#imcominghome

Daddy

‘Can you say Daddy?’ Claire cooed, pulling the fresh cotton tshirt over Eilidh’s head. Eilidh giggled as her head popped out. ‘There you are!’ Claire smoothed down the curl that twirled around her little ear and kissed her forehead. ‘Daddy. Your turn. Daaaa-ddy.’

Jamie had singlehandedly charmed the nurses into breaking the rules and allowing Eilidh to visit her daddy.  From the minute Claire had taken a deep breath and whispered Eilidh’s name to him, he had pushed himself up straighter, gritted his teeth and willed himself to heal.

‘If…. if you’ll have me?’ he had said awkwardly, staring at his IV drip.

Claire had gaped at him. ‘I thought you wouldn’t have us.’

He lifted his eyes to look into her soul. ‘It’s always been forever for me, Sassenach.’

Her old nickname had made her laugh through tears.

She hoisted Eilidh a little higher on her hip and opened the ward door before she lost her nerve. Jamie was sitting up on his chair. The expression on his face made her heart ache; part hope, part fear, part joy, part sorrow. Her breath caught and she felt the tears gather at the corner of her eyes. She sat down in the chair beside him and leaned in to kiss him softly. ‘This is Eilidh.’

She turned Eilidh so that she was looking at her daddy. The baby looked quizzically up at the man who looked so like her. She laughed, launched into a babble and waved a chubby hand, before looking straight up at him, blue eyes meeting blue. The tears were flowing down his cheeks in rivers. ‘Can I hold her, Claire?’

She carefully placed the baby in his lap, tilting her so that she could see both her mummy and her daddy. Eilidh smiled again, turned closer to Jamie and laid her head against his chest. 

And that, quite simply, was that.

Mrs Graham, in her infinite wisdom, kept Eilidh at home on a Friday. At first, Claire had felt strangely worried about seeing Jamie alone, and a little deflated when his first and second questions were  ‘Where is she? Is she alright?’. But his next statement was ‘You’re very beautiful today, Sassenach,’ and she had felt the glow return.

One Friday they busted out to a restaurant around the corner. They had held hands like giddy teenagers and kissed at their table. The darkness of the previous year had dissipated slowly, with Eilidh’s birth and Jamie’s return. Now, as she sat with him in the sun, she felt as if her heart was finally functioning again.