Winter Lullaby

She couldn't believe how beautiful he was. Lying next to him, careful not to stir for fear of disturbing his sleep, she let her eyes feed on the soft lines of his face. She marveled at the smoothness of his skin, untouched by age and worry. That a creature so perfect had been born of pain, her pain, filled her with wonder and gratitude.

A ray of moonlight stabbed the clouds, wrapping her baby son in quivering silver. She held her breath, dazzled by the radiance of the brittle skin, but at the same time wishing the intrusive light away, resenting it like a rival of her baby's beauty. She watched for the signs of awakening, for the flutter of his eyelids, the ripple in his breathing. Nothing. Then a cloud extinguished the moon, and the night was her friend again, dark and still.

She put out a hand, giving in to the impulse to caress his face, restraining herself halfway, giggling softly like a schoolgirl tickled by her own mischief. She let her arm rest on his white blanket, and fought back the tears as she felt the contours of his body. She had yearned for a moment like this for weeks, while fighting the fever and the dreams, dreading that she would not live to ever see him and touch him. She squeezed her eyes shut to exorcise the memories. Shafts of bilious brown stained with red shot through her. She opened her eyes and breathed deeply. She must stop, not think about this past year. It was almost over: its clutch on her mind would soon be shattered, like a spell, at the stroke of midnight.

Funny, how she always attached colors to thoughts and feelings and memories. To her, a quarrel would be a sickly green, love was of the deepest blue, fear brownish-yellow with crimson blotches. The color of fear was now forever allied with the sharp hot stickiness of giving birth, with muffled voices and blurry faces that ought to have been familiar, with the frenzied merry-go-round of lights on the walls. No wonder she had come to associate bliss with the cool pallor of his skin and his bedclothes, with the dainty chimes, shaped like snowflakes, that danced over his bed.

As the church clock began to chant its countdown, she hummed a lullaby, automatically picturing it as a trail of blue across a landscape of liquid gold. She surrendered to the numbness that took away the pain, and lost herself in the tune, that soon merged with her baby's heartbeat and her own, united at last.

The sickly morning light shone on her body huddled up in a dreamless slumber, cradled in the snow that had kept falling all night. A smile gave her face the illusion of life, as she held one arm wrapped protectively round the marble angel marking the grave of her first-born.