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I chuckle through my tears as her hand lands on my jaw. “I think I’m way past a five o’clock shadow now,” I say, leaning into her touch. “I haven’t had much time to shave.”
I grab her hand and hold it against my face. As I stare into her big, brown eyes, I know I should call Ruth and the rest of the family to tell them to get their butts over here as fast as they can. But I don’t want to move.
“I’ve missed the hell out of you,” I whisper, and the doctor on the other side of the bed clears his throat.
Dr. Neil Long nods toward Cassidy. “Do you mind if I have a moment with her? We just need to do a quick assessment, ask a few questions. It won’t take long.”
“Of course,” I reply, placing a kiss on the inside of Cassidy’s wrist before I gently lower her hand onto the bed. “I’ll be right over there.”
Dr. Long and Carolyn, Cassidy’s nurse, ask her some questions while testing her reflexes and looking into each orifice on her head. When they’re satisfied she’s not going to slip back into a coma, and she doesn’t appear to be suffering from memory loss, they return her to me with a bit of advice.
Dr. Long pulls me aside and speaks in a hushed tone. “Her language recall seems to be slightly laggy, as are her reflexes. But that’s to be expected after a traumatic brain injury. I’ve asked Carolyn to get you a list of speech pathologists and physical therapists covered by your health plan. Other than that, I suggest you think carefully about when you want to bring in the rest of the family. Too much stimulation may overload her right now,” he says, with a look of significance. “Congratulations, Marc.”
As if on cue, the nurse I almost ran over in the corridor enters the room. I think the nurse’s name is Mary. There are so many, and their shifts vary. I’ve had a hard time remembering all their names.
Recalling Dr. Long’s warning, I almost ask Mary to leave. But when I glance in Cassidy’s direction, I realize it’s too late. She’s already seen the nurse.
And Mary is not alone.
She’s rolling a steel cart topped with a clear bassinet. Inside, swaddled in a pink receiving blanket, lies my precious eight-week-old baby girl.
Shine
Present-day
I don’t know if I’m smiling. My face feels a bit numb. But if I am, then I’m definitely smiling from ear to ear.
The light shining through the window behind Marc leaves his features darkened in shadow, but I can clearly see the new beard that covers the lower half of his face.
I reach up slowly, my arm feeling disconnected, but also as if it weighs a hundred pounds. “Shadow,” I whisper. Well, it’s more like a gurgle than a whisper as I attempt to speak through the accumulated secretions in my throat.
Marc scratches his jaw and laughs, and the deep rasp is like music to my ears. “I think I’m way past a five o’clock shadow now,” he says, looking somewhat embarrassed. “I haven’t had much time to shave.”
I open my mouth to explain that I was referring to the dream I had, but the words seem miles away from my mouth. My arm begins to drop, but he grabs it before it can fall. Leaning his face into my hand, the look in his eyes would knock me off my feet if I wasn’t already lying down.
“I’ve missed the hell out of you,” he murmurs.
But before I can respond, a doctor who’s standing on the other side of the bed clears his throat.
The doctor nods at me as he speaks to Marc. “Do you mind if I have a moment with her? We just need to do a quick assessment, ask a few questions. It won’t take long.”
“Of course,” Marc replies. He lays a soft kiss on the inside of my wrist before he places my hand on the bed. “I’ll be right over there.”
The doctor introduces himself as Dr. Long and his nurse as Carolyn. The nurse begins checking a bandage on my foot while the doctor checks my reflexes and shines a light in my eyes and ears. As he does this, he asks me inane questions, like: What’s your name? What year is it? Who is our current president?
Though my brain comes up with the answers quickly, it takes a bit longer than usual to get the responses out of my mouth. Dr. Long smiles at me and assures me that everything looks good, and he’ll be back to check on me before his shift ends in a few hours.
After a hushed chat with Marc, the doctor leaves the room. But he’s quickly replaced by another nurse who enters when he’s gone. And this one is pushing a steel cart.
At first, I think she’s bringing me solid food, and my stomach curdles at the thought. But then I notice a bassinet on top of the cart.
My eyes instantly flood with tears as Marc scoops up a baby from the bassinet and cradles it in his arms. He adjusts the blankets around the baby’s face as he walks toward me.
“Hey, Momma. You ready to meet the reason I haven’t had time to shave?”
My entire body trembles as I’m overwhelmed with more joy than should be allowed in a single lifetime, much less a single moment. I want to speak, but my brain feels incapable of forming complete sentences.
“Happy,” I whisper, then I clear my throat so I can say it louder. “I’m…so happy.”
Marc’s lips press together as tears fall down his cheeks. “So am I, baby. Do you want to hold her?” He looks at the nurse on the other side of the bed.
The nurse nods. “Should be okay. Let me adjust the bed.”
It only takes a few seconds to adjust the mattress into a sitting position, but it’s the longest few seconds of my life as I anticipate holding my daughter in my arms. Once the bed eases into position, and the blood rushes away from my head, I get a little woozy for just a moment, then it passes.
I look up at Marc, ignoring the nurse who is now changing the dressing on my foot. Bombs could go off right next to me, and I probably wouldn’t notice or care. I only have eyes for her.
Marc sets her down gently into my loosely cradled arms, keeping his hand under my elbow for support. And I’m glad for it, as my arms still feel slightly disconnected from my body, like the jelly arms I’d get after too many pushups.
I bend my head down slightly to sniff the tuft of downy-soft brown hair on the top of her head. My sense of smell is still working. She smells like baby powder, exactly the way I imagined she’d smell. Her eyes are even bluer and brighter than Marc’s, and her fingers are long and slender like his. Artist’s fingers.
I lay a kiss on her forehead and she nods her head, which I imagine is her way of saying she approves. “My…sunrise,” I murmur, hoping she’ll understand the emotion behind the phrase, if not the words themselves.
Marc keeps his hand under my arm as he leans over and plants a kiss on my forehead. “Do you want to name her? Or do you want to wait?”
She begins to drift off to sleep in my arms, and I can’t help but feel overcome with intense pride. My baby girl just met me, but she already trusts me. Maybe she recognizes my voice or my scent. God, I hope so.
I shake my head, mindful that my skull feels a bit achy. “How long…have I been…?”
It seems my words are coming back, but it takes about five times as long to force them out. I hope this isn’t permanent.
“Eight weeks,” Marc replies, his eyes focused on the sleeping baby in my arms.
The way he looks at her is both the same and different from the way he looks at me. The love in his eyes is magnified in his fatherly gaze. The awe and wonder are two-fold.
The three nurses stand at the foot of the bed, watching our first moments as a family. But this doesn’t last long before one of the nurses ushers the others out, so it’s just Marc and me and the baby left.
“Do you want to wait until we get home to name her?” Marc asks.
I carefully raise my hand, so I can touch my daughter’s soft cheek with my fingertip. “Sunrise,” I say for the second time. “Sunny for short.”
Marc smiles as his gaze travels over every feature of my face. “A perfect sunrise, if I ever saw one.”
The country accent I remember from my dream just barely comes through in his v
oice, and it feels like a memory instead of a dream. It feels like home.
Epilogue
The three-hour drive to East Waterford is breathtakingly scenic, dressed in all the fiery oranges and reds of autumn. It’s been more than a year since I drove these ribbons of asphalt in a dream, and I laugh at my brain for being so convinced I’d traveled this road before. The route I dreamed of does exist, but it’s only one and a half hours from Philadelphia, and it leads to my grandmother’s house.
Marc has spent much of the last year overseeing the renovation of his childhood home. We plan to use the house as a retreat from the city when we need to unwind, or if we have a pressing deadline that requires our full focus.
Yes, Marc and I have taken over my father’s literary legacy. I will take over the writing, and Marc will do the artwork. I can only hope my memories of watching my father work, and my experience as a teacher, will guide me as I attempt to fill my father’s very large shoes.
