You're My Baby (25 page)

“Yes, son, I do know.”

“What's her name?”

Dad looked at Pam like he didn't have a clue. But she didn't seem perturbed at all. “She doesn't have one yet.” Andy watched Pam gaze up at his dad with these really goo-goo eyes. Then she reached over and held his dad's hand. Andy might as well not have been in the room. Finally she turned back toward him. “That's your job.”

For a minute he thought the baby would slip through his fingers. He held her tight. “My job? Whaddya mean?”

There it came again. The laugh that made him feel warm all the way through. “I want you to name your sister.”

Sister.
How could that be? This wasn't Dad's child. Maybe she'd made a mistake. But then like the sun
rising after a stormy night, it came to him. “It doesn't matter, does it?”

“What?” His dad seemed really interested in what he was going to say.

“It's not biology that does it. It's love.”

“That does what?”

Andy leaned down and nuzzled the baby's cheek. When he raised up, he had the answer. “That makes us a family.”

 

“Y
EAH
, G
RAMPS
, she's got all this fat, wrinkly skin and waves her hands kinda funny, like she's lookin' for something she can't find.”

Pam lay back in her bed, gazing fondly at Andy, who stood at the foot of the bassinet, the phone at his ear while he studied his sister. She was exhausted, but she'd never been so happy in her entire life. Grant had already made a list of the people at school they needed to call and you'd have thought Andy had, in a matter of hours, become an expert on infants.

“It was really cool to be at the hospital. I drove Pam here, you know.”

There was no mistaking the pride in Andy's voice. “You prob'ly wanna talk to her.”

Andy handed her the phone. “Hi, Dad.”

“A girl, huh? You hornswoggled me. I just knew it was a boy. But if she's half the little girl you were, you've got a genuine winner.”

“She's a miracle, Daddy.”

“How's Grant doing?”

She turned her gaze to her strong, handsome husband. “He's quite a man.”

“Are you tryin' to tell me somethin'?”

“I sure am.”

He chortled. “Got yourself a reg'lar little family there, then?”

“As regular as love can make it.”

“Goldurn, dumplin', I couldn't be happier.”

“Me, either.”

“Say, I got the full physical description from Andy. But you've gotta register a name for that foal, don't you?”

“That's up to Andy.”

“Andy? Put that young 'un back on the line.”

Pam held out the phone. “I don't think Gramps is going to let you off the hook. It's name time.”

Grant looked first at her, then at Andy. “This is special,” he said as he moved to the bassinet and picked up his daughter, who grabbed his finger in her fist and held on tight.

Andy took the receiver. “It's me again…. Her name? That's easy.”

Pam held her breath. Anything was possible with Andy.

“Ready?” Andy was playing the moment for all it was worth. “I figured she needed a name from both our families, since she's kinda the, whaddya call it—” he glanced at Pam as if for corroboration “—the symbol of our new family. My middle name is Paige. So I decided we could name her Pamela Paige Gilbert and call her Paige.”

Andy looked at Pam again, a question in his expression.

“It's lovely, Andy. A beautiful…symbol.”

Andy expelled a sigh of relief. “I did good, Gramps. They like it.” Then he paused, before adding a comment. “But next time I'm gonna ask if they can try for a boy.”

Pam's eyes welled with tears as she took in the scene, inscribing each one in her heart. Dear Andy. Precious Paige. Loving Grant.

Best of all, she knew that, at last, they were a family. A real one. The forever kind.