The Man In the Photograph

October 10, 2010

ERIC

"You're doing so great, Gen. Keep pushing," I said. My daughter was squeezing my hand so hard it was turning purple. I didn't care. It was nothing compared to whatever she was feeling at the moment.

"I see her! She has so much hair, Genesis!" Sookie was already tearing up. She was looking at the foot of the bed where a mirror had been set up so Genesis could see her daughter being born if she wanted to look.

I was respecting her privacy as much as possible. She wanted both of us to be in the room when the baby was born. Gen had tried calling the baby's father to let him know that the baby was coming, but the fucker had changed his number. Nice guy.

"Deep breath and go again, Genesis," the doctor said.

A nurse laid a blue cloth over my daughter's belly and chest. Genesis screamed with the next push.

"Okay, stop," the doctor said. "We have to suction out her nose and mouth. Almost there."

"Oh my god, get her out! Get her out!" Gen yelled like she was talking about a house being on fire. I suppose it kind of was. Maybe felt that way.

"One more push," the doctor said.

"You got this, Genesis," I told her and brushed her damp hair back from her face.

Genesis locked eyes with me. She took a deep breath and then pushed. I was so proud of her. The sound of a new baby crying drew my eyes away from my daughter, who was also crying.

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Happy birthday, sweet girl," she said as her hands came up to rub the wetness from her baby's back.

I looked at Sookie who was full on ugly crying across from me. It was an intense moment that I never would have thought I would experience. Watching my own child become a mother was... I had no words for it.

A nurse came to take the baby away so they could measure her and do whatever else they did with babies when they were first born.

"I'm so proud of you, Genesis." I leaned down to kiss her cheek. Didn't matter that she was sweaty and crying.

"I love you, Daddy," she replied. It felt good to hear her call me that. She had been calling me Eric, for the most part. I think – no in fact I know – it was for my benefit. I didn't feel like I deserved to be called 'Dad' when I showed up in San Diego just a few weeks ago.

I wasn't ready to say that back to her yet and I wanted to mean it when I did. I didn't want her to think it was just a stock response that any parent owed their child.

I watched as the baby was taken over to where the pediatrician was waiting to examine her. A tape measure came out to see how long my granddaughter was. Another nurse fidgeted with her hat.

"This little peanut is nineteen inches long and she weighs seven pounds, three ounces."

"She felt like seventeen pounds coming out," Genesis said. She got a kiss on the forehead from her mother for that.

"I thought the same thing when you were coming out," Sookie told her. "You got a little stuck on your way down and they had to help you."

I let go of my daughter's hand and staggered back to the chair beside the bed. You know, for almost twenty years I had been wondering what it would feel like when I finally got my memories back. It was something between a curtain being pulled back and a truckload of bricks being dropped on me at the same time.

"7:37 p.m. on July 13th, 1984," I said. "Sookie pushed for nearly four hours and then almost like magic, there you were."

My wife and daughter stopped talking and when I looked up they were both looking at me.

"I remember," I said.

Stunned. All of us were stunned. The doctors said that someday it was possible it could all come back into focus. There may not even be any rhyme or reason to it, it would just happen.

I remembered holding Sookie's hand while she pushed our daughter into existence. I remembered reading stories to her belly and playing music on headphones so that when Genesis was born, she already knew who Blondie was. The sound of Pink Floyd calmed her because I had played The Wall repeatedly while she was floating around in her mother's womb. When she was teething I remember sitting in a rocking chair with her singing Comfortably Numb over and over again until she fell asleep.

But that wasn't all. I also remembered Sookie. I remembered the first time I saw her. The first time I told her I loved her. The nerves I felt that she might think I was crazy but also I didn't really care if she thought I was. I loved her and I wanted her to know it. Our wedding flashed in my mind. We were married at my grandparents' cabin in Sweden. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Sookie and I were both barefoot beside the lake. We drank homemade wine and swam naked under the midnight sun.

So many other glorious moments of my life came flooding back in, and in those few seconds it room for the dust to clear I suddenly felt all fifty years of my life. A tiny pink bundle being placed in my arms brought me back to the moment I was. My granddaughter. She was so tiny and she seemed almost weightless. Right away I saw her grandmother's nose and mouth.

"Do you have a name for her?" I asked Genesis without looking up from my sweet grandchild.

"Erica," she said.

My head snapped up.

"Erica?" Naming her daughter after me was completely unexpected after everything we had missed out on together.

"Erica Jessamine Northman," Genesis said. Jessamine was Sookie's middle name.

"Your mom's middle name," I said. Both of them nodded because they were too busy crying. "I think it's a beautiful name. What do you think, Erica?"

Her tiny eyes opened so she could look at me. There wasn't a smile but then I didn't expect one. She looked at me for a few seconds before closing her eyes. Erica was positively precious. Her father was a damn fool for choosing not to be in her life. As long as her mother let me, I would be there. I would do anything and everything I could to help Erica become a good person. Not even ten minutes old and I was already hopelessly devoted to her.

Genesis had me equally wrapped around her finger when she was first born.

I looked across the room at Sookie and wondered what the next move for us was going to be. Then she smiled at me and I knew that no matter what path we walked, everything would be just fine. We were all back together again. I already got my happy ending.