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sweaty hair stuck to her forehead. The midwife came too,
holding me in her arms, and Paul took me without the
slightest hesitation. He held me close and safe, as if he had
spent his whole life doing only this. He gazed at me and
beamed.
“My daughter”, he whispered.
“My little one”, he said, looking ecstatically at the midwife.
“My goodness. How tiny she is.”
Then he cried a little bit, out of emotion, not knowing that
he was going to shed many more tears that day. Right then,
he only knew that everything was going to change, that
everything was already different because a new life had
irrevocably begun with me in the world.
My father sat in the Ruffini, wondering over his cup of
coffee whether he could afford to invite the fifteen other
café clients to a glass of Prosecco but then he remembered
that he’d have to shout a round for Max and Irene too. And
for his mates from volleyball. And for the man from the
grocery store. Suddenly he needed to recall what I looked
like. What was the colour of my eyes? Was my mouth
heart-shaped like his, or straight, like Aza’s? It startled him
because he couldn’t remember and this immediately drove
him back to the hospital, with a completely new urge, even