She is here.
Wailing and screaming with beautiful,
beautiful little baby lungs
on my wife's chest.
My wife,
who is sweaty and probably very sore
and very, very exhausted.
She has never looked better.
I kiss her dark hair plastered to her forehead.
I kiss her lips, hard and fast,
because I love her for this gift that only she could give me,
even though there were some days before all this that she would beg me,
plead with me to go somewhere where I would be given a child.
But I couldn't do it.
And it's not because I thought she would eventually change her mind,
although she did.
It's not because I could never forgive myself if I left her alone,
although I couldn't.
It's because I knew that nothing anyone could give me
would feel as good as this feels,
right now,
watching them.
I knew it.
I smile at her and want so badly to tell her,
"I told you so."
But I don't.
Instead I cut our daughter's cord,
follow her to the bathroom (at Katniss' insistence) to watch her be cleaned,
watch my wife's eyes light up for the first time in literal years as she holds her to her breast.
And she thought she couldn't be a mother.
I want to tell her that people who aren't meant to be mothers
wouldn't be crying at the sight of their baby daughters,
or holding them to their chests as though they had done it their entire lives.
But I'm interrupted by her lullaby.
People who aren't meant to be mothers don't do that either.
My eyes burn with tears and I have to wipe them away
because the sight and sound of her singing to our daughter
is overwhelming.
She hasn't sung since she shot Coin.
Not in front of people, anyway.
Sometimes I would come home and hear her singing old folk songs to herself as she hung up our laundry to dry,
but she'd stop and get red in the face as soon as she heard me behind her.
But here she is.
Sweaty, and tired, and sore, and beautiful
and singing to her,
on purpose,
to comfort her.
It's working too,
because our baby girl snuggles closer to Katniss' bare chest
and hushes her crying.
She looks as though she might fall asleep,
but then, all of a sudden,
as though she stubbornly had to witness the world this very instant,
she opens her eyes.
And I think I might cry again
because they are mine.
Katniss stops singing and just looks at her.
We are both filled with awe, I think.
That and pure adoration.
The doctor has left our room,
and it's too late for visitors.
So I close the door,
open the window just a little,
and huddle around my family
to get some rest.
Well,
maybe we'll just sit and look at her until the sky is orange
and Haymitch comes knocking.
And maybe when I find the courage to speak we'll name her,
a good strong name
(because she's bound to have Katniss' strong will).
But for now I simply huddle,
gazing between my wife and my daughter,
letting myself just sit in the moment and feel.
What I feel is love.