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We’d been talking so much of her having a son that it’s utterly shocking to realize it’s a baby girl.
“You have a beautiful girl, Noelle,” I whisper, wrapping the baby in a clean cloth. Pride suffuses me as I look at her. God, but she is beautiful. More beautiful than I would have ever imagined. My heart thunders in my chest, a feeling of deja-vu flashing through me.
Noelle doesn’t answer me, and my gaze shoots up as worry spears through me.
“Noelle? Noelle, please answer me,” I call her name, louder. My voice is trembling and as I reach her side, I barely muster the courage to check for her pulse.
“Thank God,” I sigh in relief when I feel her heartbeat. She’s alive. She’s fine.
“Luce?” Nikki calls out from the bathroom. “Is everything alright?”
“Yes. I think so. The baby is fine, but Noelle passed out.”
Still, there’s something inside of me that tells me the baby should be with her mother for her first moments on this earth. Doing my best not to disturb Noelle too much, I lower her gown, revealing her chest, and I lay the baby onto her skin.
If before the little girl had been unable to stop crying, the moment her skin touches Noelle’s, she stops.
She just stops.
“Luce?” Nikki tentatively comes inside.
“It’s a miracle, Nikki. She’s a miracle,” I whisper, tears accumulating in my eyes. “Let’s leave them like this for a moment, and then we’ll clean her up and we can take her to the hospital.”
“Your wound,” he suddenly says, and I doubt he heard anything I just told him—not with the way he’s intently staring at my shoulder.
“It’s fine,” I mumble.
“No, it’s not fucking fine!”
I don’t even get to protest as he pulls on my blouse to reveal the bandage all soaked in blood.
“For fuck’s sake, Luce. I could have helped. You could have asked me and I could have helped,” he grits out.
I shake my head.
“I couldn’t betray her trust like that. I know that if I were in her position, I wouldn’t want a strange man to see me naked and at my most vulnerable,” I explain.
His features are tense, but eventually he gives me a brisk nod. He doesn’t let me tend to the baby though, taking her into his arms and bathing her himself—with some instructions from me.
Well, I think it’s safe to say that if I weren’t already in love with him before, I would be now. His sleeves are rolled up to his elbows as he does his best to clean the baby girl in the sink.
“You missed a spot there,” I point to her back.
He doesn’t complain, merely trying harder. And that’s adorable. It’s a little too cute if you ask me.
“There. Now she’s perfectly pink,” he exhales loudly.
I giggle despite the pain in my shoulder. How could I not when both of them are so damn cute? Something about this picture makes my heart ache, and it’s at that moment that I decide we’re going to have children too—lots of them. Just knowing I could see him like this with our baby makes me want to yearn for that future.
He’s so attentive with her and so sweet, that I can’t help but melt—time and time again. But as the baby starts crying again, I tell him to wrap her in a blanket and bring her back to Noelle for a little bit. Advising him to turn his back, I move the baby around until she latches onto Noelle’s breast. Then, I cover her carefully so there’s nothing indecent showing.
“She’s so beautiful,” I note as we both gaze at the mother daughter duo. “I wonder what she’ll name her now that Mali is not an option anymore?”
He frowns, and I explain that she’d been convinced it was a boy.
“What about Malia? It’s a girl’s name.”
“You’re right. Malia,” I repeat, liking the sound of it. “I think Noelle’s going to love it too.”
