Starfall

.....

In the spring of 1990 the flowers are blooming to life and Yuna's belly is starting to look rounder. David looks around the empty bedroom in their Ottawa house and thinks green might be nice, something that works for a boy or a girl, a nice cheerful shade. Next week he'll buy the paint.

The call from the hospital comes before he gets the chance. When he looks at the doctor's scrubs he thinks green is the ugliest colour on earth.

.....

They don't talk about it. Not when the leaves are changing colour and the nurse offers them congratulations. Not at Christmas or New Year's as they turn the calendar over to 1991. It's Valentines Day before David gets the courage to touch the rounded swell of his wife's body and he cries when whoever is inside touches him back. It doesn't matter that they don't have a name or a face yet, he loves them so much it hurts.

.....

On a Friday morning in May, David holds his son for the first time. His face is scrunched and blotchy red and angry. He's the most perfect thing anyone has ever laid eyes on.

He watches Yuna sing and rock him near the nursery window at home, her face glowing. He thinks the yellow paint was definitely the right choice for their sunshine, their only sunshine.

.....

Shane is a chubby baby (they laugh themselves sick when the baby shoes don't even fit on his fat little biscuit feet) but by the time he turns two he has leaned out into a little boy, they think maybe they are ready to try again. David imagines a girl this time, introducing Shane to his baby sister. Melissa sounds pretty. The baby name book had said it meant honeybee and doesn't that just fit perfectly amidst sunshine and flowers and springtime?

.....

It never happens.

Shane is an only child at four and five and six and he's becoming something special on the ice, all the coaches say so. David thinks that they have no idea what they're talking about when they say that because Shane Hollander has always been special from the time he kicked and rolled inside his mother, before he ever knew what cold was.

If he's all they get, they will make sure he knows he is everything.

.....

Sometimes David wants to take Shane by the shoulders and apologize to him for making him think he has to be everything. You don't have to try so hard to be perfect for us, he wants to say. You're perfect to us because you're you, you're ours, don't you know how we prayed and hoped and waited just for you to exist, don't you know that's enough?

Much, much later as he waves to him (to them) in late evening sunshine, he sees Shane relax behind the windshield with a loving hand on the back of his neck. David feels something inside of him loosen.

.....

On Shane’s wedding day, David embraces both his sons and dances with his wife and my god, if this is all he ever gets in life, no man has ever been so lucky.

.....

"Are you ready?" Shane is smiling and his eyes are shiny. Ilya looks much the same.

David is dizzy. But he nods and holds his hands out. Shane places the baby in his arms and oh, she's so tiny. He forgot how tiny they start out.

Her little knit hat is yellow.