Chapter 1: Dolores

A deep force pulled her under, like a giant magnet that made her consciousness detach from her body. Helen struggled to float from the depths of sleep before she could force her eyes to open. The bright light hurt her eyes and made her feel dizzy and nauseous. Helen's experience as a patient in the cardiac ICU taught her that closing her eyes would be the best way to avoid throwing up, but before she could do that, she needed her questions answered.

There was a hand in hers, soft and warm. It felt different than Maddie's hand. Helen could recognize her daughter's palm even from behind the haze of sedatives and whoever held her hand was not her daughter.

"Helen?"

Rebel.She recognized the voice of the other woman.

Helen's throat hurt from the breathing tube that was inserted into it during the surgery. A nasal cannula has replaced it, but the pain lingered. Her lips formed the name she couldn't voice. "Maddie."

"Maddie is fine," Rebel replied.

"Baby?" Helen continued. Every word she tried to get out of her mouth exhausted her further.

"Still with us," Rebel said.

Helen wanted to know when she would be able to see her daughter and granddaughter. She knew that she'd be in the ICU for at least a day, possibly longer, and might miss seeing her granddaughter alive. It was a devastating thought she had not allowed herself to dwell on until now.

"Maddie." This time her voice came out of her throat, croaky and hoarse.

"You could facetime each other," Rebel suggested.

Helen's lips formed a "Yes".

A moment later, Rebel held her phone in front of Helen's face. Maddie's pale but somewhat relaxed face appeared on the screen. Her daughter was cuddling the baby. It seemed too small, too fragile.

"Mom." Maddie's eyes filled up with tears as soon as she saw her mother on the screen. "How are you feeling?"

Helen smiled. She was beginning to feel the dull ache in her chest, one that will surely grow stronger once she is weaned from painkillers in the coming weeks. But it was a good pain, one that meant that she would get better soon.

"You?" Helen struggled to emit the word.

Her daughter nodded, unable to speak. Helen could not imagine what her daughter was going through. Dealing with a sick mother and a dying baby at the same time must have been unbearable. She knew how much Maddie wanted the baby, how many miscarriages she had to go through before she could carry a pregnancy to term.

When Maddie got pregnant for the fourth time, Helen was afraid to hope for a different outcome. But the first trimester passed, and then the second, and things appeared to be progressing well. Things turned south when Maddie received the unfortunate news that the baby suffered from Hydrops Fetalis in the middle of her third trimester. Hope shattered to pieces.

Now, several weeks later, Helen was looking at the baby through an iPhone screen. It was hard not to notice how weak the baby looked, how shallow her breaths were. This baby was barely alive even now.

The realization struck her at once that Maddie was not the only one who was about to lose this baby. In the many weeks she struggled to get her Stonemore valve replaced, Helen had watched Maddie process the loss of her marriage and then the upcoming death of her unborn baby. At no point did Helen stop to consider her own feelings about the baby's short life expectancy. Now she realized that ever since the baby's diagnosis, she could not feel happy about becoming a grandmother. In fact, she had not felt like a grandmother at all. But she was. And her granddaughter was about to die.

Tears began streaming from her eyes, and Helen could do nothing to control them.

"I love you," Maddie said, barely containing her tears. "I'll be with you as soon as possible. I promise."

A nurse who noticed her distress approached the bed and asked Rebel to step away. Helen was not sure what happened next because she sank into a deep sleep again.

The next time Helen opened her eyes, Maddie was by her side. After a quick inquiry, Helen gathered that it had been a few hours since her surgery. Maddie came without the baby but showed her mother the photos of the baby she took on her phone.

"Did you think of a name for her?" Rebel asked.

The question caught both Helen and Maddie by surprise. Neither of them thought of naming the baby. What was the use, really? If she was about to leave them so soon, why did she need a name? Logically, Helen knew that not naming the baby would help both of them detach from her, but on second thought, it seemed unfair to deny their love for her. The baby was a soul that came into the world, into their family. Rebel was right; the baby needed a name, regardless of her expected short life.

"I don't know," Maddie said, a devastated expression on her face. "Just baby, I guess."

"Dolores." Helen did not know why her mother's name came into her mind, but it did. And for some reason, it made perfect sense.

Maddie nodded slowly. "Dolores."