Pushing the Limits

by Katie McGarry

“Alexander Aires Emerson.” A shiver ran through me until the name settled in my heart. Alexander’s little hand broke free from the blanket and grasped my finger. Aires. They named the baby after Aires. Aires would have loved this baby, regardless of who his mother was, regardless of how our father treated him. Why? Because that’s the way he’d loved me. Aires loved me unconditionally. He loved me when I was a scared child. He loved me when I was a bratty preteen. He loved me as a hormonal teenager. When nobody else in this world could love me for being an unsure, self-absorbed, timid scaredy-cat, he loved me. More than once, Aires had sucked up his pride for me. He took crap from my father, my mother and from Ashley to stick up for me.