Chapter 9 - A Lot of Safe Helpers
On Grace’s fifth birthday, she asked why she did not have baby pictures with her father in the hospital.
I sat with her on the couch, a photo album open across our laps.
My mother was in the kitchen making pancakes for dinner because Grace believed birthdays suspended normal rules.
I turned to the first picture.
Me in bed.
Exhausted.
Hair messy.
Eyes swollen.
Grace on my chest.
My mother beside me, crying.
Nurse Evelyn in the background, smiling.
Dr. Miles half visible near the monitor.
I said, “Because when you were born, Mommy needed safe helpers.”
Grace touched the photo.
“Was Daddy not a safe helper?”
Children deserve truth scaled to their hands.
“No,” I said softly. “Not then.”
Grace looked at the picture again.
“But Grandma was.”
“Yes.”
“And the doctor?”
“Yes.”
“And the nurse?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Then I had a lot.”
I looked at the photo until tears blurred it.
“Yes, baby. You had a lot.”
She flipped the page.
There was the first picture of her tiny hand wrapped around my finger.
“Was I loud?”
“Very.”
“Good.”
May you like
I laughed.
“Very good.”
