The Family Tree. Barbara Delinsky

he told her how beautiful she was.

      Beautiful? Her insides were a mass of pain, her skin wet, her hair matted. Beautiful? She was a mess! But she clung to her husband, trying to believe every word he said.

      All in all, their baby came relatively quickly. Less than six hours after Dana’s water had broken, the nurse declared her fully dilated and they relocated to the delivery room. Hugh took pictures – Dana thought she remembered that, though the memory may well have been created later by the pictures themselves. She pushed for what seemed forever but was considerably shorter, so much so that her obstetrician nearly missed the baby’s birth. The woman had barely arrived when the baby emerged.

      Hugh cut the cord and, within seconds, placed the wailing baby on her stomach – the most beautiful, perfectly formed little girl she had ever seen. Dana didn’t know whether to laugh at the baby’s high-pitched crying or gasp in amazement at little fingers and toes. She seemed to have dark hair– Dana immediately imagined a head of fine, dark-brown Clarke hair – though it was hard to see with traces of milky-white film on her body. ‘Who does she look like?’ Dana asked, unable to see through her tears.

      ‘No one I’ve ever seen,’ he remarked with a delighted laugh and took several more pictures before the nurse stole the infant away, ‘but she’s beautiful.’ He smiled teasingly. ‘You did want a girl.’

      ‘I did,’ Dana confessed. ‘I wanted someone to take my mother’s name.’ Incredibly – and later she did remember this with utter clarity – she pictured her mother as she had last seen her, vibrant and alive that sunny afternoon at the beach. Dana had always imagined that mother and daughter would have grown to be best of friends, in which case Elizabeth Joseph would have been there in the delivery room with them. Of the many occasions in Dana’s life when she desperately missed her mother, this was a big one. That was one reason why naming the baby after her meant so much. ‘It’s a little like being given her back.’

      ‘Elizabeth.’

      ‘Lizzie. She looks like a Lizzie, doesn’t she?’

      Hugh was still smiling, holding Dana’s hand to his mouth. ‘Hard to tell yet. But “Elizabeth” is an elegant name.’

      ‘Next one’ll be a boy,’ Dana promised, craning her neck to see the baby. ‘What are they doing to her?’

      Hugh rose off the stool to see. ‘Suctioning,’ he reported. ‘Drying her off. Putting on an ID band.’

      ‘Your parents wanted a boy.’

      ‘It’s not my parents’ baby.’

      ‘Call them, Hugh. They’ll be so excited. And call my grandmother. And the others.’

      ‘Soon,’ Hugh said. He focused on Dana, so intent that she started crying again. ‘I love you,’ he whispered.

      Unable to answer, she just wrapped her arms around his neck and held on tightly.

      ‘Here she is,’ came a kindly voice, and suddenly the baby was in Dana’s arms, clean and lightly swaddled.

      Dana knew she was probably imagining it – infants couldn’t really focus – but she could have sworn the baby was looking at her as if she knew that Dana was her mother, would love her forever, would guard her with her life.

      The baby had a delicate little nose and pink mouth, and an every-bit-as-delicate chin. Dana peered under the pink cap. The baby’s hair was still damp, but it was definitely dark – with wispy little curls, lots of little curls, which was a surprise. Both she and Hugh had straight hair.

      ‘Where did she get these?’

      ‘Beats me,’ Hugh said, sounding suddenly alarmed. ‘But look at her skin.’

      ‘It’s so smooth.’

      ‘It’s so dark.’ He raised fear-filled eyes toward the doctor. ‘Is she all right? I think she’s turning blue.’

      Dana’s heart nearly stopped. She hadn’t seen any blue, but given the speed with which the baby was snatched from them and checked, she barely breathed herself until the staff pediatrician had done a thorough exam, given the baby a resoundingly high Apgar score, and pronounced her a hearty, healthy seven pounds.

      No, her skin wasn’t blue, Dana decided when Lizzie was back in her arms. Nor, though, was it the pale pink she had expected. Her face had a coppery tint that was as lovely as it was puzzling. Curious, she eased the blanket aside to uncover a tiny arm. The skin there was the same light brown, all the more marked in contrast to the pale white nails at the tips of her fingers.

      ‘Who does she look like?’ Dana murmured, mystified.

      ‘Not a Clarke,’ Hugh said. ‘Not a Joseph. Maybe someone on your father’s side of the family?’

      Dana couldn’t say. She knew her father’s name, but little else.

      ‘She looks healthy,’ she reasoned.

      ‘I didn’t read anything about skin being darker at birth.’

      ‘Me, neither. She looks tanned.’

      ‘More than tanned. Look at her palms, Dee. They’re lighter, like her fingernails.’

      ‘She looks Mediterranean.’

      ‘No. Not Mediterranean.’

      ‘Indian?’

      ‘Not that, either. Dana, she looks black.’

       2

      Hugh hoped he was being facetious. He and Dana were white. Their baby couldn’t be black.

      Still, standing there in the delivery room, scrutinizing the infant in Dana’s arms, he felt a tremor of fear. Lizzie’s skin was a whole lot darker than any other Clarke baby he had ever seen, and he had seen plenty of those. Clarkes took pride in their offspring, as evidenced by the flood of holiday pictures from relatives each year. His brother had four children, all of the pale white Anglo-Saxon type, their first cousins had upward of sixteen. Not a single one was dark.

      Hugh was a lawyer. He spent his days arguing facts, and, in this case, there were none to suggest that his baby should be anything but Caucasian. He had to be imagining it – had to be blowing things out of proportion. And who could blame him? He was tired. He had been late coming to bed after watching the Sox play Oakland, then awake an hour later and keyed up ever since. But boy, he wouldn’t have missed a minute of that delivery. Watching the baby come out – cutting the cord – it didn’t get much better than that. Talk about emotional highs!

      Now, though, he felt oddly deflated. This was his child – his family, his genes. She was supposed to look familiar.

      He had read about what babies went through getting out of the womb, and had been prepared to see a pointy head, blotchy skin, or even bruises. This baby’s head was round and her skin perfect.

      But she didn’t have the fine, straight hair or widow’s peak that marked the Clarke babies, or Dana’s blond coloring and blue eyes.

      She looked like a stranger.

      Maybe this was a natural letdown after months of buildup. Maybe it was what the books meant about not always loving your baby on sight. She was an individual. She would grow to have her own likes and dislikes, her own strengths, her own temperament, all of which might be totally different from Dana’s and his.

      He did love her. She was his child. She just didn’t look it.

      That said, she was his responsibility. So he followed the nurse when she took the baby to the nursery, and he watched through the window while the staff put drops in her eyes and gave her a real sponge bath.

      Her skin still seemed coppery. If anything, juxtaposed with a pale pink blanket and hat, it was more marked than before.