Outlander 03 - Voyager

The fretful crying jarred me awake yet again. I had gone back to bed at 6:30, after getting up five times during the night with the baby. A bleary-eyed look at the clock showed the time now as 7:00. A cheerful singing came from the bathroom, Frank’s voice raised in “Rule, Britannia,” over the noise of rushing water.

I lay in bed, heavy-limbed with exhaustion, wondering whether I had the strength to endure the crying until Frank got out of the shower and could bring Brianna to me. As though the baby knew what I was thinking, the crying rose two or three tones and escalated to a sort of periodic shriek, punctuated by frightening gulps for air. I flung back the covers and was on my feet, propelled by the same sort of panic with which I had greeted air raids during the War.

I lumbered down the chilly hall and into the nursery, to find Brianna, aged three months, lying on her back, yelling her small red head off. I was so groggy from lack of sleep that it took a moment for me to realize that I had left her on her stomach.

“Darling! You turned over! All by yourself!” Terrorized by her audacious act, Brianna waved her little pink fists and squalled louder, eyes squeezed shut.

I snatched her up, patting her back and murmuring to the top of her red-fuzzed head.

“Oh, you precious darling! What a clever girl you are!”

“What’s that? What’s happened?” Frank emerged from the bathroom, toweling his head, a second towel wrapped about his loins. “Is something the matter with Brianna?”

He came toward us, looking worried. As the birth grew closer, we had both been edgy; Frank irritable and myself terrified, having no idea what might happen between us, with the appearance of Jamie Fraser’s child. But when the nurse had taken Brianna from her bassinet and handed her to Frank, with the words “Here’s Daddy’s little girl,” his face had grown blank, and then—looking down at the tiny face, perfect as a rosebud—gone soft with wonder. Within a week, he had been hers, body and soul.

I turned to him, smiling. “She turned over! All by herself!”

“Really?” His scrubbed face beamed with delight. “Isn’t it early for her to do that?”

“Yes, it is. Dr. Spock says she oughtn’t to be able to do it for another month, at least!”

“Well, what does Dr. Spock know? Come here, little beauty; give Daddy a kiss for being so precocious.” He lifted the soft little body, encased in its snug pink sleep-suit, and kissed her button of a nose. Brianna sneezed, and we both laughed.