surprise this spring // japhera baby

The hospital is dark, a world of flickering light bulbs and footsteps that never seem to cease. The waiting room itself smells faintly of burned toast mixed with the ever-present sting of disinfectant. The building is alive, the hum of monitors and whispering voices coming together like the heaving breaths of a monster. (And I, of course, have been swallowed whole.) It's strange to think that my mother walked these halls, my father by her side and my elder brother just an infant in his arms. Did they know, when they followed a nameless nurse down the hallway and into a dimly lit room? Did any of them suspect that she would never again emerge, that the sliding doors would never part to let her through again? I was born on this very stone foundation, a name tagged baby who never should have been born. The five of us, some say, were a death-wish from the start. And yet my mother lifted her chin and vowed to fight until the end. I was born here, and she died here, and now I'm sitting on a plastic chair and swinging my legs and dreading the night to come.

It seems a world ago that I was curled in the armchair in Daisy's nursery, a book still open in my lap. I'd been reading in the yellow glow of her nightlight, listening to her sleeping before I'd drifted away. When Sephera's screams awoke me, it was almost midnight. Hurriedly, I'd pulled a coat from where it lay, discarded on my bed, kissed Daisy's forehead and instructed Tacara that she was in charge. The night is cold, but my boots wore a path in the snow, determined and unafraid. As I arrived on the doorstep, however, sickness overwhelmed me and I leaned against the bricks, their rough surface digging into my skin and reminding me that I am human. (Ever so human, painfully so.) I don't remember the day I was born, but I do remember arriving here in Jamarion's wake after yet another fight, and returning home as he nursed yet another broken bone. My mother's face is a mystery to me, but I can easily recall the moments I spent waiting as Lyana was being tested, Tacara's twisted ankles were being nursed or Marina's cuts assessed, biting my fingernails and hoping.

To me, this place is one of pain and of waiting. (One of never ever being hurt enough, or sick enough, to warrant the attention it had to offer.) It seems so wrong that today is supposed to be a miracle. That Sephera is due to walk down the front steps with a baby in her arms and a smile on her face in just hours time, and that by the time dawn breaks and sunlight floods the district, everyone will be celebrating. Even as I remind myself of this, I glance around the waiting room and cannot comprehend the thought that nothing terrible is happening to the ones I love, not today. The strangers around me, however, hold tears in their eyes and regret in their hearts, and I know that not everybody is waiting to see new life tonight. I stare at the words of my book until they blur, too deep in thought to attempt to read the story. Within minutes, the nurse appears. "Mr. Goravich," she says, and tired faces look at me, realization dawning on them. I shuffle uncomfortably in my seat. "Come this way, please."

I follow her, feeling venerable and small. Places like this - filled with a controlled kind of panic and anormal kind of loss remind me of how terrible things can be. And that although I have suffered, and sinned, many others struggle in ways where far more people are innocent. There is something far more dangerous than humanity out there, and it only takes a glance into the ward (I see a dying child laying lifeless in her bed, fingers clutching her mother's hand) to understand that. And yet the shrill cry of a baby echoing from the maternity rooms does it's utmost to reassure me that not everything has to be bleak, even in a place where night is equal to day and nothing ever sleeps. "Sephera," I whisper, moving to her bedside and feeling relief rush over me. I hug her tightly, and then take a step backwards. She looks like the same sweet girl I met years ago when my brother brought her home. She looks tired, but certainly not ill. Still, the tightness in my throat does not fade.

I think of the baby, ready and waiting to come into this world. My mind readily drifts to Daisy, in her cot back at home. I wonder if she has awoken - she sleeps so lightly that she often wakes herself - and promise myself that she's alright. At two years old, she's perfectly capable of soothing herself without her father by her side. Even so, I can't help but wonder if I should have brought her with me to spare myself the worry. Through my eyelashes, I watch Jamarion. He loves Sephera, I can see that so clearly as he sits beside her, that I sink into my seat, defeated. The child they are about to bring into the world is going to have something I never did, something Daisy never will. A mother and a father who raise them together, overflowing with love. I never met my daughter's mother - I know her name, and I have a polaroid photograph of her. Wendy Darling, and she looks so young. One day, I'll show Daisy, although I don't know how I'll explain to her that her mother couldn't look after her, that Lethe had to bring her to me. (I decided at the time that it didn't matter, that she was my daughter and that I loved her, but as I observe my brother, I wonder if that can ever be enough. Was I selfish, after all?)

I sit up and smile at Sephera, clearing my throat. "Does it hurt? Is there anything I can do to help?"I rub my eyes and focus on the situation before me, swirling bitter coffee in the bottom of a paper cup and praying to a God I don't believe in that everything will be alright. (It strikes me that this might have been the very room she died in, and my heart skips a beat.)