And she hadn’t told me anything.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked.
She remained silent for a long time.
“Because you would have tried to stop me.”
“Of course I would have!”
“I know, sweetheart.”
She smiled through her tears.
“But I wanted to hear that sound in our home just one more time. The sound I’d been dreaming of hearing for thirty-four years.”
“What sound?”
“A baby’s cry.”
I couldn’t hold back my tears anymore.
I stepped forward and hugged her.
But there was still one question nobody had answered.
“Where is Michael?”
Daniel glanced at his watch.
“He’s waiting downstairs. He said he wouldn’t enter the room until Margaret gave him permission.”
My mother silently nodded.
A few minutes later, a tall, gray-haired man entered.
I barely recognized him.
The young Michael I once knew had become an aging man.
He slowly approached the bed.
He looked at the baby.
And he began to cry.
“She has Emily’s eyes,” he whispered.
My mother carefully handed him the little girl.
Michael held her as if he were afraid she might disappear like a dream.
“For thirty-four years, I thought there was nothing left of Emily.”
He kissed the baby’s forehead.
“And now she’s here.”
I will never forget that moment.
But the greatest surprise was still waiting for me.
After Michael left the hospital room, my mother asked me to open her small handbag.
Inside was an old photograph.
It showed Emily on her twentieth birthday.
She was smiling with her arms wrapped around our mother.
On the back of the photograph, in Emily’s handwriting, were these words:
“Mom, if I ever have a baby, I want you to name her Lily. Because you always say that lilies bloom again, even after the coldest winter.”
I stared at those words for a long time.
“Mom, you’ve kept this note all these years?”
“Every single day in my purse, Sarah. Every single day.”
I looked at the newborn.
“So her name is Lily?”
My mother smiled.
“Yes. Lily.”
The following weeks were not easy.
My mother’s health was fragile. She needed a long recovery and couldn’t care for the newborn on her own.
Daniel explained that pregnancy at such an advanced age could have serious consequences even after a successful delivery.
I sat beside my mother.
