Читать книгу The Resurrection of Joan Ashby - Cherise Wolas - Страница 16

Joan was propped up in the hospital bed, feeding their newborn son. Martin was on the bed with the two of them, his thumb and index a circle around both tiny ankles, above the tiny blue booties. The baby slipped off her breast and Martin took the infant into his arms.

Childbirth, and seeing the baby for the first time, and feeling his heart beating against hers, the suction between his slimy, steaming skin and her own, which had been mottled and wet, did not miraculously change Joan’s worldview, as the no-longer Pregnant Six said it would. She did not suddenly feel it was her responsibility to solve war, genocide, disease, famine, hunger, low literacy rates, drug overdoses, the overcrowding of prisons. But she felt love, more than she thought she would, even though she was still not prepared, as other new parents seemed to be, to lay down her life for him, or for anyone.

She did not glow immediately after, but the baby did, not wizened at all, not old-man wrinkled. He did not emerge splotchy and crying. Instead, a light shone from his eyes, which he instantly opened, and when she looked down upon him, his eyes caught hers and did not let go, the two of them staring directly at each other, a kindling of sorts, until he fluttered to sleep.

And he was beautiful, a beautiful baby with blue eyes that matched her own, and a full head of downy dark-brown hair like Martin’s, curls at the ends, for which she was responsible. He was good, too, rarely crying in these first few days, and when he did, it was as soft as a kitten’s, and lasted for barely a minute. And he ate well. She had heard stories from two of the no-longer Pregnant Six about their own infants who hadn’t figured it out, who didn’t take to the breast, no matter how often an engorged nipple was stuffed into their mouths, who had lost a few precious ounces of birth weight before the mothers had resorted to formula.

The lactation specialist who came into Joan’s room with pamphlets said it had been a long time since she had seen an infant latch on so easily, as Joan’s did with her, that really, for now, there was no instruction she needed to give. And Joan felt a sense of pride, that at the start, she managed to do something right. She had not cursed it while it was baking inside of her, and he had emerged unscathed, with all his fingers and toes, with lungs that rose and fell, with a rosy mouth, with perfect lashes and brows, and the tiniest little bud between his legs that made both she and Martin laugh.

Martin cradled the baby against his chest and said, “We really should figure out what we’re going to call him.” On the table next to her hospital bed was the baby name book Martin had packed into her bag at the last minute, after she left a puddle in the kitchen, before he helped her out the back door, into the Toyota, racing out of Peachtree, down, through, and out of Rhome proper, to the campus where Martin spent most of his hours, Rhome General ablaze at four in the morning.

Joan picked up the book and let the pages fly. Then she closed her eyes, opened randomly, put her finger on the print, and looked down.

“Daniel,” she said. “A Hebrew name. The biblical prophet and writer of the Book of Daniel was a teenager when taken to Babylon after the destruction of Jerusalem in 607 BC.”

“We’re not Jewish,” Martin said.

“We’re not anything, so does it really matter? What do you think of the name?”

“Daniel Manning,” Martin said. “I like it, it’s strong, the two names work well together.”

They looked at each other and Martin said, “So is that this little guy’s name? Daniel?”

“Yes,” Joan said. “I think it is.”

If Martin wanted to look up the name’s other meaning, the book was right there beside her. She did not know why, not exactly, not in thoughts she could have articulated, but it seemed right to her that Daniel meant “God is my judge.”