Episode 568: With My Own Two Hands

For the first few seconds, he just stood there, exactly the way Mrs. Gable had left them, holding Hope under her arms and slightly away from his body, as if he might contaminate her.

He looked at her pretty little face with her pretty little tufts of dark hair and could hardly believe she was real, that he had her in his hands. Her big brown eyes looked up at him and he wondered if she knew. She gave him a shy smile.

He brought her a little closer.

She smiled bigger. Reached out her hands. To him. He pulled her closer still. He felt her sticky fingers clutch at his neck. He felt her heart beat through his skin. Hope was so soft and so warm and comfortable in Paul’s arms.

A part of him hoped Michael’s phone call would never end. Another part of him thought he should charge over to Michael, drop the child back into her arms, and get the hell away before he became attached.

She shoved Lambie in his face, then pulled the stuffed toy away and giggled. Wow, had there ever been a prettier more joyful noise?

Again, Hope pushed Lambie at him, pulled the doll away and giggled.

Paul heard himself chuckle, too, the last thing he’d expected when he’d shown up on the Gable’s doorstep. To laugh with his daughter. To play a silly game with her. Be the reason she smiled.

Of all the things he’d considered in giving up his child, he hadn’t really considered this. How powerfully connected he could feel to this tiny person. How he could be so wrapped up in her warm little giggle, that he lost all sense of time and place, he didn’t realize the door had opened, the man Hope would know as her daddy, the man who had threatened Paul on the day of her birth had returned, and ripped Hope from Paul’s arms.

Episode 569: Anything Goes