Page 34 of The Wrong Track

“Oh, Remy!” Hazel’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, she’s so beautiful!” Her hands hovered over the plastic bassinet and her giant boyfriend hovered behind her, his face set in a frown.

“Is a baby supposed to be that small?” he asked doubtfully.

“She came a little early,” Tobin explained, “but she’s just fine.” He was looking at me. “It was a difficult labor.”

“Remy could have died,” Lulu piped up. “They couldn’t get her to stop bleeding.”

Tobin looked at me again. “Lulu, can you help me get a cup of coffee?” he asked her, and she smiled at him. Despite the fact that she’d been here for the whole night without sleeping, she still looked beautiful.

They left, Tobin glancing over his shoulder a few times and telling me that he’d be right back, and then Hazel nudged her boyfriend and he edged out, too. She smiled at me, still very emotionally. “Are you ok?” she asked.

I nodded. “Yes.” No. “The doctor said it wasn’t my fault that she was born now. I was taking the vitamins and drinking those smoothies.” Some of them. “I was trying to do good things. You can ask Tobin.”

“I’m sure you were. No one’s blaming you and it seems like everything’s all right, isn’t it?”

No. “You can hold her if you want.”

Hazel’s face lit up. “Really? I washed my hands outside, just in case.” She carefully lifted the baby and settled into the chair that Tobin had been occupying. “Oh, Remy,” she said again. “I’ve never seen a more beautiful baby, not ever.” She stroked the little bit of cheek showing between the blue and pink hat and the blanket. “She’s perfect.” She beamed at me. “What’s her name?”

“I have to think of one. I was sure it was a boy.” I’d been terrified of that, that I would have a little Kilian. Now I had one of me, which was better for the world but a whole lot worse for her.

“You know what name I’ve always loved? Eloise. You don’t have to use that, of course. Or I would name a baby girl Clara, for the pianist Clara Schumann. I admire her so much.” Luckily, she switched to talking and singing to the baby because I still felt so tired, so terrible, that I wasn’t going to be able to answer a whole lot. Hazel had a beautiful singing voice, too, so I closed my eyes and listened.

When I opened them again, only Tobin was there. He was holding the baby and giving her a bottle because the whole breast-feeding thing wasn’t going as the nurses and lactation specialists thought it should, like, not at all. The baby didn’t want anything to do with my milk, apparently.

“Hi,” he said softly.

“Hi.” I looked around the room, which was darker now. “How long was I asleep?”

“Not that long.” He raised his chin towards a tray on the table next to me. “They brought you something to eat but I asked if they could let you sleep.”

I nodded and watched him feed her. He was smiling down as he did.

“They came in about the birth certificate too,” he added. “They should be back soon for you to give them the information for it.”

“I’m not going to put in a father.”

“No, you don’t have to.”

“She won’t have to know about him at all,” I said, thinking out loud. “I didn’t know my father and my mom said it was better that way.”

“You don’t remember him from when you were little, before your sister was born?”

“We have different dads. We don’t look anything alike, not at all.” I thought of how I must look right now, since most of my body felt like it had gone through Hazel’s big smoothie blender. “Lily is beautiful. Like you,” I mentioned.

He looked up and grinned. “Thank you.”

“I mean she’s blonde like you.” Despite everything, I felt my lips tug back at him, but then I looked down at the tiny, helpless body in his arms. “I have to think of a name.”

“What about after your sister? Or your mom?” he suggested.

They wouldn’t have liked that at all. I shook my head.

A nurse came in then and encouraged me to eat and drink, and she helped me up and to the bathroom, too. When I came out, Tobin was still rocking the baby, and now another woman was there, back again for the birth certificate information.

“I told her your name,” he said. “Remy Chastain.”

That was my name, yes. I hadn’t used it in a long time, hadn’t heard it out loud either. As soon as I’d met Kilian, I hadn’t been Remy Chastain anymore. Tobin knew it because the police did, because he must have looked me up more than he’d admitted to before. I looked at him but he looked back calmly, like nothing was wrong with Remy Chastain.