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“Nuh-uh,” she grunts with another sniffle as she shakes her head. “I don’t think so.” She lifts her hands and wipes her face.
I smile as
I think of it. “It was a Wednesday night. Your dad called at two-oh-four in the morning. I remember the exact time because I was in bed, sleeping soundly, when the phone rang.”
She finally turns her head to look at me. “He called and woke you up?”
“He did.” A fish rolls in the lake right in front of us, rippling the water. “You were born at two-oh-two.” I laugh. “He waited two whole minutes before he picked up the phone.”
“Why did he call you?” she asks. Her voice is hesitant, but I can tell she’s curious.
“Because you had arrived and he was terrified.” I giggle lightly as I remember the tremble in his voice. “‘She’s here, Bess,’ he said to me. ‘She’s here and she’s absolutely perfect.’ I can still remember the quaver in his voice. He loved you from the moment he saw you for the first time.”
“What does quaver mean? And…why was his voice doing that?”
“It means shaky, unsteady. Nervous. And his voice quavered because he was in awe of you.” I nudge her leg with my fingertips. “He had waited for nine months, counting the days until you got here. He had painted the nursery, put together furniture, and he’d even gotten you a big stuffed giraffe for your room.”
“Bumper,” she says, and I can hear the smile in her tone.
I smile too. “Right. Bumper. That thing was huge.”
“I still have him.” She’s not crying now. She’s listening.
“Anyway, like I said,” I continue, “your dad called and he said, ‘She’s here, Bess. She’s here and she’s absolutely perfect.’ And I could hear it in his voice—” My own voice breaks because I can still remember how he sounded.
“Hear what?” She turns to face me a little, her tear-streaked face inquisitive.
“He was scared to death.” I laugh out loud and slap my leg. “All that time he’d been getting ready, making the nursery, preparing for you. But nobody had told him how it would feel when you got here. He said he felt like his heart was going to jump right out of his chest. ‘What have I done, Bess?’ he said to me. ‘What did I ever do to be worthy of this?’ And I could hear it in his voice. He was literally shaking.” I nudge her with my shoulder. “Your mom told me later that he was a complete mess, what with all the crying and everything.”
Sam puts out her hands and leans back on her extended arms. She’s taking all this in, and I’m glad she didn’t just shut me out.
“Your dad was so excited. You weighed eight pounds and two ounces when you were born. He assured me that you had all your fingers and all your toes. And that you didn’t have any, ah…extra appendages.” I lean down like I’m going to tell her a secret and drop my voice to a whisper. “Do I need to explain what extra appendage means? He was so sure you were going to be a boy! He already had a name picked out for you: Samuel.”
She bites her lips together like she’s trying not to laugh, but she says nothing.
“‘It’s a girl, Bess,’ he said to me. ‘It’s a little girl!’ And he said it with so much wonder and reverence in his voice that I knew whether you were a boy or a girl didn’t matter because he would be the best father ever.”
From the corner of my eye I see Sam swipe quickly at her eyes. I act like I didn’t see it.
“And I remember while he was telling me all this, you started to cry. Oh my stars! You were so loud that I could hear you plumb through the phone. They cleaned you up while he talked to me, and then he put me on speaker so I could talk to your mom. She was so tired, exhausted after giving birth to you, but she was so happy. So happy. And so was your dad.”
“He thought I would be a boy? They named me Sam anyway.”
“Yep. Your dad said he’d been calling you Sam in his head for so long that he couldn’t think of you as anything else. He used to sing to your mom’s tummy, and he talked to you all the time. So they named you Samantha instead of Samuel.”
“My mom called me Sammy.”
“Yeah, but she was the only one who did. To your dad, you’ve always been Sam.” I suck in a breath and let it out in one big sigh. “Anyway,” I say loudly, “your dad loved you even before you were born, and he loves you now. He’s never stopped loving you and he never will.”
“He’s going to die. Just like my mom.”
There’s no emotion in her voice. And that breaks my heart.
“Yes. He will.”
“Did you know already?” She gives me a look that is so much like Lynda that it hurts.
“I found out about ten minutes before you did.” Which still pisses me off, but it is what it is. “Your sister doesn’t know yet.”
