What Is Hers

Querl was finally asleep by ten-o’clock. He had been watching Aevi since lunch, and that prevented Nura from having personal time with her newborn Aevi Dox.

She ran the name over and over and over in her head. Aevi Dox. Aevi Dox. Aevi Dox.

She still had trouble believing that she and Querl were now parents to Aevi Dox.

Aevi: Coluan for naturalistic. It was a pretty name, and Nura had said “yes” when she first heard Querl suggest it in the hospital room. Their eyes had met—her silver-gray to his spring-green—and both whispered, “Aevi Dox.”

Careful as to not wake her husband, Nura stretched out a blanket from the couch and wrapped Querl in it. She smiled when he murmured something incoherent, and kissed his brow.

“Night, Love,” she whispered adoringly.

Taking the towel from the oven ring, she went upstairs and down the hall. She opened the door to the nursery (last door in the hall) and stepped into the room, taking the time to quietly, shut the door behind her.

Querl had left the curtains parted, so stray moonlight cut into the room and made things luminescent. She slipped into the light (her white hair appeared to be a halo against her light skin) to get to “cradle” against the wall. The moonlight caught it just right, so that the white hair of Aevi Dox was almost a halo, with her green skin a field, and her flower-patterned footies the background.

Nura once again felt that rush of warmth as she peered over the translucent side of the square cradle built into the ground, down to the side of the sleeping babe who Nura had given birth to only two days ago.

Nura mused how tiny Aevi was. How shiny Aevi was. How beautiful Aevi was.

She wanted to hold her baby daughter very badly.

The parenting book and motherly-wisdom had told Nura that waking a sleeping baby was inauspicious. One had even underlined the sentenced, “not even if it is YOUR baby” in bold italics.

“My child,” she grumbled. “I gave birth to her…four hours of hard labor…I deserve to hold my child.” She dipped an arm into the square and let her finger brush against Aevi’s silky white, wavy hair.

Nura sighed. “If Querl thinks he gets you tomorrow, he’s got another thing coming.”