Hush little baby don't say a word
momma's gonna buy you a Mo'ckin'bird
Samantha would rock her baby doll back and forth for hours, singing to it and feeding it and even sometimes, when Mommy wasn't home,
she would teach it.
The alphabet was her favorite - and she would make sure her baby knew it just as good as she did. She hated numbers though, so her baby didn't have to learn those.
Nobody needed to count anyway, right?
It's favorite story was the same as hers; The Velveteen Rabbit. Samantha had asked her mommy for one like it once - for her baby doll, of course - but she never got one.
That was ok though, because she still had...
she still had him.
His name was Nathan, and sometimes Samantha would call him by it - singing about Mockingbirds and diamond rings, like one she might wear one day.
She thinks that she has years before that'll ever happen - before marriage, or a real house,
or a real baby Nathan.
But really,
Samantha is 28 years old.
She had been accepted to Oxford college for her outstanding marks in creative writing and literature; and the funds her parents had collected were more than enough to cover at least the first two years. Her parents called every night at least twice, because England was a long way away from New Jersey.
During her fifth semester, Samantha met Foster - a Junior with a major in microbiology and a minor in either religion or psychology; she could never remember.
They were married after only fourteen months, mostly because Foster was graduating early, and Samantha had plans to transfer to a publishing company in Germany; marriage, they decided, would make the move easier.
Three years later, Samantha was hit while walking home from the library - the driver wasn't drunk, but young and inexperienced and...well...
not watching. Not seeing.
"It was too dark," he had said, head in his hands - which were coated with blood, dry and flaking.
And Foster never pressed charges, because she would have wanted it that way.
Samantha had suffered massive head trauma, and Foster cried his first night in the hospital beside his wife
who couldn't
remember
who he was.
"It's amazing that she's even walking, Mr. River. We're never going to get her back."
That summer, Foster re-married, and rarely visited Samantha at her parents' home.
Then Samantha started writing again; sometimes her mother would send Foster copies in the mail, "for memory's sake".
But one day, the story she sent was
theirs.
It was a three page recollection of their first few months together: their first date, first kiss, first night - even their plans for the future.
Right down to the accident;
and he was in love again.
He spent four months back in New Jersey with her - and for a while, he had her back. They even made love once or twice before
before
she forgot everything.
Without her memories, they had nothing - so Foster bought his last plane ticket home to Germany,
and never even knew that Samantha was
pregnant.
He came three months early, and she named him Nathan River, because she loved that name; she even had a baby doll named Nathan, she told doctors before her caesarian.
And Samantha screamed and kicked when they took him - she just couldn't understand that he wasn't breathing.
Her mother - Nate's grandmother, never let him out of her sight; spending hours beside the incubator, singing;
just like she knew Samantha would, when it was time to bring him home.
But the first time mother and son were re-united, she was quiet - holding him close and rocking, but never singing. Her mother was worried, ready to act in case something was
triggered.
Samantha started to cry, and looked up at her mother with red swollen eyes
and a tear that rolled down her face to what was undoubtedly
a smile.
"Mommy.....he's breathing. Hear it? Listen, mom - he's....he's beautiful. Nate's beautiful."
They brought him home that week, wrapped in crisp white cotton that exaggerated white-blond hair and pale skin.
Samantha would rock her baby back and forth for hours, singing to him and feeding him and even sometimes, when she was feeling strong enough,
she would teach him.
And if that mock'in'bird don't sing, momma's gonna buy you a diamond ring.....