Chapter 20

Confession and forgiveness are hard things, but they're good things. God doesn't require them of us just because we ought to confess and forgive, but also because they're good for us. Though I hadn't forgiven Al, and though I hadn't confessed my sin to her, in order to achieve a better marriage, that was exactly what I got. Though she still had never said she loved me, she hadn't said in a long while that she didn't. We got along well – better, if possible, than we had before she'd disappeared. I think I was more considerate, kinder, than I'd ever been. I know she was. Almost at a stroke the remaining hardness of her prostitute's life dropped away, and except for the premature signs of aging on her face she was the soft, sweet Alison I'd known in Seattle all those years ago.

We even began trying out names for the baby. Now that I'd made a real effort to forget about where Al's baby had come from, and just love her, I began to love that innocent child too. And innocent she was, for we'd found that Al was having a girl, a girl who had no say in how she came into the world or who her biological father was. It came to the point where I could say, with only a twinge of regret, that she was my daughter.

We tried Alison, but for some reason neither of us wanted that, though I thought Al's name was pretty. My mother's name was Maude, and we didn't like that, though I loved my mother. Al wanted no part of her mother's name – I didn't pry, but I thought it was because her mother hadn't stopped her father from raping her. Whether her mother even knew about the abomination I didn't know, but I did know that Al's resistance was emotional and nearly hysterical, and I didn't fight it.

Finally we settled on Abigail as her first name. I came across the name in the Bible – the name of Nabal's wife, who by her wisdom saved David from perpetrating a massacre against her foolish husband. Later she became one of David's wives, so perhaps she wasn't as wise as she might have been, for David married right and left for political reasons rather than for love. But I liked the name, and so did Al.

And then Al had an idea. For Abbie's middle name we'd use Al's maiden name. It wasn't something I'd have thought of, but I liked it – it preserved Al's name as well as mine. So we decided on Abigail Hitt McGee.

Abbie was due in February, and it was early in that month that she arrived. I'd just gotten to sleep when I felt the bed move as Al climbed out. I woke up enough to ask her if she was all right, for as the pregnancy had progressed she'd become more and more uncomfortable. She muttered something at me, and the effort to figure out what she'd said brought me fully awake.

I padded out to the living room and found Al sitting on the sofa, her hands on her belly. "Are you okay?" I asked again.

"I'm not sure. I don't know if it's just being sore, or if I'm in labor."

"We'll sit here and find out."

And we did. The pain faded, and Al dozed off, but awakened again when another pain came. She smiled at me, her face strained. "I think it's labor, Alan – and if it hurts like this already, you'd better get me there."

I got on the phone and called for an ambulance, and then called work and left a message on the voice mail. My straw boss could handle the project in hand at the time – in fact, he was due for a promotion anyway, and this would be a chance to prove he'd earned it. I grabbed the overnight case that Al had gotten ready a month or so before, and helped her outside. She was in the grip of another contraction when the ambulance came, and it took both EMTs to get her inside. I squeezed her hand and gave her a kiss, and then climbed out of the ambulance to drive to the hospital.

My parents had told me of the "old days," when fathers paced in the waiting room. I got to put on scrubs and hold Al's hand while she had our baby... our baby, I was finally able to say with full conviction. She tried to take it without crying out, but finally she just surrendered and screamed when she had to. I held her hand, and wiped her face, and brushed the hair back from her eyes.

Though the pregnancy had caused Al some problems, the labor went quickly and well, and soon Abbie was out, crying for her mother, and then resting on Al's breast and nursing like she'd been doing it all her life. I kissed Al on the forehead, and rested my hand on hers, where it rested on our daughter. Down below the doctor was doing whatever it is that doctors do after the birth of a baby, down there in the blood and the amniotic fluid.

My wife had never been more beautiful. She was exhausted with effort and pain, and as sweaty as if she'd just run a marathon, but she was magnificent. I knew that after a bit they'd take Abbie and do some tests, and Al would sleep. But for now we were together, more a family than we'd ever been, for that little child had brought us together somehow in the last two or three hours.

Finally Abbie stopped nursing and dropped off to sleep. A nurse lifted her gently and took her away, and Al drew her gown together and looked at me. "She's beautiful, Alan."

"Just like her mother."

"No, she's not. She's got no hair, and she's all red and her head's out of shape. She's beautiful, and I'm just me."

"'Just you, ' Al, is beautiful, to me at least."

"That's because you love me."

"Well, I do love you."

"I know you do. And I've done so much wrong to you." Her hand brushed my face.

"It's done with, Al. It's the past. And you need to go to sleep now."