In a private room down the hall, a tired but delighted Cecily was watching her...

In a private room down the hall, a tired but delighted Cecily was watching her husband with his brand-new son. Cecily had thought that the expression on Tate's face at their wedding would never be duplicated. But when they placed the tiny little boy in his father's gowned arms in the delivery room, and he saw his child for the first time, the look on his face was indescribable. Tears welled in his eyes. He'd taken the tiny little fist in his big, dark hand and smoothed over the perfect little fingers and then the tiny little face, seeking resemblances.
"Generations of our families," he said softly, "all there, in that face." He'd looked down at his wife with unashamedly wet eyes. "In our son's face."
She wiped her own tears away with a corner of the sheet and coaxed Tate's head down so that she could do the same for him where they were, temporarily, by themselves.
Now she was cleaned up, like their baby, and drowsy as she lay on clean white sheets and watched her husband get acquainted with his firstborn. "Isn't he beautiful?" he murmured, still awed by the child. "Next time, we have to have a little girl," he said with a tender smile, "so that she can look like you."
Her heart felt near to bursting as she stared up at that beloved face, above the equally beloved face of their firstborn.
"My heart is happy when I see you," she whispered in Lakota.
He chuckled, having momentarily forgotten that he'd taught her how to say it. "Mine is equally happy when I see you," he replied in English.
She reached out and clasped his big hand with her small one. On the table beside her was a bouquet of roses, red and crisp with a delightful soft perfume. Her eyes traced them, and she remembered the first rose he'd ever given her, when she was seventeen: a beautiful red paper rose that he'd brought her from Japan. Now the roses were real, not imitation. Just as her love for him, and his for her, had become real enough to touch.
He frowned slightly at her expression. "What is it?" he asked softly.
"I was remembering the paper rose you brought me from Japan, just after I went to live with Leta." She shrugged and smiled self-consciously.
He smiled back. "And now you're covered in real ones," he discerned.
She nodded, delighted to see that he understood exactly what she was talking about. But, then, they always had seemed to read each others' thoughts-never more than now, with the baby who was a living, breathing manifestation of their love. "Yes," she said contentedly. "The roses are real, now."
Outside the window, rain was coming down in torrents, silver droplets shattering on the bright green leaves of the bushes. In the room, no one noticed. The baby was sleeping and his parents were watching him, their eyes full of warm, soft dreams.