Free You Were Meant For Me by Yona Zeldis McDonough

said. “Please,
please
don’t cry.” She could feel the heat emanating from the small body, and she loosened the blanket to give her more air. Bea honked the horn, and Miranda looked over. Thank God she was here—in her distress over Celeste, she’d almost forgotten about her.
    â€œDo you want to get in?” Bea called over the sound of the crying. She stopped the car at the corner, and Miranda, who was fresh out of options, yanked open the door with a desperate gesture. Her hands shook a little, and she strapped Celeste into the car seat before sliding in next to her.
    â€œThere’s something wrong with her.” Miranda stroked Celeste’s head. The baby’s scalp was moist with exertion, and her black hair gleamed. “I should take her to a doctor. No—to the ER.”
    â€œRight. We’ll go to Methodist,” Bea said. “That’s the closest.”
    Miranda fished a baby wipe out of the diaper bag and dabbed at Celeste’s face, which was wet and mottled. There was much less traffic now and the car sped along Eastern Parkway. As it did, Celeste’s cries began to soften and then diminish. By the time they passed the Brooklyn Museum, they had stopped entirely, and when Bea pulled up to the hospital on Seventh Avenue, Celeste was asleep.
    â€œLook at that,” said Bea. “Who knew that all it took was a little joy ride?”
    â€œWho knew?” Miranda said weakly. Even though Celeste was now calmed, she still felt shaky. They drove back to President Street, where Miranda got out and carefully unstrapped the car seat, not wanting to wake Celeste. Then she hugged Bea good-bye.
    â€œCall me later?” said Bea. “I want to hear how it’s going.”
    â€œI will,” Miranda said. Right now, she could not wait to get upstairs to her apartment and
relax.
As she put the key in the lock, Mrs. Castiglione poked her head out of her door and then stepped out in the hallway to greet them. Thank God the baby was quiet now; she would have hated her landlady’s introduction to her new daughter to have occurred thirty minutes ago.
    â€œSo here she is,” said Mrs. Castiglione, peering down at the car seat that held the sleeping infant. “She’s very small, isn’t she?”
    â€œThe doctor says she’s fine; she wasn’t a preemie,” Miranda said.
    â€œMy godson, Anthony, he was very small too. We called him Peanut. You’d never know it now, though.”
    Miranda had never met Anthony, but she’d seen his photograph in her landlady’s apartment; he had the wide, powerful build of a linebacker.
    â€œAnd you’re calling her . . . ?”
    â€œCeleste,” Miranda said. “That was my grandmother’s name.”
    â€œA lovely name,” Mrs. Castiglione said. “And a lovely gesture. Your grandmother, may she rest in peace, would have been happy.”
    â€œI’d like to think so.” Miranda’s paternal grandmother had doted on her in the way her own mother had not.
    â€œI know so,” said Mrs. Castiglione firmly. She stepped back to allow Miranda to pass. “Please let me know if I can help in any way. I may not have raised any of my own, but I remember a thing or two from Anthony. Oh, he was a handful!”
    â€œThanks, Mrs. Castiglione,” said Miranda. “I appreciate that.” It was so clear she would have liked children of her own.
    Although Miranda had wanted nothing more than to kick off her shoes and unwind in her apartment, Celeste wasn’t having it. She woke up as soon as Miranda carried the car seat inside, and Miranda needed to change and feed her before she could even think of having any lunch herself. And when she did, it was just an apple, hastily devoured while she held Celeste tucked in the crook of her other arm; Celeste fussed whenMiranda sat down with her, and the only way to keep her quiet was to remain standing.