And at four in the morning, Patrice and I helped Ashley open her gown and lay her daughter on her bare chest, skin to skin, under a warm blanket.
The blanket was white and pale yellow. Ashley had brought it in her hospital bag.
She saw me notice it. She started crying again.
I stayed three nights. Daniel got home on the second evening and found his wife and his mother asleep in two chairs, side by side, in front of an incubator.
On the third night, Ashley said something she’d obviously been working up to.
“I was horrible to you. I think I was scared of you. My mom has never been like you. I didn’t know what a mother-in-law was supposed to look like, so I decided you were the enemy before you could be.”
“You’ve had a very long week,” I said.
“No. Don’t let me off. I posted that thing about real family. I was wrong.”
The baby came home after nineteen days. Her name is Grace Linda.
Two weeks later Ashley put up a new post. A photo of Grace in the white and yellow blanket, asleep on my shoulder.
The caption said: “I said the delivery room was for real family only. I just didn’t know yet who my real family was.”
I don’t comment on Facebook much.
But I liked that one.
