Danny woke up because there was no one next to him. He'd gotten so used to sleeping next to someone – something that he never thought he'd have. There was something about the warmth of Lindsay's body that made him reach for her even on nights like this, where it was so hot that breathing was exhausting, and he had to sleep in boxer shorts (if that) or he'd burn up.
So when he realized that there was no one next to him, Danny rolled out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Blearily, he glanced around, and, finding no one, headed to the sink and turned on the cold water. He splashed it onto his face, the cold droplets catching to the stubble on his face and dropping to his bare chest. He scrubbed himself with a cold, wet hand, and cleared his throat.
He headed to Lucy's room, his feet slipping a bit on the hardwood floors. His eyes grew accustomed to the damply dark light of the apartment. He eased open the door, and squinted at the crib in the corner. He had learned to watch for her breathing instead of attempting to search for the shape of her little body.
When he couldn't detect any visible movement in the crib, he moved closer to the crib, careful not to make a sound.
He peered down into the crib and found that there was only a rumpled blanket and a pacifier. His face crumpled in confusion. He turned around swiftly, his heart suddenly pounding. He froze in the room until he heard the softest whisper from the open window –
"I think that might be Orion … Which means that the big dipper might be ..."
Danny crept over to the opened window and leaned out onto the fire escape where, in the neon-tinted light of the city's glow, Lindsay was sitting with Lucy in her lap, pointing to the sky.
Lucy's fingers were in her mouth, her eyes wide at the wild, hot summer wind.
Lindsay was squinting up at the smoggy sky, two fingers tapping her chin in pensive concentration.
"Linds?" Danny asked.
Lindsay turned to him, a guilty look on her face. She tightened her grip on Lucy and pulled the baby higher into her lap with one arm. She tucked her foot underneath the baby's bottom and sat, one leg crossed, the other hanging off the fire escape.
"What'cha doin' out here?" Danny asked sleepily, glancing down at the cars six stories below, moving so quickly in rays of red and yellow that they looked like lines of light. He crawled out onto the fire escape and sat behind Lindsay. He noticed that she was only wearing her soft white babydoll - the one that floofed out in pleated rays when she spun in a circle – and her underwear.
Danny sat behind her, letting one of his legs droop between the bars of the fire escape. He wrapped one arm around Lindsay and the baby, letting his palm rest on Lucy's stomach.
"Ah!" Lucy called to the hum of the city night, pulling her two fingers from her mouth. She looked up at Lindsay in all of her tottering, shaky, new baby motions, and laughed.
Lindsay looked down at her daughter, face contorted. Danny, leaning to the side, noticed how the red light of the neon billboard across the street caught in the troubled lines of her face.
"Babe?" he asked, rubbing her shoulder with his free hand.
Lindsay looked up in front of her, at the rows upon rows of buildings and alleys, and sighed. "We're stargazing."
Danny glanced up at the sky, where a few brave stars pierced the haze of the city.
Lindsay leaned back, resting the back of her head on her husband's shoulder. She pursed her lips and squinted up at the smogginess above her. "You think it matters?" she asked slowly.
"What matters?" Danny asked, bending to plant a slow, open-mouthed kiss on the exposed skin of her lily-white neck, which had been calling to him in all of its silky glowing.
Lindsay closed her eyes and smiled a ghosty smile. "My favorite part of summer back home was the stars … They were like fireworks that lasted all night." Her forehead furrowed for just a moment, and she opened her eyes. "Lucy doesn't have stars, Danny."
Danny paused from his work on Lindsay's neck, and glanced down at his daughter. One of Lindsay's slender fingers was captured in two pudgy hands, and Lucy was entertaining herself by drooling all over it.
Danny laughed a short, quiet laugh and said, "Doesn't look like she's too torn up."
Lindsay smacked Danny's leg playfully with her free hand and laid back against him.
"Sometimes I think we should have raised her in Montana …" Lindsay sighed.
"Does that matter, though?" Danny asked, returning to his work on Lindsay's neck. He licked the salty, soft skin, making Lindsay laugh before she thought about his question.
"How do you mean?" she asked.
"She's got us wherever we raise her, right?" he said, shrugging a shoulder. He planted a kiss on Lindsay's cheek and patted Lucy's belly.
Lindsay smiled and tapped her trapped finger on Lucy's mouth. Lucy laughed, a sound that seemed to ring across the rooftops of the city, and to the tiny family on a fire escape above the busy streets, the laugh was all that mattered.