"She wants to see you," Molly – Leah's erratic mother – said when she appeared in the waiting room ten long hours after their arrival to this too-big and too-unfamiliar hospital.
Daryl shot to his feet. "The doctor said the baby wasn't breathing right –"
"Just a little scare." Molly was obviously exhausted, had just met her first grandchild, and still managed to look at Daryl with total, unquestionable contempt. "Leah will have to keep a close eye on her, but she should be fine."
"We'll both keep an eye on her. You said she wants to see me? She got the baby with her?"
"Of course she has the baby with her. Go."
Henry clapped Daryl on the shoulder and Daryl started walking. He knew the way to the room. He'd paced to it and back a thousand times.
One of those times he'd heard Leah screaming. An awful scream, more animal than human.
Down the white halls, across the green tile and past people in slacks and lab coats. There was the door. He thought about it, decided to knock, heard someone answer, not Leah. He opened the door and there she was, Leah, lying in bed. Holding something. Her hair was pinned back and some strands still stuck to her face, twice as pale as Molly's. But she smiled at him. And she bounced the pink bundle she held. "'Bout time you showed up."
He took a shaky breath. "Didn't 'spect you to keep me waitin' so long." He went to her, passing and ignoring a nurse on the way, and stood over the bed. Swallowed. Because there it was. There she was. The product of alcohol and cigarettes, of nine months of fighting and swearing and sex, the reason behind his house, the ring he kept in his bedside table, the will he'd let Leah write up. There was his daughter. Closed eyes and swollen lips. Little, little fists poking out from her blanket. Small, tiny and fragile, six pounds, six ounces, just the barest fuzz of blonde on her head.
"What do you think?" Leah whispered.
Daryl should have talked but he just nodded and cleared his throat.
Leah giggled a little. She wasn't much of a giggler, it must have been the drugs. She lifted the bundle – their baby – about an inch in the air. "Hold her."
"No, no, I . . ."
"Dixon. Hold your daughter."
"I don't . . ."
"Support her head and don't drop her. It's that simple."
So he bent down and slid his arm under the baby, slowly. His arm was too big for her. He rose up, lifted her, with her head tucked in the crook of his elbow. She nestled there just fine, right against his chest, undisturbed. No, not undisturbed, maybe. She'd opened her eyes, opened them just enough for Daryl to notice the blue in them.
"See?" Leah dug her shoulders into her pillows. "Not hard."
Daryl began to sway back and forth. Rocking her. Rocking his baby. "Hey," he murmured, touching her hand, her fingers. "Hey, baby girl . . ."
She gurgled. Talking already. Would be just like her mom, probably, and him, yeah, she'd have an opinion about everything . . .
"It's starting . . ." said Leah.
"What?"
She was grinning, weakly, but it was there. "She's wrapping you around her finger as I speak . . ."
"Nah, she's just . . . she's just gettin' to know her old man. Ain't ya, Little Hellraiser? Yeah?"
She was holding his finger. God, his daughter. She had a good grip. No way she had a lung problem, she was a strong little thing. His daughter.
"I like Sydney," said her mother.
Daryl put his thumb over the baby girl's knuckles, gently, he'd be doing everything gently from now on. But he looked at Leah, sweaty, tired, so damn pretty. "For her name?"
"No. I like Sydney, Australia. I want to take a vacation. Yes, her name."
"Smartass . . ."
"What do you think?"
"Sydney Rose . . . Yeah, I like that. Sydney Rose Dixon? You like that, sweetheart?"
He could have sworn she tightened her hold on his finger.
