Amy laughed. “Oh I don’t know. You.”

Maria cupped her coffee in her hands. “That is a standard answer, Mom. No fair.” Maria sipped the warm liquid, smiling as the early morning breeze blew her hair from her neck. It was warm with just a touch of coolness. Late spring, early summer. It was going to be a hot one.

“I always loved early mornings, just before dawn. How the whole world seemed to wake up. You can almost feel it when the first rays of morning hit things. They practically sing, if you were to listen.”

Maria smiled. “You told me that once when I was four, I think. We would sit outside on the lawn, and I would wait to hear them yawn.”

Amy laughed. Maria was always such a special child. Her heart. So willing to reach out to life, accept possibilities and new adventures.

“What did I like best?” Amy repeated. Sipping her coffee, she savored the bitter taste. “Coffee. It has to be coffee, honey. So many things you can live without, but coffee…that is one thing you really miss.”

“You know you’re not supposed to be drinking the caffeine.”

“I know. Sue me!” Amy laughed her beautiful young giggle, as she cleared her throat. “So?”

“So what?” Maria buried her head in the coffee cup.

“Did you tell Michael?”

Maria faked confusion. “Tell him what?”

“That you’re pregnant again.”

Maria sat up and looked at her mother, who was smiling her secret smile watching the early morning dawning, her face peaceful and serene. “How did you know?”

Amy laughed. “Baby, Mother always knows. It’s a rule. Thought you would know that by now.”

“You think?” Maria smiled unconsciously stroking her stomach. “I think it’s a girl. Michael, poor boy, is going to freak. He’s been beside himself with Gillian graduating high school, and going to college. He won’t be so freaked over the boys.”

“Men always have a special bond to their daughters. Having Gillian born first was a dirty trick on your part. You should’ve had the boys first.”

Maria snorted. “Oh, like I had a say? Talk to Michael. He’s the one that determined sex. Figures he would want a girl first. Nothing will ever make me forget Michael, new father, obsessing over his baby girl. The boys were such a relief to him. He didn’t feel the need to not be rough.”

Amy laughed. Gillian was a horrible tomgirl most of her youth. She terrorized her poor father with her non-ending escapades, and when the boys were born, she had partners in crime. Adam only two years younger, and Derek three, they followed their older sister with undying loyalty. Then hell broke loose. Gill discovered she was a girl, and boys actually thought she was a hottie. Michael had a melt down.

“Adam is in love with a little girl that he calls Skipper. You don’t even want to hear about the hairball Michael hacked up over that. His only remark was that at fifteen, at least Derek was still showing some sanity.”

“I saw him making gooey eyes at Kim next door.” Amy said smiling in her coffee cup.

“No!” Maria laughed delighted. Oh the shit-hath-hitteth the fan. “My poor baby! He’s going to lose it.” Maria giggled adding more coffee to her cup. “He’s going to lose it knowing that another girl is coming down the pike.”

Amy smiled. Her son-in-law was something she never expected. Michael Guerin as a youth had been the furthest from what she would’ve called devoted family material, and in the twenty years that he and Maria had been married, he proved her wrong endlessly. No one could love him more than Amy. He was a wonderful man, and the best son a woman could want.

“You sure it’s a girl?”

Maria patted her stomach and smiled a slight smile that only a woman could understand. “Pretty certain. I was thinking of the name Becky. What do you think?”

“I love it. So beautiful. I can see Michael with a tiny girl called Becky on his shoulders.” Amy sighed. “Oh Maria, the world is so young again.”

“Mom,” Maria cleared her throat much like Amy did. “Maybe I should name her Amy? After you?”

Amy’s eye misted over, and she squeezed Maria’s hand. “I don’t think so. Stick with Becky. I think I’d prefer one of my grandchildren to name their daughter after me, so there is an Amy in the future.”

“I understand.” Maria searched the treelines across the wide expanse of their large green backyard. Michael’s pride and joy, and his greatest nemesis. Oh, the blight of crabgrass. Every spring he came out armed in pre-emergence, hedge cutters, and Bermuda grass weed killer. The man had so many obsessive traits. Who would’ve known? It seemed impossible, but it was more and more apparent that the man grew more adorable every day. Not loving Michael Guerin would’ve been a great mystery. He was so damn perfect. Beautiful.

“He’s the love of your life.”

Maria laughed through tears. “He is. He really is. In all these years, he never let me down. Never. Tough time. Good.” Maria stroked her stomach. “I need to tell him, soon.”

“Why are you waiting?”

Maria went silent. Why? Looking at her mother, she kissed her hand and patted it. “I’m forty, Mom. I worried that I was too old to do this. My children have all but grown, and it was wonderful having them young. Michael and I, we practically grew up with them ourselves. It was so wonderful taking them to little league, teaching them to fish and climb trees. And, all of us, huddling in bed together with flashlights, Michael reading us Harry Potter, with him doing all the voices. Spitting out the word “Ppppppotter!” It was so much fun. So much fun.”

“I know. I was there.”

“You were. Every step of the way.” Maria sniffed. “I wonder how different this child’s life will be, missing all that with the other children. Missing time with you.”

“To every life, Maria. There is a course. A plan. A design. Only God knows. Only he understands why now, and not then. We abide.” Amy leaned back in her chair loving the smell of coffee. “Who is to say that we are but a dream, living a lifetime in a night. Live in dreams, Maria. Live in heart. It is pure, and you never forget to say I love you. You never forget to remember.”

“Every day of my life is captured almost in a dream. Kept close, so I can revisit time again.” Maria looked at the lines of her mother’s face. “Snapshots. In my mind. You, are so young and beautiful, and so alive! I used to think, when I grow up, I’m going to be just like her.” Maria laughed softly. “Never once was that a hardship to think. Never once did I fear turning into my mother. I would count myself extremely lucky to be half the woman you were.”

Amy cleared her throat, but Maria could tell she was touched. “Thank you, baby. You, Maria. You are my canvass. The most perfect art of my living. You and Michael have given me a gallery of priceless art in the form of my grandchildren. There is not much more that a life can offer, than this perfect moment.”

Maria could see the first real shimmer of daylight. “It’s coming.”

“I know. I can almost feel it.”

“Do you ever think about him? Wonder?” Maria asked.

Her father. Amy knew immediately what she meant. “Sometimes. I see him in you, in different places. I like to think those parts were the very aspects that made me love him enough to create you.” Amy sighed. She could feel it in her bones. The dawning. A new day. A new time. “Mostly, I pity him for all he lost, and walked away from. He couldn’t have imagined how wonderful it all could be.”

“I think of him too.” Maria said softly. “Not as often as I did when I was a child. I remembered catching snowflakes on my tongue with him and you. You laughed as they melted.”

“I still do.” Amy said. It was true. She taught all her grandchildren to catch snowflakes on their tongues, to make snow angels, and to bombard Michael with snowballs.

“I think of him at night when I see the children sleeping, and I forgive him for leaving. I forgive him because he lost more than he could’ve possibly gained.”

Amy smiled, serene and peaceful. There it was. The waking. The world was waking up. She could hear it as the light touched across the branches. “I raised an extraordinary child.”

Maria laughed and cried at the same time. “Is it time?”

“Almost.” Amy kissed Maria’s hand and reached out a hand and laid it on her unborn grandchild. “Becky is a beautiful name. Rebecca. Hebrew. It means captivating. Lovely.”

“I am sure she will captivate a certain daddy’s heart immediately.”

Amy laughed. She completely agreed. Michael would be a slave to his newest daughter. Unquestionably. Amy lifted her head to the dawning light. It felt warm. Fresh. Alive.

“If someone asked me what I liked best, Mom? I think I’d say you.”

Amy glanced at her child, her eyes gentle and full of love. “You were mine too.” Amy closed her eyes. “I can hear the world waking up. Can you hear it too, baby?”

“Yes. I can hear it too.” Maria said a tear sliding down her cheek, her hand holding her mom’s hand. “I can hear it too.”

“Is it okay, now?”

“Yeah. It’s okay.” Maria said nodding sadly.

Amy DeLuca looked out across the green yard and nodded, smiling a serene gentle smile, clearing her throat for the last time. “I love you.”

Maria nodded. “I love you too.” They watched day approach and the world lightening to the coming day. It was going to be a beautiful bright day.

“Maria?”

Michael knelt next to her lounging chair looking over at Amy. He took Amy’s hand from Maria’s and laid it across her stomach. Amy DeLuca looked so young, so beautiful. The last year of cancer had wreaked havoc on her body, but in the peaceful lull of passing away, her beauty and youth seemed restored. She looked at peace.

“She’s gone, honey.”

“I know.”

“You want to come in now?”

“No. Not yet.”

“Are you okay?”

Maria shook her head no, ignoring the tears on her face. “Not really, but I will be. I will be.” Maria refused to stop looking at the view. Michael moved her over and joined her on the lounge. They spent some quiet time with Amy before the world awoke and took her away.

“Can you hear it, Michael? Can you hear the dawning of the new day?”