aldersprig | Made from Words, a story for the Giraffe Call

For stryck's prompt.

“It may be time to accept the inevitable,” Fred sighed, holding Chelsea close. His wife stiffened in his arms.

“No!” she demanded. “When have we ever given in? When have we ever given up? Fred, Fred, I want this so badly!”

“I do too, honey, you know I do. But nothing is getting us anywhere…”

“Well, then, we’ll have to try something else!”

She spent the next week in her studio, writing, pouring out everything onto paper. Their lovemaking was rough and desperate when she emerged, and often ended with Fred holding a sobbing Chelsea, the two of them clinging to each other as if to a lifeboat. When the week passed and she calmed, the sex gentler, the sounds from the studio more like her normal writing, Fred thought she’d finally given in, that she hadn’t been able to find another way any more than he had.

That hit him harder than month after month of “no” had; if she’d given up, then there really was no hope. He spent a couple weeks drinking, trying to pretend he wasn’t moping. Trying to pretend this was okay. Inevitable. Acceptable. There was still the sex, every night, more sex than since they’d been teenagers dating. Between the beer and the lovemaking, he spent much of his time wandering around in a haze.

He could be forgiven, then, for not noticing that a month had passed, for letting Chelsea step into the bedroom for her monthly ritual on her own. Perhaps even for being confused at the whoop that came from the room moments later. “We did it!”

By the time he was holding her in his arms, he’d begun to understand. “We… seriously? Chel, how?”

“I wrote it,” she whispered. “I wrote her. Everything I wanted in a daughter, everything I wanted in a kid, everything you wanted. I wrote her a letter, letter after letter. Invited her to come.” She set a possessive hand on her flat stomach. “And she did.”

“Chel….” He wasn’t going to question that. He really wasn’t. She was his angel, and she had worked magic. He kissed her, instead. “I’m going to take such good care of you.”

The months brought, in due and very careful time, a daughter, a beautiful baby with bright blue eyes that seemed to know more than they should. She was their gift, their unexpected present, and so they named her Dora. If she was a little more spoiled than an ordinary baby, well, they could be forgiven.

As she grew, every inch marked, every milestone chronicled, the knowing look in her eyes brightened rather than faded. She spoke early, and sooner in full sentences than most children; even the doctors noted it. Her teachers struggled to keep up with her. Her classmates, conscious of the different, made fun of her strange sentence construction (so like her mother’s novels, much above her age range), called her Dorky Dora the Dictionary. But when she came home crying, Chelsea and Fred hugged her.

“You are our gift,” they told her, “our lovely daughter who came at our invitation. You were made of words, lovely girl, of course you have a large vocabulary. Of course you’re eloquent and well-spoken.”

Made of words. Dora took that in, held it close to her. When next her classmates called her The Dictionary, she smiled knowingly at them. “Yes,” she agreed. “I’m made of words. What are you made of?”