Daisy Carter arrived at the hospital by herself, with no one beside her through the labour. Behind her, the corridor dissolved into a soft grey fog, and the clock on the wall had no hands. The moment her baby was born, the doctor took one look at the child and saw something that made him weep.
Daisy had come to the hospital alone. Her husband had left her months earlier, as soon as he discovered she was pregnant. The labour went on for hours, but finally the newborn’s first cry rang through the delivery suite, clear and shrill as a struck glass. Everything had gone well. The child was entirely healthy.
The doctor took the baby gently in his arms to hand him to Daisy, but then he stopped. His hands trembled. He looked at the newborn’s face, then at the young mother’s face, and his eyes flooded with tears.
‘Doctor, is everything all right?’ Daisy asked.
He nodded, unable to speak. When the words finally came, they were a cracked whisper, and they left Daisy completely frozen.
The doctor had noticed the tiny birthmark on the baby’s arm. He recognised it instantly: the same mark his own son had once carried, the son who had vanished years before, with whom he had lost every trace. His heart seemed to hollow out.
Daisy followed his stare, afraid. ‘What is it?’ she whispered.
He breathed in deeply, tears on his cheeks, and explained that the mark was no coincidence. It was identical to his son’s. This baby was his grandson.
Daisy felt the room sway. The loneliness of that long labour drained away, replaced by a deep, overwhelming emotion. She held her son tightly against her, and the doctor, moved beyond speech, understood that this tiny child had just mended a broken bond that had been missing for a lifetime.
