She cries a lot.
She cries a lot, she seems to be hungry and eat quite a bit, she sleeps in between crying and eating, and it seems to Roland that that's all she does.
He was excited to be a big brother, had planned to show his younger sister his favorite parts of the forest, teach her how to make a proper fort, he planned to show her the best flavors of ice cream, the wonder that was peanut butter, the secret handshake he had learned through Henry, he planned to show her how to properly pet Pongo so he whimpered and wagged his tail just so, he would teach her jokes and make her laugh….and an assortment of other wonders.
He had plans for his sister.
But when Eliza was born Regina and daddy had told him the baby could not have peanut butter or ice cream. She refused to learn the secret handshake because Regina had told him that his sister hadn't figured out how to use her arms yet.
He wasn't allowed to take her for a walk of the forest because she could not yet walk and Roland could not yet carry her. His father promised he would escort her when she was older and could be out in the cold for a longer amount of time. But she couldn't do that yet.
Eliza couldn't do anything except cry, it seemed. And no one liked her crying.
What frustrated him the most, however, was that his sister could not laugh. He was funny – he was sure of that. Henry always laughed when he told his jokes, Henry laughed when he did his "jelly" walk, the walk where he bent his legs just so, leaned his back as far as he could, his arms moving fluidly around as he giggled and said he had no bones.
But his jelly walk did not make Eliza laugh, or even smile. Regina explained that Eliza couldn't yet do either. She would laugh in time, Regina promised. But not yet.
But when his daddy was burping Eliza one day Roland saw his baby sister, eyes shut, with a smile on her face.
"Papa I thought you said Eliza can't smile yet!" he cried, staring at her smile. "She's smiling now, what is she smiling at? Why doesn't she ever smile at me?"
But his papa laughed at him. Laughed! "Roland, your sister won't smile for us for quite some time. Right now she is just making faces. You need to wait until she's older for her to really smile."
But Roland had already put a hand on his sister's head an unfortunate, successful attempt to wake her, so he could make her smile himself, or maybe she could laugh now? Roland made silly faces at her, faces that should at least make her smile if not laugh.
"ROLAND!" his papa yells at him.
Roland woke her from a near-sleep, and she's crying. Crying again. And it's hard not to feel bad, when all he wanted to do is make her smile.
"Eliza is bad! She doesn't like us!" He declared. He stomped away from the kitchen table into the living and kicked angrily at the couch, and ow! That hurt his foot. Papa is yelling at him to get back there right now, and he is going to be in trouble, and Roland doesn't even care. He fights back the tears, his sister cries enough for the entire household. No need to add to it.
But Regina is there, he didn't even see her coming, but she's bent down so that his eyes are level with hers, and she's put a hand on his back, and her fingers move in a nice pattern across is back, and he feels the anger dripping out of him just slightly.
"Roland" she says, and her voice sounds comforting. Regina usually talks in a voice to him that usually makes him feel warm and a bit relaxed, like late spring in the forest, when the sun was vibrant but not yet overbearing, when he could just sit in the sun and soak up balmy goodness around him.
He fights it, this time, Regina's secret magical power to calm him down.
"She HATES me!" he says again, tears threatening to leave his face.
"No Roland, she is just tired and angry."
"I saw her smile. She knows how!" Roland won't look at Regina. He'd rather look at the floor. "She doesn't smile at me."
"She doesn't smile at any of us, yet" Regina says, but no, this is no better. Eliza should be smiling and happy, the way babies are in books. He frowns, concerned at this.
Regina's not angry, he isn't being punished for being bad and yelling and it somewhat surprises him. "Roland, Eliza is still learning how to move those muscles in her face. This smile is like an exercise of the face muscles. Imagine if you had a third arm and you had to learn how to use it. You might not always move it where you wanted to go, and it might upset you quite a bit. Everything on her body is like that. She is learning how to move all those muscles every day. You know how her arms are always waving, and you ask why she hit herself, and papa told you she can't control her arms yet?"
Roland remembered. Eliza couldn't even stop from hurting herself. He nodded slightly.
"Well she doesn't hit herself on purpose, she's just trying to learn. And sometimes she gets very tired or frustrated and she cries."
"She is ALWAYS crying." Roland corrected, and Regina laughs at that, and she's pulling him into a hug and it's nice, like something heavy in his chest is lifted.
"She cries a lot" Regina agreed. "But soon she will learn how to use her eyes, how to use her neck muscles, how to use her arms…,soon she will be able to look at you, and see how wonderful you are. And then she will smile. And when she does, it will be much better and brighter than that silly face she made in her sleep. Ok?"
"She can't do anything." True, his baby sister came out much earlier than he expected, but she was hear now, had been here for seven weeks, and she hadn't done anything.
"Soon she will do so much" Regina says. "Some of it you won't like. She will steal your toys, she may accidentally break your video games, she will follow you around when you are with your friends, or with Henry. She'll do so much you won't know what to do with her. I promise. But now just keep on talking to your sister, she'll learn a lot in due time."
"Will she love me?" he asks timidly, unsure of the answer. He knows there's something different about his sister, and he isn't quite sure.
"Roland, she already loves you very much. She just can't show it, yet. But she will learn. You," and she touches his nose with her finger the way Regina does, because it never fails to make him smile and laugh "are impossible not to love."
"Do you love me?" It's almost asked in a whisper. He had felt a bit ignored since the baby came, and Regina was so busy helping everyone else with grownup, secret things and helping papa understand how to take care of Eliza.
And now Regina had said "I love you" to papa, and he knew she loved Henry. But she hadn't told Roland she loved him. Not yet.
He looked up at Regina just then, and realized he did a bad thing, he made Regina cry. "Regina I'm sorry!" he almost screams, wishing he could take back his question, watching the tears fall down. "Please don't cry I'm sorry!"
Regina was shaking her head, holding him close and picking him up. He was big now, too big to be held as he'd informed his papa and Regina many times, but since Eliza was born and she was held all the time…he missed being held. He wrapped his arms around her neck and legs clung tightly around her waist. "Roland, no need to apologize, you didn't do anything wrong" she whispered. "I just, I love you so, so much. I'm sorry you even had to ask."
"Do you love Eliza?" he asked into her shoulder, hugging her back, finally releasing tears he kept in in soft, wet sobs. He wanted so badly for Eliza to be happy and good, to love everyone so they could love her back. Because he heard things one day, things at a diner his papa told him not to repeat to anyone, especially to Regina. Things about how the baby was bad, and that it made Regina sad and hurt her because it wasn't her baby. But he wasn't Regina's baby either.
He thought maybe if he could get the baby to stop crying she would love him and the baby too.
There's something wrong with that question he just asked, though, it makes his papa nervous, has his papa up and almost running from the kitchen into the living room where they are. Roland could hear him saying something but he was sniffling too loud into Regina's shoulder, and his father sounded far away as he said something like Let me take him for a bit, I'm sorry, Regina.
But Regina only held Roland tighter and she shh-ed his small sobs soothingly.
"Yes" she croaked "Yes, Roland, I love your sister very much. I couldn't love her anymore."
"You wouldn't even love her more if she laughed instead of cried?" he asked, and Regina was laughing
"No" she said, "I'd love her the same amount no matter how often she cried or how little she laughed."
"Me too" Roland said, and he decided it was true.
It's two weeks later and Roland is telling his baby sister all about his day at school, his sister looking at him, her eyes look different, more focused…and as he tells her how his best friend spilled milk out of his nose when he sneezed, and reenacts it just so, he sees the look on her face.
A smile. A smile with her eyes open and looking at him. A smile that stays on her face for a bit, a smile that turns into two smiles, and then three.
Eliza cries all night that night, but Roland doesn't seem to mind as much.