In Good Hands - Stephen and Sonora Stoker

Sonora Morgan-Stoker isn’t afraid of many things. Ever since she was a little girl, she’s known she can fight the monsters that other kids imagine live under their beds, but that she knows are very real and can’t be driven away with a nightlight.
She could knock a plum from a tree with a knife throw by the time she was eight, shoot a bottle off a fence while standing on a horse’s back when she was twelve, and strip a car down to the chassis and rebuild it when she was fifteen.
But when Mama Rosa places the bundle of newborn into her arms, she isn’t sure she can keep him safe. Johnathan (and she’s already calling him John in her head, Johnathan is too big a name for such a tiny human being) feels fragile, like if she holds him too tightly he might slip away.
And she can’t forget the tiny gravestone in the family plot, the one with her sister’s name on it. An older sister she never had the chance to meet because two months after she was born, she went to sleep one night and never woke up.
Despite the fact that John’s cradle is right next to the bed, Sonora sleeps restlessly, waking up at the smallest sounds. She stays awake longer than she has on any shift, and the dark circles she sees under her eyes are shadowier than they were even when she was training.
When Stephen startles her in the kitchen when she dozes off at the table, and she pins his arm behind his back without even thinking, she knows something has to change. She can’t go on like this. But she’s afraid.
She tells him everything. About her sister, about the grave, about how afraid she is that she’s going to fail the tiny life that depends on her. Stephen doesn’t make light of her worry, doesn’t tell her not to be afraid. She knows he has family stories too. A grandfather who spent his childhood bedridden has to have left some lingering concerns about children and their health.
That night, she falls asleep, listening to Stephen singing (off key, she thinks) a lullaby that’s probably been passed down in his family for years, his soft Irish brogue growing stronger as he bends down over the blanket-wrapped child in his arms. For the first time since John was born, she can close her eyes and feel peaceful. Her son is in good hands.