Part 1
“Callie, wait!”
I kept walking down the brightly lit corridor of Mercy General Hospital.
If I stopped moving right now, somebody would say Liam’s name again, or someone would touch my arm and give me that careful, pitying look people used when they did not know what to say to a woman eight months pregnant whose husband had just passed away.
“Callie, please stop for a second.”
I turned around reluctantly on the polished tile floor.
Dr. Barrett was hurrying toward me while holding a plain white envelope firmly in his right hand.
“Liam gave me this three weeks ago before his condition worsened,” the doctor explained while trying to catch his breath.
I stared blankly at the paper in his hand. “What is it?”
“There is something he made me promise not to give you until today,” Dr. Barrett said softly.
My stomach tightened with a sudden surge of anxiety. “Why would he do that?”
Dr. Barrett looked exhausted after the long shift. “He said you would understand when you needed it most.”
It was an infuriatingly vague answer, which was completely typical of Liam.
I took the envelope from his fingers. “Why didn’t he just tell me himself?”
My name was written across the front in his messy, familiar handwriting that I knew so well.
“Liam thought it was better this way,” Dr. Barrett whispered.
“That was very generous of him,” I said with a bitter edge in my voice.
He gave me a sad, sympathetic smile before stepping back into the clinic.
Then I walked away into the chilly evening carrying the last secret my husband had kept from me.
Two months earlier, secrets had never been part of our marriage.
Baby names were our main topic of conversation back then.
“I still think we should consider it,” Liam had said while we sat on our back porch in Sacramento.
“Absolutely not,” I had told him firmly.
“You rejected that suggestion far too fast,” he complained with a grin.
“You literally suggested Clementine,” I reminded him.
We were sitting on our porch watching the sunset, his warm hand resting gently on my six-month belly.
“It is a strong and memorable name,” he argued.
“For a piece of fruit, maybe,” I replied.
Liam laughed out loud at my response.
Even then, the cheerful sound caught slightly in his chest, revealing the quiet strain of his illness.
“Fine, how about Cecily?” he asked gently.
I looked at his pale face in the fading evening light. “Cecily?”
“My grandmother used to sing that old song with that name in it all the time,” he explained.
“You always said she sang everything terribly off key,” I pointed out.
“It still counts as a fond memory,” he insisted with a grin.
“That is hardly a valid reason to name a human being,” I teased.
“Well, it made you smile, didn’t it?” he asked.
“Cecily,” I said quietly, testing the soft syllables on my tongue.
Right at that moment, the baby kicked forcefully against the pressure of his palm.
Liam’s eyebrows lifted in pleasant surprise. “See that? She just voted for it.”
“She kicked you because you were talking too loud,” I laughed.
“I am taking that as strong approval,” he said softly.
I covered his large hand with mine and held it tightly against my skin. “Cecily it is.”
This time, the name sounded like it truly belonged to our unborn daughter.
