He said: the paperwork cleared.
He said: we’re approved.
He said: she needed somewhere safe tonight.
He said: I called you to come because I wanted you to be there when I held her for the first time.
He said: I wanted us to meet her together.
I was crying before he finished the sentence.
Not dramatically.
The quiet crying of someone who has been reached in a place they did not know could still be reached.
He said: her name is Lucy.
The nurses had given her the name pending her formal documentation.
Lucy.
I held Lucy.
She stirred slightly without waking.
She turned her face toward me in the specific instinctive way of newborns who are oriented toward warmth.
I said: hello, Lucy.
I said it very quietly.
She did not wake.
But she settled.
I stood in the corridor of the maternity ward and held Lucy and thought about the drawer.
The quiet grief for the daughter I had not had.
Opening.
Michael had his arm around my shoulders.
He was watching the baby.
He said: let’s take her home.
We signed the necessary documents.
We were given a kit from the hospital, the practical supplies for a newborn overnight, formula and a receiving blanket and the paperwork for her care.
We walked to the car.
Michael drove.
I sat in the back seat with Lucy because I could not put her in the car seat alone, I needed to be beside her.
