Such a little thing, that bundle. Such a tiny footnote of a human.
His.
His baby.
His daughter.
Waiting to meet him.
He thought his knees might buckle as he got to his feet. His pulse thumped hard in his ears, drowning out the small sounds, the rustle of clothes and shifting of shoes on the tile. He had to clear his throat twice. “She’s mine,” he croaked, and the doctor moved toward him.
His arms lifted, awkward, like two tree branches. The baby was placed in them.
“You have her?” the doctor asked.
He…
Her face. Tiny, wrinkled, red and smushed. Not even a face, but a button, eyes and mouth puckered shut. Remy and Cal had looked like this, just like this, but he wondered suddenly if she was okay, if she was supposed to look like that.
His arms softened and tightened, brought her in flush against his chest. She was so light, but so solid, so real, so warm, in her hospital blanket. He felt her pulse, thumping through her whole being. Like he held a heart against his own.
He felt a hand on his shoulder, and Sam pressed against his back, took a look at the baby around his arm. “Oh…” she whispered. He felt her heart too, against his shoulder blade, where her breast rested against his ribs.
Caught between his two girls.
“What’s her name?” the nurse asked. She had the birth certificate in her hands, ready to take down the letters.
Again he cleared his throat. “Alaina,” he said, sounding choked. “Alaina Margaret Teague.”
~*~
How could something so tiny scream so loudly? How could her mouth open so wide? How could her lungs possibly be this powerful?
“The doctor said she was perfectly healthy,” Sam said, smile wry as she came into the living room with a freshly warmed bottle in her hand. “And I guess she’s not shy when she’s hungry.”
Aidan shifted her to one arm so he could take the bottle. “Thanks, baby.”
“You got it?”
“Yeah, I…” Was consumed with stress and worry. He sank down into their new recliner and contemplated his offspring. “Do I just stick it in her mouth?”
Sam, smile amused, came and perched on the arm of the chair. “Yes. And you hold it at an angle – there, like that. Perfect.”
Lainie clamped her lips on the bottle’s nipple, invisible eyebrows knit in frustration.
“Is she drinking?”
“Not yet. You’ll know–”
She latched on. A small shock moved through him when he felt her tug at the bottle.
Sam grinned. “Strong little thing, isn’t she?”
Aidan could only stare.
He’d always thought newborn babies were ugly as sin. Remy and Cal had become cute children, spitting images of their father, Cal’s bright blonde hair an incongruous ode to recessive French genes. But when they’d first come into the world, bawling, they’d been all red and wrinkled and about as adorable as little moles dug up from the ground.
His Lainie was no exception to the ugly rule…and yet…
