Free You Were Meant For Me by Yona Zeldis McDonough Page A

Miranda thought back to how calm Celeste had been in the hospital; what was different now?
    Around four o’clock, Bea called to get an update, and at around five, there was a tap on the door. Miranda opened it to find Mrs. Castiglione with a casserole dish of what appeared to be baked ziti and meatballs. “It’s hard to cook anything for yourself in the beginning,” she explained. “I thought you might appreciate this.”
    â€œThank you so much,” Miranda said. Apart from that apple, she had not eaten since breakfast and was starved. Could she put the ziti on the counter and eat it, straight from the casserole dish, standing up? The aroma alone was making her swoon. If the ziti tasted anything like it smelled, she was going to get the recipe from Mrs. Castiglione and publish it in
Domestic Goddess
.
    â€œMaybe you’d like me to hold her for you while you eat,” Mrs. Castiglione offered.
    â€œWould you? That would be great.”
    Mrs. Castiglione took Celeste in her arms and stood in the kitchen while Miranda tried not to wolf the food down too greedily. “This is so good; is there fennel seed in here along with oregano?”
    â€œYes.” Mrs. Castiglione looked so pleased. “My nona’s recipe.” And she hadn’t lost her touch with babies; every time Celeste looked cranky or was about to cry, Mrs. Castiglione made some subtle shift in position that seemed to forestall another outburst.
    After she had eaten and Mrs. Castiglione left, Miranda felt confident enough to attempt giving Celeste a bath. She’dactually watched a YouTube video on the subject and had all the supplies on hand: ergonomically designed plastic baby tub, organically sourced baby wash, hooded towel, and non-talc powder. Miranda undressed her—the stump of the umbilical cord had healed by now—and held the naked baby in her arms before immersing her. Celeste’s tiny lips formed a circle, like a Cheerio, when her body was submerged. Miranda tensed; the O looked like it might open wide, into a scream, but though Miranda braced herself for the storm, it did not come. Instead Celeste actually uttered a soft cooing sound and kicked her legs, froglike, in the water. The rest—the actual washing, drying, dressing—was relatively easy, and when Miranda finally put Celeste in her bassinet, strategically placed just inches from her own bed, she felt a sense of accomplishment that was nothing less than magnificent.
    Although it was not even nine o’clock, she decided to go to sleep; it had been an exhausting day. Tomorrow Supah, the Thai nanny she’d hired, was coming over to meet Celeste and spend a little time with her. Miranda would not need her yet, but she thought it would be a good idea to introduce her into Celeste’s life as soon as she could. It was only when she plugged her phone into the charger that she saw the two missed messages. One was from Evan.
Can’t wait to meet the new baby,
he said.
Call me.
The other was an unfamiliar voice with a very familiar name
. Ms. Berenzweig, this is Geneva Bales. I saw the news bit about the baby you found on the subway and I
was very taken with your story. I am wondering if we might meet. . . .
    Geneva Bales wrote a popular column, “Souls of a City,” for the weekly magazine
Metro
. She had profiled the ninety-six-year-old proprietor of New York City’s last surviving doll hospital, a firefighter who had risked his life to save aforty-pound boa constrictor trapped in a burning building, a young man who received his acceptance letter from Yale the day he buried his homeless, crack-addicted mother. She also weighed in on political figures, celebrities, and people in the news; you never quite knew what Geneva’s take would be. You knew only that it would be quirky, interesting, and totally her own. And now she wanted to profile Miranda and Celeste.
    She listened to the message in its entirety