Amber Borowski Johnson

Tom from my building asked me to meet him at a diner. He said he had news. I assumed someone had died. Nobody had died. He slid a photograph across the table. An ultrasound. A small ghost in a gray sea. "We want to ask you something," he said. "We want you to be the godfather." I have learned to expect strange things in this country. I was not expecting this. "I have to tell you," I said, "I am not Catholic. I am not your family. We have known each other fourteen months." "We know." "There must be a better candidate." Tom stirred his coffee for a while. "My brother has three kids and a boat payment and he calls me twice a year. You answer every text. You show up when you say you will. When I moved the washer, you brought your own dolly. I made a list of the men I know, and you were at the top of it, and it was not close." I still do not know what a boat payment is. I researched the role the way I research everything. It is an old oath. At the baptism, the godfather speaks for the child, who cannot yet speak. And should the worst arrive — should the parents be taken — the godfather steps forward. In my country we would call this a retainer's vow. I have been training for this role my whole life without knowing its name. At the church, the priest asked if I reject evil. "I DO," I said. My voice carried. A baby in the third row woke up. Tom's wife was laughing and crying at the same time, which I am told is common at these events, and which I have chosen to believe. Afterward, on the church steps, I asked Tom the real question. Why me. There are men who have known him longer, men who share his faith, men who understand boat payments. He thought about it. "You take everything seriously," he said. "That's the whole job." I have spent years in this country being too much. Too formal. Too grave. Too careful with small things. I have watched people smile at it, and I have been grateful for the smile, and I have known what the smile meant. And then a man handed me his daughter — on paper, in a church, against the worst day of his life — because of it. Her name is June. She cannot speak. For now, I speak for her. I keep the ultrasound in my wallet. It is a strange photograph. It looks like weather. It is my favorite thing I own.