Page 69

"When did you decide the middle name?"

"Just now."

His eyes stay on the paper, and I can see the moment he understands Graham isn’t the only name on that line that matters.

"Oh."

The girl's line is blank. I don't ask him what he wants, because he already said he's leaving that to me.

“Hildie,” I propose.

He doesn't answer, and the quiet goes on long enough that I start taking it back. "You don't have to say yes. I'm not putting you in a corner."

"Hildegarde." He says it low. Then he spells it for me. "H, i, l, d, e, g, a, r, d, e."

"Hildegarde Alisa," I complete it. He nods and turns away.

The clerk takes the clipboard back and checks the lines.

"That's everything we need. We'll get these submitted."

Carson leaves a while after, not bringing up the names again. I’m glad he doesn’t make me talk about either one. He's gone almost two hours.

When he comes back, he sits down heavily, elbows on his knees.

"I told Hildie about the baby's name." He rubs his thumb across the fading scars along the back of his hand. "I told her twice. She was glad both times."

They've pushed the two isolettes together against the wall because that's where twins belong. My wheelchair is parked next to the recliner. Bettina and another nurse move around us like they've done this a hundred times.

"Skin to skin today," Bettina says, tugging the neck of my gown open wider. "Best thing for them. Better than anything else in this room."

They bring Hildie out first. She's still tethered, the wires trailing off her chest and a sensor taped around her foot. The nurse slides her inside the front of my gown against my breastbone and my breath stutters. She's so light she barely registers as weight at all. A warmed blanket comes over the both of us, tucked at my shoulders, and her heart ticks against mine, fast, fast, fast.

Carson is already unsnapping his shirt. Nobody had to tell him twice.

His chest comes into view, broad and familiar, and for one second I remember exactly how it feels under my hands.

The nurse lifts Graham out from under the blue lights and peels the little shields off his eyes. He squints and works his mouth. She sets him down against Carson's bare chest, and Carson lowers himself into the recliner like a man carrying a bowl filled to the rim.

"Forty minutes minimum," Bettina says. "Less than that and you're only interrupting them."

"And if I fall asleep?"

"You don't. I need you awake while she's on your chest."

Nobody talks much. There isn't anything that needs saying. The monitors chirp and alarm around us. Bettina glances at them without breaking stride, reading each one faster than I can.

Carson's hand covers almost all of Graham's back. It's the hand I've come to know, dry and strong and big enough to dwarf the baby. It should not work against something that small, and it does.

Bettina drifts past with a clipboard.

"Dad, don't let him slide down. You two are doing fine."

"She's got your chin," Carson says quietly, almost a whisper.

"She's got your temper."

His mouth moves at one corner. Hildie's fist bumps my collarbone twice and then settles. Then Carson's head tips back against the recliner and his eyes close. Bettina catches it before I can say anything. "Dad."