Hudson

Epilogue

Three years later

Click. Click.

The camera sounds each time I take another shot. It’s the only noise in the quiet hospital room. Click. I look at the photo counter—eighty-seven. The memory card had been empty before we arrived. I’ve taken eighty-seven pictures. What can I say? I’m a proud father.

I move the camera’s focus from the bundle to Alayna and take another. Click. I lower the camera then and study Alayna. Her eyes are closed, but her breathing is irregular so I know she’s only resting. She looks wiped, and rightly so. It’s been a long road to this moment. Though we’d wanted to try for a baby as soon as we got married, she’d just had a birth control injection, which lasted three months. Then it was more than a year of trying before we could conceive. Her doctor said it was common to have trouble after injections. Common or not, it wore on her. And me. Alayna obsessed about the reasons she wasn’t pregnant. I wondered if it was a consequence of my past. Or karma, even. It felt like a miracle when Alayna finally walked out of the bathroom and showed me the stick with the faint plus sign in its display window. It had been her birthday. There wasn’t any gift I could give her that could compete with the one we’d made together.

The pregnancy itself went well. She had the typical issues—morning sickness, sore breasts, moodiness. I’d wanted her to quit working at the club and leave Gwen in charge. Alayna had wanted to stay managing until she delivered. We compromised on part-time, and Alayna’s last day was a month before her due date. It gave us time to finish the nursery, which we’d decided to decorate in a children’s literature theme. Dorothy and the Tin Man make their way down the yellow brick road on one wall. Peter Rabbit scavenges Mr. McGregor’s garden on another. And the baby bedding features Alice in Wonderland characters.

Despite the last few weeks off, the whole thing has been tiring for Alayna, as to be expected. She’d barely gotten any sleep the last few nights. Then her contractions started just after midnight yesterday, which meant no more sleep for either of us. She labored through the day, and the baby wasn’t born until two-thirty this morning. I wish she would let the nursery have the baby so she could get some real sleep, but Alayna’s insistent on keeping her here. Not just in the room, but in her arms. She won’t let go of the sleeping bundle, which is understandable—and adorable—but every time the little creature stirs, so does Alayna.

I shift the camera back to our baby—my baby. Her face scrunches up and relaxes as if still getting used to the feel of air on her skin. I take another dozen or so rapid shots, attempting to capture each and every twist of her features. She’s amazing and beautiful, and there’s nothing like this bubble bursting inside my chest at the wonder of her.

Then why am I still holding this camera and not her?

Quietly, so as not to disturb my wife, I set my camera on the table and reach for my child instead. Alayna moves slightly at the sudden absence from her arms, but her eyes don’t open. Hopefully she’s finally drifting off.

Good. Daddy and daughter bonding moment to commence.

I smile down at my sweet girl, pushing away the blanket to better see her face. Her color has paled since she was bright red and squalling in the nursery during her bath. I’d studied each and every part of the tiny creature then—counted her toes and fingers, discovered the dark birthmark at the small of her back. Then had been the examining. Now, I’m simply swept away with infatuation.

I stroke her impossibly soft cheek and trace the curve of her small puckered lips. Instinctively, my body begins to sway to a melody I hear only in my head. I hum a bit. The words dance in my head, and a few lines slip out in my awkward tenor voice, “All of me loves all of you.”

There couldn’t be a more fitting motif for the moment. I’m completely and totally in love.

“Keep singing,” Alayna says from her bed, surprising me.

I feel my neck warm. “You weren’t supposed to hear that. And you should be sleeping.”

“But I’m not sleeping. And I did hear that. So keep singing.”

It’s near impossible to deny any request of hers, but this one I do. “Maybe later. Right now, since the easy part of all of this is over,” I meet her glance, “we should get to the hard work. It’s time to pick a name.”

We’d thought of many over the course of the pregnancy, and when we’d learned we were likely having a girl, I thought we’d finally settle on something. Alayna wanted to use her mother’s name—Louise—for a middle name, but she could never agree on a suitable first name. “I need to see her first,” she’d say. “I want her to have a name that fits her.”

And so here we are with a perfect, beautiful, nameless child.

Alayna’s tired eyes narrow at my remark. “You think all this was easy?”

I gesture for her to scoot over so I can join her on the bed. “I meant for you. It was extremely hard for me to hear you call me those things that you did—especially near the end. But I was trying to not make a deal of it.”

“Hudson!”

I really don’t think it was easy. The doctor had used that term, supposedly in comparison to other births she had attended, but as far as I am concerned, labor at all is hell. I’ve always known my wife is strong and capable of anything, yet I’d never imagined the exertion and endurance that would be required to push a seven-pound, three-ounce human being into the world. I’d also never felt so helpless. Of all the things I can do for Alayna, this thing she had to do primarily on her own.

I settle into the space she’s made for me and kiss her forehead. “I’m teasing and you know it, precious. I’m grateful and proud of everything you went through to get our baby here. It’s the best gift you could ever give me, and there are no words to express how amazed I am with you.”

Her face softens, and her eyes start to water. Again. God, I love this woman, but pregnancy turned her tears into overdrive. Today, I understand it. It’s natural to cry when in pain. And when the doctor first placed our scrawny, naked baby on Alayna’s chest, I admittedly shed a tear or two as well.

Now, however, I’d prefer we’d not cry—because if she starts, I’m sure to follow. I glance at the clock. “As much as I could go on with how much I adore you, Alayna, it’s now almost seven. Our families are going to ascend on us soon, and I’d love to have a name for her before they do. Though Baby Girl Pierce does have a certain ring to it, I’m certain she’d be made fun of at school.” I lay a kiss on our sleeping daughter’s nose and return her to her mother’s arms before grabbing the tablet off the side table.

Alayna looks adoringly at her bundle and then leans her head against my shoulder. “Then look up the baby name site and let’s get deciding. Otherwise your mother will take it upon herself to come up with a name and that’s not happening.”

We’d made a conscious decision not to have any family invited to the hospital until the baby was born. Too much drama, Alayna had said, and I agreed. Since the baby was born in the middle of the night, I’d waited until six a.m. to make the phone calls. Mirabelle and Adam have to get both their four-year-old daughter, Aryn, and their one-year-old son, Tyler, dressed and ready before coming over, and my parents are slow-moving in the morning, so that will delay them. I figure that gives us until around eight to have our last minutes alone with our daughter before she meets the rest of the Crazies, as Alayna likes to call my family.

From the bookmarks on the browser, I open the website we’ve used as our search guide and select the link for girl’s names. The most popular ones pop up in a list on the screen. Charlotte, Sophia, Amelia, Emma.

“I heard Celia Werner got engaged.”

I glance down at my wife. “How do you always ruin the most beautiful moments with her name?” I know why she thought of her—Celia had been a name on the screen.

“Shut up. I haven’t mentioned her since before we got married.” She’s right; she hasn’t. Celia hasn’t been a part of our lives in any way, shape or form since the last time I’d seen her at the loft. She’d kept her end of the bargain, ceasing all contact with me and my family. And I’d kept my end—Warren Werner is still the head of Werner Media.

For a time after our engagement, Celia’s name came up in counseling. She’d been a contributing source of much of our conflict, and it was inevitable that she’d be discussed. But eventually all of us agreed—Alayna, Lucy and I—that talking about Celia further kept her around when she didn’t need to be. We didn’t talk about her after that, and, eventually, I didn’t think about her either. Well, not often.

“Anyway,” Alayna says now. “Your mother told me.”

“Of course she did.” She told me as well. She always did love to stir the pot, even sober. Though Sophia has long lost her love for Celia—rarely mentioning her anymore, thank God—she hasn’t exactly warmed to Alayna. She hasn’t warmed to anyone, for that matter, except for possibly my father. The two seem to find redemption in each other, even when no one else can see it. Perhaps Alayna and I are like them in the eyes of others.

“Thoughts?” She’s not testing me for an emotional reaction. There are no secrets between us anymore. Particularly not about my old partner in crime.

“Regarding Celia? Good for her.” It’s as much attention as I will give to the woman on the birthday of my first child. It doesn’t mean I don’t wonder about her on occasion, or that I didn’t pause when I heard her news. Part of me hopes her romance is genuine. Wouldn’t that be ironic?

But it’s entirely possible the engagement is simply a scam or her parents’ arrangement. She’s likely still cold and unfeeling. Maybe even unhappy and miserable.

I won’t lie. There’s a small part of me that wishes for the latter. Okay, a big part of me.

“Yeah, good for her.” Alayna’s tone seems indifferent, and I sense the bitterness she once carried for Celia has been replaced with other things. Things that matter. The prestige of running New York’s Hippest Club of the year, according to the Village Voice. Two anniversaries celebrated with a husband who loves her more than could ever be expressed. A newborn baby who coos and clicks in her sleep.

Alayna stares down again at her pink-hatted bundle. I think she could look at her baby forever. I could look at her looking at her baby forever. Jesus, I’m getting mushy in my old age.

I turn back to the tablet and click for advanced search. I enter a meaning, curious if any names will pop up. A list of over fifty does. I scan through them, my breath catching on one. I click the name to read the definition further.

“Alayna,” I say, still not believing my eyes, “did you know your name means precious?”

She’s taken aback. “Seriously?”

“Precious; sun ray. See?” I show her the tablet where the definition is clear as day.

She blinks at the screen. “Did you know that?”

“I had no idea.” I’m not sure if she realizes how often I’ve referred to her as the light in my darkness. Her name is completely fitting for her. For the woman that would be mine.

“It was fated,” Alayna says with the sweetest grin. “I was meant to be yours. You knew what I was about before I did.”

I can’t stand it. She’s too beautiful. Too perfect. I look back at the tablet. “You’re giving me too much credit.”

“No, I’m not.”

And, I think, maybe she’s right. Maybe we were fated or destined to find each other. Maybe everything that happened to me and Celia and Alayna was all meant to happen, each painful part playing out in order to lead us to our personal happy ending.

Or maybe it’s just coincidence. And does it really matter? It’s a happy ending either way.

Our baby stirs again, this time with more determination. “She’s waking up.” I watch her tilt her head toward Alayna, her little mouth open and searching.

“Hey, she’s rooting,” Alayna exclaims.

“It looks to me like she’s trying to suck your breast.” I tickle my baby’s cheek with my finger. “I get it, little girl. I like sucking her breasts too.”

Alayna laughs. “That’s called rooting, you dork.”

“It’s not called rooting when I do it.”

“No, that’s called awesome,” she says, looking up at me with that devilish grin of hers, the one that can make me instantly hard if I’m not careful.

Again, I have to look away. “Stop it. You’re going to make me horny, and the nurse said six days.”

“Six weeks.”

I sigh. “I suppose I heard wrong.”

“Yeah, that’s it.”

I return my focus to the screen in front of me and scan further down the list. “What do you think about the name Mina?”

“Mina? Mina Louise.” She repeats it, testing it out. “I like it. What does it mean?”

“Precious. In Sanskrit.” I gaze down at my daughter—my daughter!—and watch her fight to open her eyes, her little lids squeezing tight and relaxing before they pop open. “Look at her. What do you think? Does it fit?”

“She’s certainly precious.”

“Like her mother.”

I toss the iPad to the end of the bed and wrap my arms around my wife and child. For someone who once felt very little, I am now overwhelmed with emotions. My heart is full to the brim, overflowing with love. So much love.

Sometimes it’s hard to even remember that I ever was another man. That I ever was anything but this one—a man who will fill a camera with newborn baby pictures and tear up as his precious daughter opens her eyes. A man who found sunshine in his dark existence when he deserved it least.

Alayna Withers changed everything for me. I can easily divide my life into two parts—before her and after. The person I was in that time long ago and the person I became when my eyes first found hers.

Though that isn’t entirely accurate. Before her, I never really lived. So there is only after.

I begin and end with her. It’s as simple and as profound as that. Our worlds have entwined and wrapped around each other’s completely. They’ve shaped into something new and fixed and whole. There is no longer her story or mine, but now and always, only ours.

THE END