Static crackles over the screen for a moment, before blackness replaces it. A time stamp appears in one corner: 5/3/14- 10:30 AM. The picture appears as blobs of color at first, but soon focuses to show a hospital room flooded with sunlight.
Lying in the rumpled bed, a tired-looking young woman with short, dark hair is talking to someone off-camera.
"…the shades, please? It's too bright in here." She seems to finally notice whoever is holding the camera, and pinches the bridge of her nose in ill-concealed exasperation.
"Alice, you really don't have to film me."
"Nonsense, dear!" a perky, female voice says from behind the camera. "It's not every day your first child is born!"
As if on cue, the bundle of blankets in the brunette's arms stirs and gurgles indistinctly. She touches it gently, and the barest trace of a smile replaces her irritated expression. Her lips move, but the camera is too far away to catch her words.
"Have you picked a name yet?" a male voice asks from just beyond the left side of the screen.
"Eleanor, Dad." The room dims somewhat, and slightly gangly-looking young man steps into view from the right. "Eleanor Calpurnia Beinecke."
"Nell," the new mother chimes in.
"Calpurnia?" This from the older man, who sounds more than a little incredulous.
His son shrugs.
"Wednesday said it's what she used to want to name her first daughter. And don't blame her," he laughs, "I snuck it onto the birth certificate while she was asleep."
The mother- Wednesday- rolls her eyes and continues whispering to baby Nell.
"Well," the camerawoman says feebly, "I think it's a perfectly lovely name. Eleanor Calpurnia. Just wonderful."
The young man wanders over to the bed and gazes down at the newborn. Smiling, he reaches down to stroke her tiny face. The camera zooms in on the family: mother, father, and daughter. The moment is picture-perfect, just begging to be used in a life insurance commercial.
Suddenly, the father looks at his wife and begins to chuckle. She reaches out and hits him on the back of the head, with (if his grimace is any gauge) surprising strength for someone still recovering from childbirth.
"What's funny, Lucas?" Alice asks.
"Your daughter-in-law."
Said daughter-in-law's eyes narrow. "It's just a poem."
"Oh, a poem, dear?" the new grandmother trills, her voice reaching new levels of excitement. "Which one?"
The viewer gets the impression, from the look Wednesday's giving her husband, that Lucas will be sleeping on the couch for a few nights. Apparently fighting to maintain composure, she addresses her mother-in-law.
"The poem I'm named after. It's a nursery rhyme. You know, 'Monday's child is fair of face,' et cetera?"
"But…isn't Wednesday's child full of woe?" Alice's enthusiasm falters.
"The only decent option in the poem," the young woman replies, pushing a strand of hair out of her face. "My parents always said they were glad there was one good line, because Mother had to name her firstborn after a day of the week. It's an old and complicated tradition."
Her husband pours himself a glass of water from the jug on the bedside table. "Yesterday was Thursday, ironically enough. What does that mean?"
"'Thursday's child has far to go,'" she recites impassively.
"But not today," Lucas says, leaning down to kiss her cheek.
"No, not today."
The camera focuses on them still, leaning against each other and gazing at their infant daughter. And then the screen goes black.
-
A/N: In case you were wondering, the full poem goes:
Monday's child is fair of face.
Tuesday's child is full of grace.
Wednesday's child is full of woe.
Thursday's child has far to go.
Friday's child is loving and giving.
Saturday's child must work for his living.
And the child that's born on the Sabbath day,
Is fair and wise and good and gay.
Charles Addams actually did pick Wednesday's name that way.