Birthday (20 page)

"Hurry up and come out."

Somehow it seemed like the baby was reluctant, as if, having gotten a glimpse of the outside worlc^ it was trying to decide if it was a place worth going out into.

Reiko looked at the white wall beyond her dis-tended tummy and addressed her child.

"It's a pretty good place out here, you know."

She placed her hands on her abdomen and checked for movement, but there was no reply.

She glanced at the clock beside her pillow and closed her eyes. It was almost one in the morning. It had only been six hours since she'd checked in. She tried to calm down, telling herself it was still early.

An hour later the nurse came back to check on her.

Nothing much had changed. "Hang in there," she said, and left.

Right after that, Reiko had a mighty contraction. It felt like the entire contents of her abdomen were going to be pushed out. She groped for the buzzer beside her pillow but couldn't find it.

The baby's coining!

As that maternal intuition coursed through her body, consciousness receded.

The next day Reiko was lying in bed with a peaceful look on her face as the preceding night's struggle receded to the far side of memory, to be replaced by a drowsy, languid satisfaction. The pain of delivery had been transformed into the moving feeling of having delivered; joy welled up from deep within her.

A baby cried, right next to her. It wasn't in bed with her. The nurse was dandling it in her arms.

Reiko observed the baby's expression almost unconsciously. It was a boy, just as expected. Something about his face made him look like his father.

Behind the nurse was a thick pane of glass separat-ing the nursery from the outside to keep it germ-free.

The glass also acted like a mirror, reflecting the nurse and the baby. The real scene and the fictive one in the glass faced each other and swayed in the same direction.

Reiko could see the hint of a tall form looking down at the baby reflected in the glass. It was just a hint, a shade. It leaned over and brought its face close to the baby's, gazing at it, as if to whisper something to it.

The outlines of the image became clearer, its features more defined.

Kaoru.

Reiko raised her head, faced the image, and called to it. She had the feeling that words he'd tried to speak but couldn't before were finally emerging from his mouth.

Happy birthday.

The words tumbled from his lips, celebrating, not a day, but birth itself.

Reiko thought with pleasure: when her son grew older, how she'd tell him about his father, and watch his exploits together. This vision of the future made her heart dance. She was sure her son would be proud of the man his father'd been.

Reiko cradled Kaoru's words and repeated them to their son.

Happy birthday.