"Chloe, your phone." Beca notes as the small phone vibrates against her seat.
"Hello?" Chloe responds, shushing Beca.
On the way home from their hospital visit the day before, Chloe had felt a change of heart as one particular thought had tugged at her heart, making her feel as if she had been, even with the best intentions, had been thinking with her head, rather than what she really felt inside. And this one call was about to change everything.
"Hi Chloe, it's the Aurora fertility clinic with your results…" The voice echoes through the phone.
"This is she." Chloe's voice quivers.
"We found that out of the small handful of ovaries we have collected, that at least a few of them are usable for any future IVF attempts."
Chloe feels her heart pound, looking over to a clueless Beca, not an idea of who was on the other end of the conversation, and why Chloe was just sitting there with her jaw wide open.
"Chloe?" Beca finally notices.
"Um, actually that's perfectly okay…" Chloe responds to the lady, drawing a suddenly curious Beca's attention.
"I understand, this doesn't alway work. Thank-you for at least collecting them, it's such a shame there's no good ones." She finishes, hanging up.
"Chloe? Are you okay? What what that about?" Beca asks nervously, confident that she would be given an answer she didn't want to hear but knew she would receive.
"Yeah, they um… didn't find any good ovaries to use." She responds, faking disappointment in her voice.
"Chlo- I'm sorry." Beca consoles her as she reaches over and rubs her shoulder.
"Yeah." She mumbles, leaving it at that as she feels guilt bottle up inside and she looks away.
-XXX-
Chloe's voice echoed on the shower walls, and the steam from her hot shower could be felt from outside the bathroom door. Beca noticed that Chloe's phone was lighting up as it vibrated, shaking Maisie's teething ring around the table.
Message: Hi Chloe,
We have questions regarding your positive ovary samples. Since you have decided after having them harvested, that you no longer want them to be used, we'd like to know if you'd like us to store the samples in our freezers for future use. We also have the option of donation. Please let us know within the next 24-48 hours.
Thanks! The Team at Aurora Fertility Centers.
Beca couldn't believe what she had just read. After spending the night comforting Chloe, who had just laid in bed, refusing to talk to Beca as she stared blankly out of their apartment window, she couldn't believe that this was even real, feeling questions circulate around her mind. But she knew consulting Chloe would only make her more upset, but she was also looking for answers, feeling upset that she may have been certified for surrogacy for nothing.
"Beca? Can you set a towel on the counter for me, I forgot!" Chloe calls from the bathroom, hardly audible over the sound of the shower water clinking against the shower floor.
Beca opens the door, feeling the humidity of the steamy shower hitting her face with extreme moistness. She bend over and pulls a towel out from underneath their cupboard, then goes to hand it to Chloe's outreached hand.
"Thanks Bec."
"Wait!" Beca suddenly draws her arm back, the towel still in it.
"Beca! The water is getting cold!" She whines.
"Not until you explain to me one thing!" Beca demands.
"Did you look in my car trunk?" Chloe asks suspiciously.
"Why? Are the ovaries you're never gonna use stored in there?" Beca snaps and Chloe freezes.
Chloe swears under her breath, and turns the shower off, peering frightened around the shower curtain, pulling it around her body even though Beca's freshman year of college, it was already established that she had no boundaries.
"Chloe, what's changed your mind?" Beca begs to know.
Chloe reaches out for the towel and Beca surrenders it, Chloe wrapped it tightly around herself and carefully climbing out of the shower. As she squeezes her hair, wringing it out for one of the last times before she knew she would probably start losing it, she looked into the mirror, watching Beca staring at her as she did so.
"It was meeting with Eva that made me realize the materialistic idea of surrogacy. We were thinking with our heads at something that seemed to make sense, when we should have been thinking with our hearts! I'm never getting married to that one handsome guy so why bother either way?"
"What do you mean?" Beca asks, trying to follow her little spiel.
"There are plenty of kids who need a home, so why would we take a chance with surrogacy, potentially bringing another child into the world, when there are so many kids already here without a home!"
This was all so new and eye-opening to Beca. The answer had been sitting right in front of them, how unimportant having a child was right now in the midst of this cancer diagnosis, and when it was finally time to have one, that they could foster, bringing light into other children's lives who had gone through their own share of tough times.
"Well, I feel like it would be unfair trying to foster a child while you're too sick to even move while receiving chemo." Beca infers.
"It doesn't have to be right away. But we do have to take classes to foster and it could be a few years before even adopting. But please, look into it! Seeing Eva seriously has made me want to help others who have been through tough times, and this will be the good that comes out of my cancer diagnosis, what I want to do with it." Chloe insists.
Beca followed along, not having the heart to break Chloe's, and nodded in agreement, promising to discuss it when the time came closer, and Chloe sighed in relief, feeling her heavy heart fill with a temporary peace, the most calm she has felt in the last months since she's received her diagnosis.
-XXX-
"Momma, can Chloe take me to preschool today?" Maisie asks, pulling at Beca's blazer.
Beca looks from Maisie's pleading eyes to Chloe who was lying on the couch, her bald head covered with a bandana, and her glassy blues starring painfully at her.
"Sorry honey, she's not feeling up to it today. Remember, chemo makes her very sick."
Maisie, a disappointed four year old, sulked as she lowered her head and shoulders, walking over to Chloe as she went for a gentle hug.
"When you're less sick, can we go play?" Maisie asks.
"You bet. I promise we will." Chloe weakly smiles.
Maisie was still too young to comprehend the pain that Chloe was facing, yet alone able to even digest the idea that anyone could be in so much pain that they couldn't play 'dolls' or have tea parties, or even for Chloe to push Maisie on the swings anymore.
On her best days, after the side effects have passed two weeks later or so, Chloe would try to muster up the energy to take Maisie out while Beca worked, taking the child out to ice cream, or a picnic in the sand at the lake.
The other day, before receiving chemo, Chloe had been left in charge of Maisie while Beca worked, and Maisie had been running senselessly around the house, full of energy when Chloe had decided to take the girl out for a walk.
Maisie glared up at Chloe as she held her hand, Chloe smiling down back at her and walking her down the sidewalk on the side of a calm neighborhood. Maisie swung their hands back and forth, looking curiously around and pointing at all the little things, adoring how the birds would fly and how it was possible for squirrels to climb trees.
"Chloe?" Maisie breaks their silence.
"Yeah Sweetface?" Chloe remembers the nickname and Maisie blushes.
"What makes you so sick? Why can't you just be happy? Momma and I love you!" She asks out of complete innocence.
"I don't know Sweetface, I just don't know." The response broke Chloe's heart.
As the two walked home, Chloe felt herself growing tired before the world started to spin around her. The treatments had made her feel weak, but never to the point where she felt like passing out. Chloe calmly breathed, walking slower as to not startle Maisie.
Bead of sweat formed on her forehead even though the temperature was a near sixty degrees. She felt her hand lose its grip from Maisie as her heart continued to pound, and felt her knees buckle, collapsing to the ground before everything went black.
"Is she breathing?" Someone shouted.
"There's a small child with her!" Another shouts.
Maisie stands over her, crying as she's overwhelmed by the people around her and the noise of an ambulance pulling up. As she's escorted by the police away, being pulled away from the crowd as she watches three men load Chloe, draped with a big vinyl sheet over her, into an ambulance.
Chloe flies up into a sitting position, wide eyed as her heart racing and her breathing vigorous and she breathed deeply and slowly, trying to catch her breath. Cold sweats covered her forehead and even though her body felt hot, her spine felt as though prickly chills like electricity were being sent through it.
Chloe looked at her alarm. 4:07; it read. Beside her, an almost ten month old Maisie laid beside her in a pack n' play, her first real night away from Beca as she had to fly out for a meeting in New York overnight, in which she didn't give much details. She promised she would be there for Chloe in time for her appointment, but Aubrey had taken her instead if she didn't make it.
Her hand first flew to her head, then over to Maisie, peering over the crib to find the child restlessly moving around, trying to get comfortable before sleeping with her butt in the air and her cheek pressed against the mattress.
"Oh, Thank Goodness." She mutters, leaning back as she pulled her covers back around her, trying to fall back asleep, but soon found her overwhelmed emotions over the dream wouldn't let her.
It isn't long before Maisie wakes up for a diaper change and feeding. Chloe thaws the milk from the freezer in warm water as drops it in and walks over to Maisie, lying her down and unzipping her sleeper as she slides it off. She reaches for the drawers of the dresser that houses their TV, and pulls out the outfit she had bought for Maisie, but couldn't use until now because it was too big and Maisie, just recently in the last few months, began spitting up and pooping up her outfits less, wearing bibs less often, and nicer outfits, outgrowing her onesies other than just for bed and breakfast.
"Aw, you look so precious, like a little lady." Chloe remarks of the outfit.
Chloe peels a banana and breaks off pieces, allowing Maise to reach for the pieces and feed herself a light snack before her milk. Much to Chloe's delight, she notices that Maisie was reaching for the foods with her left hand, much like her momma.
"Ms. Maisie Elise, you wanna be just like your momma." Chloe dotes over her.
The curly haired child smiles, banana gushing all mashed up out of her grinning mouth, flashing her two, middle bottom teeth. Chloe lifts the child off the counter, wiping the drool from her chin and the banana from her shirt, and lets her crawl around while she cleaned the bedroom.
Chloe listened to her music, singing along and belting out her words, but as the music softened, she heard Maisie trying to hum along sweetly. Sticking her head around the door, she saw Maisie peering around the corner, smiling suspiciously at her, but when Chloe directly looked at her, she turned around and crawled away after clapping her hands.
"I'm gonna get you!" Chloe called, chasing the child as she sped up, looking behind her and giggling, as if she found the situation humorous.
"Oh Maisie!" Chloe gasps, stopping in her tracks, glaring around the living room, showered with torn up toilet paper, as well as Diggity, laying next to the couch, toilet paper shreds scattered in his fur.
Her eyes grew wide, and they welled with tears, as Chloe walked toward her and picked her up, setting her into the pack n' play she had moved into the room, and instantly regretting not putting her in it, or even keeping a closer eye on her in the first place.
"That was very naughty." Chloe lectured softly, knowing that the child, though Maisie knew she was up to no good, didn't fully understand the consequences of her actions.
"Well, it looks like it's time that we get some safety locks." Beca grins, as she sets her suitcase in a chair, and looks around the room as she walks in.
-XXX-
"Beca, I feel nauseous." Chloe groans as Beca covers her with a heavy blanket.
Beca runs to the kitchen and pulls a plastic bowl out from underneath the counter and sets it down next to Chloe's bed as she leans over, just in time to utilize it. Beca scoops her hair into a pony, tying it up then drops it, rubbing circles around Chloe's back.
"You good?" Beca finally asks.
"Yeah, I think so." Chloe moans.
The side effects of chemo had hit Chloe like a train going full speed. Just the day before she had received it, and only hours later she grew weary, vomiting and shaking, cold sweats all over her body. She felt like a lot was being taken out of her but what killed her spirit the most, was the fact that due to the radiation, she couldn't cuddle with Maisie for the next 24 to 48 hours, and it crushed her.
"Just sleep it off, it will get better, I promise." Beca smiles, scooping Maisie off the floor and bringing her into the other room.
As Chloe regained her strength in the next two weeks, Beca struggled with Maisie, who in just a month and a half would be one, and was already pulling herself up on furniture, cruising around on it as she tempted herself, letting go and trying to step but only being a tease, quickly grabbing for the couch again when she realized she couldn't do it. But she definitely was a daredevil, just like her mother.
"Maisie, what are you doing peanut?" Beca asks amused.
It was then without thinking, that Maisie let go of the table, standing up on her own before falling backward, losing her balance.
"Maisie, you big girl! Just wait until Auntie sees you!" Beca gushes proudly of the child.
Beca knew it wouldn't be long before she could walk. After all, Maisie walked pretty well with a walker, and with the help of holding Beca's and, or even Chloe's hand, she could take a few steps.
A few weeks later, after Maisie major milestone and Chloe unknowing about it, because Beca wanted her to see if first for herself, Chloe regained her strength and she and Beca took Maisie to a children's museum.
They took her to a little area, designed specifically for smaller children, and found her a small shopping cart, encouraging her to fill it with the plastic food, tossing it inside and helping her push it around. Maisie shakily moved, holding on tightly to the handle so she could stay upright, and walk around.
Maisie happily let go and crawled around, placing the plastic pear in her hand in front of her as she sat up, and tossed the apple out of her other hand, then picking the pear up to put in her mouth.
A crawl-through cave, built with hands on objects for the children, including interactive sand pit digging for plastic fossils and rocks, as well as actual water streaming in a light rain down the side of the cave wall. Maisie crawled over and splashed in it, wetting the front of her white baby bubble vest, and Beca pulled it off, allowing her long sleeved teal, flowered onesie underneath to get wet as she pulled herself up on the wall, rubbing her hands along the rubberish plastic wall.
Maisie fell asleep on the way home, lightly snoring as Beca and Chloe softly listened to music, still overjoyed with the exciting day they had. Upon arriving home, and attempting to take Maisie out of her seat without waking her, Maisie, without any inclination that she was awake before, popped her eyes open as Beca open the car door, and squealed happily at the sight of her mother, reaching out for her and lifting herself up.
"Ahhh?" Maisie's eyes lit up with amusement, wide awake.
"Oh no, little one! It's way past your bedtime!" Beca jokingly warned her.
As Beca changed her and prepared her for bed, bathing her and briskly drying her off, then putting her in her sleepers, she sat Maisie on the floor, in between her and Chloe, who were facing each other from opposite sides, and watching as Maisie curiously crawled around, shaking a bottle Beca had filled with beads, tightly screwing the cap on.
Maisie tossed the bottle toward the couch, where Chloe was resting with her back against it, and began crawling over, scouting over Chloe's lap to reach the bottle, then pulling herself up on the couch, looking for the bottle she had thrown that way. Soon giving up, she went to sit herself down, but instead, held onto Chloe's hair, pulling out a loose patch near her scalp, firmly gripping it as she took first a step with the help of Chloe, then another, taking a step without a hand to help, reaching out to her mother to catch her if she fell.
"C'mon Sweetface!" Beca cheered her on.
Maisie stood in place, unsure of what to do next. She stood, her left foot she had taken a step with in front of her, and her other behind, unsure how to move the two together. But then, shakily as she struggled to keep her balance, she attempted to move the foot forward, then one more big step before falling forward, reaching out into her mother's arms.
"Aw Peanut, good job!" Beca exclaims, setting Maisie on her lap as Maisie looks for her approval, clapping her hands proudly together at the praise she was receiving, the three celebrating one of the many milestones of Maisie's childhood.