how well my two-week-old daughter could lift up her head?
Even so, as much as I was ga-ga over my baby girl, I missed the closeness that Alison and I had shared in the last days of her pregnancy and while we’d been in the hospital. Still, I recognized that we were in a period of survival just now; I had to be patient and trust that we’d get back to that intimacy sooner than later.
I had gone back to sleeping in the four-poster bed in the guest room because Alison slept with the baby next to her at night, allowing her to keep sleeping while Evangeline nursed. I was afraid that jostling the bed when I rolled over might disturb them and wake the baby. I didn’t explain my reasons to Alison; I wasn’t sure I had the mental capacity to do so at the moment. But I missed her, missed feeling her warm body next to mine, missed the sound of her breathing and her sweet seductive scent.
I knew now, if I hadn’t realized it before, a breathtaking and life-changing truth: I loved Alison. Looking back, I’d fallen in love with her a little bit that first afternoon at the hospital, when she’d sat by my side, and then a little bit more at the wedding, and a bit more when we’d gone out on our date. And each day that we’d spent together since I’d moved into her house, I’d fallen more and more deeply. I couldn’t imagine a life that didn’t include Alison. I didn’t want to imagine that.
As I lay in my cold and lonely bed, feeling slightly sorry for myself—even though I’d been the one to leave Alison’s bed—I thought about life and love. I’d loved Angela with everything I had. Our love had been first love, teen love, college love, newlywed love. The only real challenge we’d ever faced had been her leukemia, and it was a battle that we’d lost.
Yes, I had no doubt that I’d loved Angela. But in many ways, the man who had showered her with devotion and affection had died on the day when she had.
The man who loved Alison was not that same man. We hadn’t been each other’s first anything. We’d had a lovely, tender start, and then a painful, aching canyon of separation before we’d found our way back to each other again. What we had built over these six months of living together was real, solid, and strong.
But although we’d loved intimately in the days before Evangeline’s birth, looking back, that seemed like an odd pocket of time that was set apart. We hadn’t mentioned it since returning home from the hospital. We operated together as a unit, but we never talked about anything beyond basic necessities:can you listen for the baby while I shower? Did you move the laundry from the washer to the dryer? Will you bring me a glass of water while I’m nursing her? Did you sleep? Did you eat?We were in survival mode here.
And since we hadn’t talked about the future or even our present, I found myself walking a tightrope of uncertainty, holding my breath each day as I half-expected Alison to ask when I was planning on moving back to my house. She hadn’t said anything to that effect, but neither had she touched me or kissed me or offered me more than a brief, fleeting smile now and then as we passed like two ships in the night.
When Evangeline was three weeks old, I sat with her out on the back porch one sunny afternoon, rocking her as she dozed. She’d given her mama a bad, fussy night with little sleep, so I’d insisted that Alison take a nap. She hadn’t protested at all, only glanced up at me with gratitude as she’d handed off the baby.
My phone vibrated—it was on silent now all the time in deference to a sometimes-sleeping infant. When I saw that it was my mother calling, I answered quietly.
We chatted for a few minutes as I brought her up to date on Evangeline’s milestones. When I’d reached the end of that discussion, my mother cleared her throat.
“And how is Alison?”
“Tired,” I replied, giving the same stock answer I’d provided to that question time and again.
“Well, yes, but beyond that?”
“I think she’s happy,” I hedged. “She’s so wonderful with the baby. Evangeline’s eyes follow her around the room, like Alison’s the sun around which she orbits.”
