Page 115 of This Love
Lots of people in colored clothes looked at me as I passed them in the halls. They smiled and brushed their hands against my shoulder.
I wanted to go faster and, despite the pain, almost jumped out of the wheelchair to run again. But then we turned down a hall, and I saw the people from the picture.
The man who leaned his head against mine. Tucker Giddings.
The one with the graying hair. My father. Marcus Roberts.
Then a small woman with gray curls. Gram.
She held a bundle in her arms.
I didn’t care about the pain anymore. I tossed the bag to the side and launched from the wheelchair.
“Whoa, Ava!” someone behind me said, but I ignored them. I ran again, energy sparking through me.
When I reached them, I stopped. I didn’t look at the other people. They didn’t matter.
Only this one did.
He was wrapped in a white blanket with pink and blue stripes. His tiny face showed beneath a stretchy hat.
He opened his eyes. I knew those eyes. My whole body pricked with recognition. As he watched me, his mouth opened in a long, easy yawn.
I smiled, my body calming, the alarm bells no longer ringing in my ears. This was where I was supposed to be.
“Back down you go,” someone said, and I was pressed back into the wheelchair.
Tucker bent down. “You want to hold him?”
I nodded, still looking into the tiny eyes.
Then he was in my arms. I tingled everywhere. My belly. My chest. My shirt got more wet.
I knew him. I knew him with every part of my body.
They wheeled me into the room I’d run from, but I could only stare at his blue eyes. My eyes. We were the same.
Everyone seemed to be crying. My father. My husband. Gram. But not me.
And not this baby.
We could only look at each other.
There was no way I would ever not know that he was mine.
Epilogue: Ava
The screen in front of me went black for a moment. I started to get up, thinking the video was done, but Rosie whined and put her paw on my leg.
“I can’t go yet?” I asked her.
Rosie left her paw in place.
I settled back down. “Well, all right.”
The blackness blinked into color and sound. Okay, yes. There was another one.
It was me again, this time with longer hair. I lifted my hand to my shorter style. I wasn’t sure which one was better.
