“She’s out there, too. She’s been breathing down the necks of the hospital staff, to examine their professionalism and efficiency. It’s pure chance she hasn’t been kicked out by security.” Cécile reaches out a hand and touches the baby’s tiny nose. “Hi, I’m Aunt Cécile.”
“Do you want to hold him?” I ask her.
She looks at me in terror. “No, no, no. I could break him. I totally lack maternal instinct.”
“And what will you do when you have one of your own?”
“I won’t. I don’t want a committee of nurses to examine me naked, with open legs, waiting for something as big as a watermelon to come out of my vagina.”
Cécile is a good laugh. “I’m happy to see you. I missed you.”
“You just missed me?” She asks.
“What do you mean?”
“Ashford.”
“Please no. Don’t do it,” I beg her.
“Listen to me, if Istand up forhim even though I can barelystandhim, maybe you should listen to what I have to say.”
“Only if you want to insult him.”
“Ashford is totally in love with you. Since you left, he’s been a shadow of himself and he just thinks about you.”
“You didn’t see him,Idid! He kissed Portia,” I growl. My anger has just given me back the strength that labour had drained from my body.
“It was that bitch, Portia, who kissed him, he rejected her. Don’t you understand that he doesn’t want that psychopath? He wants you.”
“He wasn’t able to prove it to me.”
“Because you’re damn stubborn and you didn’t let him. You just see what you want to see, and if you hadn’t fled in such a hurry, leaving everyone behind, perhaps we wouldn’t be having this conversation now.”
“It’s a conversation I don’t want to have.”
“Your child has got the right to be loved by a father, and let me say that I’ve never seen Ashford so much into something in all his life. You worked a miracle, you made him a human! Besides, dare you tell me that you don’t love him? Why did you keep his son, then?”
I look away without answering and, before she goes out, she strokes my hair and says: “I’ll be out there.”
*
I must have fallen asleep for a short while, and I wake up hearing the baby gurgling.
There’s someone in the room, standing in front of my bed with his back to me. I recognise that silhouette. It’s Ashford. When he turns towards me, my breath fails me.
He holds my baby in his arms, looking at him with a dreamy expression.
“Your mother let me in,” he says, without taking his eyes off him.
I stare at him without knowing what to say.
“A boy. If he’s got your personality, he will probably rule the world.” Then he looks at me. “What would you like to call him?”
“Brandon,” I reply. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“I believe I should. Of all the places on Earth, I think this is exactly where I should be, right now.” Then he sits next to me, handing me the baby. “We have made a real masterpiece.”
“We have?Ihave. You show up after nine months and you want to get some merit?”
