My daughter was born at 4:52 on a Tuesday morning, and the first person who held her, after me, was my mother-in-law.
I didn’t hand her over. Beverly just took her.
The nurse had laid Wren on my chest, all slippery and furious and perfect, and I was crying so hard I could barely see her. Roland was standing beside the bed with his phone in his hand. He’d been taking pictures. He’d been texting.
I didn’t know he’d texted his mother at 4:30 to tell her we were close.
I didn’t know she’d been sitting in the waiting room since three.
The door opened. Beverly Tran came in. Sixty-two years old, with her silver hair perfectly set and her pearls on, at five in the morning. She crossed the room in four steps and held out her arms.
“Oh, let me see her,” she said. “Let Grandma see.”
The nurse hesitated. She looked at me.
Before I could say anything, Beverly lifted my daughter off my chest.
Just like that. My skin was suddenly cold where Wren had been.
“Oh, she’s a Tran,” Beverly said. She held Wren up to the light from the window. “Look at that chin. That’s Roland’s chin. That’s his father’s chin.” She looked over at me. “She doesn’t look like you at all, dear. Isn’t that lucky?”
Roland laughed.
I didn’t.
I lay in that hospital bed with blood still on the sheets, with my arms empty, and watched my mother-in-law walk my six-minute-old daughter to the window to show her the sunrise.
“Roland,” I said. “Can I have her back?”
He looked at me. Then at his mother.
“In a minute, Simone,” he said. “Mom’s been waiting all night.”
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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