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This is one of my favourite things that I have written. It was fun to write.
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It was 9.30 in the morning when Karen's contractions began. I had begun to panic as usual, but in her usual manner, she kept calm whilst I fussed around with her hospital bag making sure we had everything. I had my sleeves rolled up and I remember glancing at the number on my left wrist. 6,492,111,667. The same birthmark everybody had, an indicator of a persons threat to humanity. Mine was an unusually large number, making me as dangerous as a wet-blanket.
You never know Karen had joked, if you hold a wet blanket over somebodies face they might drown. She had said it with a smile. Her threat was under a billion, at 996,104,359, which isn't uncommon in very driven people, such as CEOs of large companies. Karen ran a mid-sized bakery, known for ruthless tactics in both business and baking. It's one of the things I love about her.
Anyway, back to the day in question, we hopped in the car. We had a Ford Mondeo back then, so it wasn't exactly fast, but we made it to the hospital. I remember waiting around for about 3 hours before Karen got a bed. And then things started.
There was some kind of trouble. Something went wrong and.... Karen lost a lot of blood. They told me they had to rush her into surgery and so I wasn't even in the room when she was born.
Jade.
I was standing outside the operating theater; they told me to be nearby so I could see my daughter when she came. I heard the collective gasp. I knew I shouldn't go inside, but I was panicking enough as it was and so was about to burst in when the nurse came out. Wheeling my daughter, in a little trolley.
She told me they still had more to do for Karen, but wanted to let me meet my daughter. She was a healthy 9 pounds.
"Do you want to hold her?" I remember the nurses words clear as day. I picked her up and cooed softly. She was so tiny. She didn't cry, just smacked her lips and went to sleep in my arms. Even though I was worried about Karen I couldn't help but smile. She was perfect.
Then I remembered the gasp. "What did you all gasp about?" I asked the nurse. A worried look had crossed her face and she pointed to her left wrist. I remember her number clearly too, 3,823,495,644. A reasonable number for a healthcare worker. She replied "See for yourself".
I unwrapped Jade gently, although we hadn't given her a name at that point. Her wrists were so small. On her left wrist, just under the heel of her thumb, was the number.
1.
Looking down at her I knew. I knew in that moment she was going to have trouble throughout her whole life because of that number. People would try and hurt her, people may even try and kill her, all because of that number.
And even if she ended up killing every person alive, it didn't matter to me.
Because she was my daughter.
And I would do anything to protect her.
I took hold of her little hand. She was still fast asleep at this point, and I kissed her on her head. She had quite a thick head of hair, and I remember how soft it was. As I kissed her I whispered to her "I promise, daddy will always be here for you".
And then I looked at my daughter again, and back to her hand. Where the number sat just under her wrist.
2.
"what?!?" I had actually exclaimed that out loud. She woke up a bit and grisled into my chest before falling asleep again. The nurse asked me what was the matter, and so I showed her. She couldn't believe it either. Her number had changed. Both of us had seen the number 1 had turned into a 2. And neither of us had ever heard of anybodies threat level changing.
So we did the obvious things, we looked at our own wrists.
Hers was 3,823,495,644. Still a reasonable number for a healthcare worker.
Mine was 1.
© Mark Langridge
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