Chapter 15

I brought her to the hospital…obviously…where they brought her into the room where they went about delivering babies or whatever and got her all situated. They told me to put on one of those doctor aprons and tie my hair back and wear a face thing…hahahaha…I'm great with medical terminology.

She was having contractions for what seemed like forever. I held her hand and talked to her as she went through random fits of either screaming at me or being calm and laughing and saying how happy she was. Finally she like…had the baby or whatever you want to say. It was kinda…weird. Well that just goes to show you how much of a guy I am…but then anyway we heard crying and the doctor telling us that we had a daughter. It happened very fast. He let me cut the umbilical cord and let me hold her for just a moment before taking her away to have her checked out and cleaned up and everything and then brought Amber to a separate room and gave her some drugs because they said she'd be in a lot of pain and they gave her a sedative…which I was sure she didn't need. She was tired anyway. Who wouldn't be? She'd been in labor for almost ten hours.

I sat in a chair next to her bed and talked to her for a little while. She was being incoherent and mumbling about flying duckies so I just nodded my head or whatever it took to show her that I was listening. Then, right before she fell asleep, said something clearly. She said:

"Kane…I really want a pet duck."

And so I held her hand and promised that I'd buy a duck for her. And then she said: "Kane, look. It's after midnight. It's Valentine's Day…we met a year ago. And today is our daughter's birthday."

I smiled when she said that. "Happy Valentine's Day, honey…" I said to her. But she had fallen asleep.

I stood up and paced back and forth in the room. I looked out the window. It was raining. I liked the rain.

"Oh shit," I muttered, remembering something. I walked out of the room to a pay phone. There were no quarters so I called Collect and saved a buck or two as they say. Heh. I dialed Amber's father.

…ring ring…

"Who the hell is calling me this early?"

I laughed. "That's a nice way to answer the phone, Mike."

"Oh…hey Kane…" I heard him yawning. I laughed again.

"What if that was someone business-wise that wanted to talk to you?"

"Eh…I own the hotel. They know not to call me this early. I'm silly like that. So wait…why are you calling, again?"

"It's Amber-"

"What's wrong?" When I heard the urgency in his voice I felt bad.

"Mike, Mike, calm down. We're at the hospital. She just fell asleep. She gave birth to your granddaughter."

He laughed, sounding relieved and happy. "Oh Jesus that's great!" he laughed more. "Oh god I'm not old enough to have grandchildren." He paused. "Should I come by there?"

"Nah, wait till tomorrow. I just wanted to let you know. Okay?"

"Yeah…thanks Kane."

We said our goodbyes and hung up. I dialed again. Mark this time. He answered his phone a bit differently.

"So did you think of a middle name yet?" he answered.

"No…so I guess I don't have to tell you," I had called his cell phone, knowing that he would've have been home. "So when can you come visit?"

Mark sighed. "I dunno…we're in Dallas tomorrow, and then…um I don't remember. Gimme a few days, okay?"

"Yeah sure."

"Well then get back to your woman. Tell her I said hi. Bye."

"Bye."

And then we hung up. Amber was still sleeping, I knew, and I was hungry, so instead of returning to her right away I took the elevator down to the ground floor to get coffee. The cafeteria was open all day, and so in there I bought a cookie and some coffee. I ate the cookie there before I made my way back upstairs. Or course she was still sleeping. Angelic looking again. I sat down in my chair again and just looked on, remembering her reminder. A year earlier I would've been sitting in a dark hotel room, at that time of night probably absent-mindedly watching infomercials or late night talk show reruns. On a special occasion I may have ordered a movie on PPV. I may have gotten a little bit of sleep before either boarding another plane or getting up to work out. All I ever wanted to do when I was depressed was lift weights. Heh…that's why I have so much muscle. But when I was in Vermont I would jog also. Fun stuff.

But what did that mean anymore? I'd met Amber and everything had changed for me.

I looked to her again. She slept, on the side, arms over her stomach. I never would've thought when I had been at that party that the sad girl would actually dance with me. Furthermore I would never have expected that a year later to the day we would have a daughter.

I sighed, thinking of things we'd have to do over the next few days. I would have to call Vince, tell him to give her another month or so to get back in shape and let Claudette get used to being human. I'd have to go to the apartment and monitor all the stuff that I knew was going to be sent. And I had to go find someplace where I could find a duck for Amber.

Get used to being human…I laughed at loud. I had a daughter. It was so hard to believe it. I couldn't make it seem right in my head. But it felt right in my heart.

Suddenly all I wanted to do was hold her and kiss her and cuddle with her. I wondered if I was able to do such a thing. I made my way out down the hall to the nurse's station. Everything was calm and quiet. And I can specifically remember the floor being really shiny.

One of the nurses looked up as I approached. I recognized her from when Amber had been in labor. And she seemed to remember me, too (who wouldn't remember a long haired seven foot man with burn scars?). "What do you need, Mr. Callaway?" she asked.

Because of my height I was able to lean down on my elbows on the tall counter of the desk. "I was wondering if I could like…hold my daughter, even though it's really early."

She laughed, I suppose at the way I asked her. "Yeah, I guess. C'mon." She brought me down to the end of the hall where they had the big window and all the little babies in there in cribs set up like a baby city. I watched as she unlocked the door and went to one of the cribs and picked up the baby and brought her back out into the corridor. "Support her head," she said softly, and went up on her toes to put Claudette in my arms as gently as she could. I must've looked so silly with such a small child.

"Can I bring her back to the room?" I asked her. She nodded and I walked slowly and smoothly, to not disturb her, back to Amber's room. My eye caught a huge clock on the wall and I was amused to see that three hours had already passed.

I wasn't really paying close attention to Claudette until I had seated myself again, when I looked down at her. She was sleeping. And warm…so warm. Her skin was so soft, too. Almost too soft. The skin of a newborn baby. It reminded me of what I had read from Anne Rice of Lasher from the Lives of the Mayfair Witches.

It was a feeling unlike any other. Stronger than any sadness, stronger than happiness…stronger than even how I'd felt when I had realized that I was in love with Amber. It was stronger than anything I'd felt ever. And it was the realization that I was a father. Officially. And nothing could take that away from me.

After a few moments Claudette's eyes fluttered open. My stomach twisted for a moment, afraid that she'd start to cry, but instead she giggled and stared up at me in wonder.

I'd heard somewhere that all babies were born with blue eyes, but I hoped totally that they would stay like that. My mother had blue eyes. Amber's mother, too…and for what it was worth I had a blue looking eyes because the pigment was all fucked up if that meant anything. But I hoped that Claudette would have, even by the rarest scientific possibility, blue eyes, because that would be so damn pretty. I loved blue eyes. Well most guys did…but still. That would be great.

Claudette stared at me. I stared at her, mesmerized. I felt my heart swelling to its maximum. And then as I reached to go feel the golden tuft of hair on her head she grabbed, or tried to grab, one of my fingers, but could fit her hand around it.

I don't know why I was so surprised. I must've seen it a billion times in movies but still it caught me off guard. And if my heart had been swelling before, then her grabbing my finger was the needle that caused it to burst.

My eyes must have filled with tears because shortly after that I started to cry. It was perfection. Total perfection. And here was this little human that I'd created.

"Kane…you're crying…"

I looked up quickly toward the soft voice to see Amber's eyes open, staring at me. I laughed softly. "How long have you been awake?"

She shrugged. "Ten minutes?" she looked at Claudette and smiled wildly. "Lemme hold her!"

 I wiped the tears away and stood, leaning over the side of the bed to place Claudette into Amber's arms. If Amber had smiled more her like…face would've fallen off. She sat up and held Claudette, looking down at her. And then her eyes filled with tears also, just like mine had done. She played with Claudette's hair and her little hands, rubbing her tiny fingernails. She was on the verge of sobbing. "Kane I'm so happy," she whispered to me. I felt like crying again.

"I am too, Amber."

She sighed. "We still have to give this girl a middle name."

Claudette yawned.

"Yeah…" I picked Claudette back up. "We'll think about that later. For now let's let her sleep."