Chapter 11: Garavani, Boy

The neonatal unit was on the third floor, behind a glass wall, and you needed a bracelet to get through the door.

Teo had one. I stood outside the glass.

There were six small plastic cribs under warm lights, and in the second one lay a baby no longer than my forearm.

He wore a yellow knit hat that came down over his eyebrows.

A tube ran into his nose, and his fists were curled on either side of his face.

A card at the foot of the crib read: Garavani, Boy.

I put my hand flat against the glass.

I didn't make a sound.

He had a long upper lip and a little cleft in his chin, and when he yawned, I saw my own mouth.

I had looked at that mouth in the mirror my whole life.

"That's him," Teo said quietly, beside me.

"That's my son."

"I know."

"He has my father's chin."

"Then he'll be stubborn," Teo said.

My laugh broke in the middle and turned into something else.

I pressed my forehead to the glass beside my hand.

"Cece."

"I'm all right."

"You aren't."

"No. But I'm standing."

I heard a wheelchair on the linoleum behind us.

Delfina's mother pushed it, with her jaw set.

Delfina sat in it in a hospital gown with a blanket on her knees, and her hair had dried in damp curls against her forehead.

She looked ten years older than she had at the shower.

"Leave us," she told her mother. Her voice was hoarse. "Please, Mama. Just a minute."

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