Chapter Text
Several years ago, I found myself waking up beside my wife. I remember, she was positively glowing, those were the days back when her heart was full. She sat up in bed, still in her white nightgown, still sleepy-eyed.
I remember the misty blue morning when she told me; the windows were fogged over in their iron frames, and everything seemed a haze.
“My love, have you heard the news?” She beamed, her dark curls draped haphazardly over her shoulders. I shook my head, still half in the daze of sleep. How did she wake up so easily?
She gently took my hand, and leaned in to whisper in my ear. “We’re having a baby.”
“What? Really?” I couldn’t believe my ears. For all the years we’d tried, watching as Macduff and Banquo and all the others one by one become fathers, while my wife went on ceaselessly of how she wished for a child…
Banquo’s boy, Fleance, was nearing a year old now. I bet he would like to have someone to play with. I drew my wife into my arms and hugged her tightly.
“How long have you known?” I asked, a little too eagerly.
“Just since yesterday,” she laughed. “But you came home so late, and I was already asleep… oh, Beth, can you believe it?”
“No, no, oh, love, this is wonderful! What should we call them?” I pondered. “If it’s a boy, we’re certainly not naming him Malcolm…. everyone’s named Malcolm these days…
If it’s a girl…”
I saw her think for a minute, then her eyes lit up. “Lillian.” She interjected, as though she had never been more positive of something in her life.
“Lillian? That’s a pretty name.” I mused. Gruoch always had a way with names. She’d spent years thinking of what to name our children. She made lists upon lists, too many to even keep track of, and she had plenty of time to do so, since we never seemed to have any luck.
So much time she spent with young Fleance; many times if Banquo and his Lady Muldivana were occupied, my wife would offer to watch the young boy. Muldivana had often joked that Gruoch would steal their son away if they weren’t careful enough. I knew why she did it, though; she longed to be a mother herself.
She then nodded dreamily. “Lillian, like the lilies that grow by the pond, near the back of our castle.”
I brushed a curl behind her ear, and kissed her cheek. “If you’re so sure, then Lillian she shall be.” I said.
It really was a beautiful name.
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The months passed by as fleeting as candles in the wind. Before I knew it, I was standing outside our bedroom door, waiting, knots in my stomach as my wife screamed on the other side. It seemed my heart had stopped itself, out of fear that I wouldn’t hear what was going on in that room— such was the tension in the air. I knew many women died in childbirth; it was one of the inevitable dangers of life. I prayed to anyone who would listen that she be protected.
Then all of a sudden, the screams had ceased, and I heard a different kind of crying. A cry that didn’t belong to my wife, but someone far younger. And my heart restarted and began to race.
They let me in the room, where I first laid eyes on our baby girl. By this point Gruoch had been set on naming her Lillian, so Lillian she would be. I’ll never forget how tiny she looked in her mother’s arms. Her mother looked tired, but filled with joy, and absolutely enamoured with little Lily.
“Would you like to see your father, little one?” She asked softly. I leaned in and kissed my wife’s forehead, knitting my fingers into her dark hair.
I then reached my hand toward the child. I’ll never forget how small she was, how delicate. A little hand wrapped around my index finger.
Her tiny eyes squinted at me. She blinked.
I might have cried.