Chapter 22: Five Minutes

I stopped at the foot of the bed.

"You asked for one look," I said. "Look."

Giacomo stared at Daisy in her yellow cardigan, and his mouth worked.

She stared back at him with his own dark eyes, and she did not cry.

"She's so big," he said.

"She's nearly three months. You'd know if you'd come."

"I know."

"You asked to see her. Is that all you want?"

He swallowed.

"I want to hold her."

"You held her once."

"I held her to make you sign," he said. "I want to hold her because she's mine."

I looked at him for a long time.

I thought of the council hall, and his hands hanging at his sides while he stared at the wall.

"You may hold her," I said. "Five minutes. I'll stand beside the bed, and I'll take her back when I say."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet."

I came around the bed and laid Daisy in the crook of his arm, with my hand under her back.

He was shaking so hard I didn't let go.

Daisy turned her head and looked at the bandage on his face.

Then she put her fist out and closed it on his finger.

Giacomo made a sound I had never heard from him in six years.

He bent his head over her and wept without any noise, and tears dropped on the yellow wool.

I watched.

I felt sorry for him, and it was a small, clean feeling, and it did not change a thing.

When five minutes had passed, I took her back.

"Now the rest of it," I said.

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