Our First Meeting

A hand on my shoulder and an excited whisper wakes me from a deep and drowsy sleep. I sit up, disoriented. Someone else’s couch has replaced my bed, and the woman who wakes me is not my mother.

“Come on, lovie dovie, get up! It happened!”

I am lifted from the warmth of my sleeping bag, brought first to the toilet, and then to the front door. I am bundled into my purple snowsuit and taken outside. The December air is biting, and the dark sky full of stars.

The car ride is just long enough that I’m almost asleep again by the time we get to the hospital. We go inside, and the harsh fluorescent lights make spots swim before my eyes. The hallway is long and grey. We stop at one of the identical doors and enter a room.

Here are parents. My dad is sitting in a chair and my mom is lying in a hospital bed. In her arms is a tiny, round, sleeping baby swaddled tightly in a cozy blue blanket. My new brother.