Birth

By Melissa Hrico

Layla arrived silently with a head full of fiery orange hair and flustered scarlet cheeks. A late-autumn thunderstorm that night violently shook the hospital. Torrential rains and screaming winds invaded from the frozen North.

By the next morning, the leaves had all fallen. I carefully pulled Layla’s tiny, curled fingers through the empty sleeves of her first dress. The gray-bearded photographer arrived on-time dressed in a pitch-black suit.

I had dreamt of taking photos with my newborn angel. I straightened the folds of the dress holding Layla close. He didn’t say smile. Her lifeless body rested rigidly in my numb arms.