No! The world must be peopled. The juvenile was, as far as John could tell, an extremely fragile specimen, and not a healthy-looking one. Its flesh was pale and translucent, its eyes black and unfocused, its mouth fell open apparently aimlessly. It did not seem able to lift its head, or indeed to do much at all besides – undulate, sort of. It did not have the strength for deliberate, purposeful motion, but to his mild surprise, neither was it still. It was like holding a bag full of seawater.
“It’s beautiful,” he said, because he had read that he was supposed to do this, and its mother gave him a look of exasperation from the bed where she was propped up on a great number of pillows, but it was tempered with a smile – apparently she was in an indulgent mood.
“She is beautiful,” corrected Julian.
“She is beautiful,” parroted John obediently, despite the statement being patently false: his niece’s head was visibly disproportionate to the rest of her body, her forehead disproportionate even to the rest of her head, her expression was disconcerting in its lack of intelligence – between that and her undulation and her seeming to want to snuggle against anything warm (including him), it was very difficult to think of her as a person and not simply a small mammal.
“Do you want me to take her back?” guessed Julian.
“Yes, but I’m not sure how to give her back to you without dropping her head, and I read that’s bad.”
Julian’s coordination combined with John’s eagerness to no longer being responsible for the baby, however, to accomplish the transfer without damage to the infant or to either of the adults, to John’s relief. He sat down beside the pair instead. “Mom said you’re calling her Cecilia Marie. Do you find all the screaming melodic?”
Again the annoyed look, this time without a smile. “No,” said Julian. “It’s from William’s family – that it’s a saint’s name is just a coincidence. I came up with Marie to please you and Mom because of that.”
This was fair, though he would have preferred Mary or Maria to ‘Marie’. He’d never found the French language particularly pleasant to listen to; what didn’t sound childish instead sounded congested and contemptuous.
“You’re thinking of Our Lady, or Maria Aegyptiaca, or - “
“Yes,” said Julian.
“Maria Aegyptiaca?” said John, surprised. He often asked for the intercession of Mary of Egypt, but he hadn’t known Julian had any interest in her. “Interesting choice. I wouldn’t have thought - “
“That was a mathematician’s yes,” said Julian. “Any or all of them, I suppose - or whoever’s feast day we’re closest to. Or whichever one the godparents like best.” Julian laid the baby beside her on the bed and proffered her fingers for Cecilia to grip. “I was thinking of asking Joe to be her godfather,” said Julian. “Since he’s been a bit left out of everything else this year.”
John thought about this reasoning and nodded. “He might like that,” he said. “But that would mean leaving the christening until - summer anyway - “ he realized in time that it would be Bad to continue with why it was important to get children christened as soon as possible; Julian would probably hex him if he reminded her that infants sometimes died, even if she did later admit that his point was valid and mentioned out of genuine concern for Tiny’s well-being in this world and the next - “and he doesn’t go to Mass enough. And neither do you, actually - “
“And you go to Mass too much,” said Julian.
“That is patently untrue,” objected John. “Most of the time I only go once a day.”
Julian laughed and shook her head, but then looked at him more seriously again. “I suppose that’s not too bad,” she said. “As long as that’s all. And - “
“Julian, don’t,” said John.
“You worry me when you pray too much,” said Julian forcefully, trying to make eye contact to drive her point home. “It doesn’t do good things to your head and you know it.” They looked at each other for a moment, John vaguely annoyed and trying to hide it and Julian apprehensive, before she added, “plus you lose all sense of humor and are a real pain in the ass - and believe me, I know things about pains in the ass right now that you never will.”
“Please God,” said John, crossing himself, and Julian said ‘Amen’ as she mirrored the gesture - a tableau which became awkward when Mom tapped on the door and entered.
“Amen what?” she asked.
“Just - expressing how glad I was that everything went well for Julian,” said John. This was not altogether untrue - while he definitely did not want to know the things it seemed Julian now knew, there really had been less screaming and vomiting and such than he had thought, from his reading, there might be, and Julian had done an excellent job of not hemorrhaging to death while Cecilia had been a real trooper and refrained from strangling herself or beating her own brains in or trying to do things backwards. The performance seemed to have involved no obvious complications and as soon as John had been sure that Julian would be all right without him for a bit - specifically, because she’d been unconscious and Mom and Dad and Steve had all been about to guard her and the baby - he had gone to their own church at home and had requested the offering of a Mass in gratitude for that fact. It had occurred to him after the fact that this was probably more William’s place than his own, but he doubted it was the kind of thing William would think to do, anyway, and even if he did, extra Masses could hardly hurt.
“Amen,” echoed their mother, crossing herself too, and John was slightly impressed with both himself and his sister that they managed not to start laughing on the spot.