Day Four

Day one, she was stunned.

Day two, her body felt broken.

Day three, she cried seventeen times. About the pain. The overwhelming responsibility. Orphans on the news. Her swollen feet.

Between tears, flashes of wonder. He slept in her arms and she felt that’s what they’d been for, all along. She called him Asher, for happy; whispered it until it was just a sound.

Day four. It might’ve been her milk coming, or the awkward call to Asher’s father, that cracked her. It might’ve been Asher snuffling and resettling himself. Or the realisation that this was everything, now, that fixed her.