One
I sat down one day and looked through the photo albums I had shelved. For the first time in many years, I actually looked at these pictures. Some of them were very old now. In the far left album, there were pictures of me when I first immigrated here. As I continued flipping through the pages of snapshots, I began to remember so much that I had forgotten or perhaps wished to forget.
I remember the day she was born, my daughter. After ten hours of labor, the doctors placed a smiling baby girl in my arms. Even then, she had thick curly hair that seemed to flow in all directions. Her chubby cheeks shook when she laughed. I remember being amazed that this little thing in my arms could laugh so much, so much that even the dour nurse who refused to get me water smiled too.
The pride on my ex-husband's face when he walked in and picked her up erased some of the troubles we had dealt with. In that moment we were happy again, a flashback to our younger years…before everything happened. That giggling girl reached up her tiny fists and extended little fingers to caress her father's face. His eyes lit up and a smile broke out on his face.
He set her back in my arms. I remember that right then she grabbed his finger and held. She already loved him even at the age of one hour. I cradled her closer to me, reveling in the soft, smooth silkiness of her skin. The light touch of breath warmed me, reminding me that I had to make sure that breath never stopped. I was a mother.
Finally, her eyelids began to droop, her face a picture of serenity. My daughter was a thumb sucker I thought. Her face puckered up then, forehead nearly creasing in deep though. My daughter would be intelligent; she already had forehead wrinkles. I laughed at this notion, at how ridiculous I know I must sound to the nurses and to my husband.
I almost did not want to let go when the nurse gently picked her up to place her in a crib. I was afraid that they would take that pink baby away from me. So when they started to wheel her to the nursery, I protested, adamantly refusing to let her out of my sight. If she disappeared for just a moment, it might be like she never existed or as if she was a dream. They relented and left the crib next to my hospital bed, close enough that I could reach in and touch her.
Later after both my baby and I had slept, my ex-husband and I crowded around the crib. She was still sleeping, thumb firmly stuck in her mouth. Reaching in to touch her, I suddenly realized that we had not named her. I didn't know why then and I still do not, but for some reason the fact that my daughter was nameless bothered me in an indescribable way.
"We need to name her," I said, whispering so she would not wake from her baby dreams.
"I know…"
We had thought about Sophie, Jessica, or Sarah, but none of those sounded right. None of them could grasp her little fingers reaching in the air or that laughter. They sounded off and we sat there for a few minutes, contemplating the important matter of naming.
After a few more minutes, she woke up and grabbed her father's finger again. He grinned again and looked at me.
"Let's call her Cristina."