She’s awake. Eyes open, unfocused, staring at nothing and everything with the bewildered calm of someone who has just arrived in a world they don’t understand yet but has no choice but to trust.I’ve got you, baby girl. I’m here.
Her eyes are slate blue, the way all newborns’ eyes are, but I already know they’ll change. They’ll become green, maybe. Or brown. Or something entirely her own.
I hold her against my chest and breathe her in. Lavender. Everything in this hospital room smells like lavender, the lotion, the blankets, the wipes. It’s in her hair and on her skin and I know this scent will be tattooed on my memory for the rest of my life. The smell of the first hour. The smell of pure joy.
I lean down. Close enough that my lips brush the peach fuzz on her temple. Close enough that she can hear my heartbeat and my voice at the same time.
“Know what, sweetie?” I whisper. “I think we’re finally out of the gray area. We’ve been hoping and waiting. Healing from the tragedy while waiting for joy. Sitting in the aftermath of the storm, eyes fixed on the rainbow above. You, baby girl, are our rainbow. You are the magic. You’re all the colors we’ve been waiting for.”
Her fist uncurls against my collarbone. Five tiny fingers spreading open, then closing again, grasping at fabric, at air, at the newness of having hands.
“I love you, sweet girl. And so did your mama,” I say. “Her name was Whitney, and she was the best person in the whole world. She had red hair just like yours. And a laugh that could fill an entire room. And she loved you before you were even possible. She planned for you. She fought for you. She trusted me with you, which is either the smartest or the craziest thing she ever did, and knowing Whit, it was both.”
Baby girl blinks. Yawns. A whole-body yawn that scrunches her face and curls her toes and makes her look so much like Whit that my chest cracks open in the best possible way.
Saylor appears in the doorway. He doesn’t come in right away. He leans against the frame and watches us, and the look on his face is one I’ll keep alongside the lavender and the red hair and the weight of her in my arms.
“How ya goin’?” he whispers.
I smile. “I’m good. Just obsessed with holding her.”
He comes to my side and kneels beside the chair. His hand finds my knee and rests there, warm and steady.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks.
“A name. I think I’ve got it.”
“Yeah?”
“Wren.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Is that significant?”
“It was Whit’s pen name. She used it to publish a few short stories in college. Published all her articles in the literary magazine under the name Wren Tracie. She always loved the bird because she said wrens were such a contradiction. They sing beautifully, but too loud. They were small, but fierce. Whit loved their idiosyncrasies, like they couldn’t help but be exactly what they were. She always loved the name.” I look at the baby. At the red hair and the serious brow and the fists that are already clenched with purpose. “If it was good enough for Whit, it’s good enough for her. Small, but mighty.”
“Wren,” Saylor repeats. He reaches out and touches the baby’s hand with one finger. She grabs it and holds on with all her might.
“Welcome to the world, baby Wren,” he says. “We’ve all been waiting for you.”
He lifts her from my arms. Gently, carefully, like he’s handling the most important thing he’s ever held. He cradles her against his chest and her head fits perfectly in the hollow below his collarbone, and she settles there as if she’s known him longer than an hour. As if she’s been listening to his voice through months of walls and waiting rooms and the particular acoustics of hope.
I watch them together. My daughter in the arms of the man I love. And I have one more conversation.
Thank you, Whit. For the greatest gift anyone has ever given me. Not the baby, though she’s everything. Your trust. Your whole heart. You looked at me when the world told me I was finished, and you said: not yet. You’re just getting started.
I’ll make sure she knows you. Every story, every photo, every terrible joke. She’ll know about the overalls and the crayon costume and the red curls and your perfect laugh. She’llknow her mother loved her before she existed and chose the people who’d love her after.
We will never forget.
The hospital room is quiet. The lavender is everywhere. Saylor is humming something to Wren that sounds like a lullaby he’s inventing in real time, and she’s asleep against his chest, and the afternoon light is turning everything gold, and I am thirty-nine years old and I have never been more alive.
Not too old. Not too late. Just right on time.
epilogue
Celeste
About One Year Later…
