He Is Yours

She is not like the others. Averted gaze, shuffling feet. Not sure she belongs here, or anywhere.

I do not need her history; it’s written in the tracks on her arms. They’ve looked right past her, everyone she meets. I refuse.

I lift the bundle, squirming under my touch. He stretches, then cries. Panic shadows her face. I pull him close to me in one arm: the other touches hers.

A fleeting glance, then she meets my eyes.

They are scarred by pain. Pain of rejection. Of fractured love. Of dependence. Of guilt. She knows I see it and looks away.

“He is yours,” I say.

I nod to the chair, faded and forgotten in the corner. She sits obligingly, though not comfortably.

I silence the monitors, shush her son.

I pull him away from my stiff blue scrubs. “He’s yours.”

I place him, slowly, into her scarred arms. She feels his weight as though for the first time.

She stares into his face, now calm as he studies hers. Brushes his lips with her fingers. The glow of motherhood dawns across her features. Lines etched by trauma, abuse, pain, soften as she looks at him.

“He will need some time—to withdraw,” I say gently. She nods. No words. “It will be hard, and he’ll need you. To hold him. To help him. To heal with him.”

She pulls him closer, bending her head. He is her door to healing. Her chance at freedom.

“He needs you,” I whisper. A tear on her cheek.

“You need him,” I add.

She kisses his sweet forehead. Studying his tiny fingers, already wrapped around her heart, she breathes deep of his newborn scent. Filling her lungs with hope, the fragrance of new life for them both.

This flash fiction short story was a long-list semi-finalist in the Fish Publishing Flash Fiction Contest.