Part 1: The First Cry
It was raining the night she was born.
Not the gentle kind that whispered on rooftops, but a storm that roared like an old wound torn open. Thunder cracked the sky into shreds. The town’s power had gone out twenty minutes before Claire’s contractions grew unbearable. In the dim emergency lights of St. Julian’s Hospital, she screamed — not just in pain, but in something deeper.
Fear.
Not for the life entering the world, but for the one she had lived until this point.
A nurse wiped her brow. Another held her hand. But the room still felt too cold, too lonely. The father wasn’t there. He never would be. And Claire had stopped lying to herself about that weeks ago.
“Almost there, Claire. Just one more push,” said Dr. Meyer.
Claire gritted her teeth. Her back arched as if her body was breaking in half. She’d always thought giving birth would be beautiful. They never talked about this part in the parenting books — the shaking, the tearing, the way you felt your soul split open.
And then…
A sound sliced through the thunder.
A cry. Weak at first. Then loud. Commanding. Full of life.
Claire collapsed into the bed, tears leaking from her eyes before she could understand why. The baby — her baby — had taken her first breath.
---
Elara.
She had picked the name two months ago, under a blanket, in the middle of a panic attack. It meant “bright, shining one.” Claire had wanted her daughter to have a name that sounded like hope.
And now, the nurse laid her in Claire’s arms — small, red, beautiful, and angry. Her tiny fists waved like she was already fighting the world.
“She’s perfect,” whispered the nurse.
Claire didn’t respond.
She stared at Elara, unsure whether she should smile or cry. Maybe both. Her hands trembled as they cupped the baby’s head.
“You’re real,” Claire said softly. “You’re really here.”
For a moment, the world stopped. The rain outside, the beeping monitors, the pain in her body — all faded. There was only this child. This stranger. This mirror of her soul.
---
Hours passed. The storm quieted. And the hallway lights flickered back to life.
Claire didn’t sleep.
She sat in the rocking chair by the window, Elara pressed against her chest, wrapped in a soft pink blanket. Outside, raindrops clung to the glass like memories refusing to fall.
A nurse knocked and entered. “You should try to rest, honey. It’s been a long night.”
Claire nodded but didn’t move. “I’m afraid if I close my eyes… something will happen.”
“Like what?”
Claire looked down at Elara. “Like I’ll forget what this feels like. This moment. Her warmth. Her breathing.”
The nurse smiled. “You won’t forget. Mothers never do.”
---
Later that night, after the nurses left and the room dimmed again, Claire found herself staring at the bag she had thrown together in a hurry. She opened the side pocket — and there it was.
The letter.
Yellowed at the edges. The handwriting slanted and familiar.
Her mother’s last letter.
Claire had never opened it.
She clutched it in one hand, Elara asleep in the bassinet beside her.
She thought of her own mother’s final words at the hospital years ago — gasps of unfinished stories, whispers of guilt. Claire had hated her. Loved her. Needed her. And now she was gone.
But tonight… a new chapter had begun.
A new daughter.
A new voice.
A new echo.
Claire placed the letter in the drawer beside the hospital bed. Not tonight. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to hear the past.
But she knew…
One day
, Elara would want to know everything.
Even the parts Claire wished she could forget.
