For the rest of the week, Anita kept the nursery clean and tidy, with various shades of pink scattered in painted teddy bears. Meanwhile, Victor explained to Professor Professor and everyone else at UZZ what had happened with the pregnancy.
"Mon Dieu..." Delphine just murmured. "That's... that's awful."
"I'm so sorry that happened to you, Victor," Snorts the Duckbilled Dinosaur said. "I wouldn't wish that even on my worst enemy. Oh, right, for reasons of security, my name is Changed Daily. Today, you may call me..." His cellphone beeped. "Oh... Peter the Pufferfish."
Everyone else took a moment to laugh at their boss's new name.
"Anyway," Peter the Pufferfish continued. "My deepest condolences to you and Anita. For your sake, I hope that you'll be able to heal from this the best way you know how."
"My God..." Victor muttered. "I-I don't even know what to say."
Peter the Pufferfish just looked at Victor straight into the eyes, trying his best to appear stoic. "It's all right. You don't have to say anything right now. You just need to grieve."
"T-Thanks."
"No problem."
The day before Anita was to be induced for labor, Delphine and Anita sat down at the kitchen table and drank some tea without saying even so much as a word. It was a rare moment for Delphine to focus on something besides her work as a secret agent. She'd even turned her cellphone off so she could offer a shoulder to cry on. She knew it wouldn't be easy to try to strike a conversation with the woman she'd been a temporary replacement for, but she tried anyway.
"How are you feeling right now, Anita?" Delphine asked gently.
"I've been better, but I've also been worse," Anita replied. "I'm starting to accept that our Surprise Lily won't be coming home with us, but I don't know what happens after…"
Anita dabbed at her teary eyes with a napkin. She had done enough crying to last her lifetime within the last week, and she didn't intend to waste any more on the future.
"Have you considered what you plan to do with Lily when you've, um, given birth?" Delphine asked again.
"Well," Anita started to answer. "Victor and I have been talking about interring her in the same cemetery where my grandparents were buried."
"That's... that's actually a good idea. That way, you and Victor could take your kids to come see her whenever you can. Maybe you could also incorporate some kind of sandbox so they could also 'play' with her?" Delphine preemptively shrunk back, seeming to already try to defuse some perceived anger on Anita's part. "Just a suggestion."
Anita thought about it for a moment before giving a forlorn smile. "I love it… but I want to see what Victor thinks about that first…"
"Understandable. Talk it over with him. It might take a while before you could get something like that approved, though. Just focus on the burial for now."
Anita nodded. "Alright, I will."
The day finally came for Anita to be induced. Surprisingly, the labor process was less painful than she'd expected. After just a few hours of labor and Lily subsequently being born, the nurse proceeded to whisk Lily away and get her cleaned up. She wrapped the baby in a pink blanket and placed a pink cap ever-so-delicately upon her head. She then handed the baby over to Dr. Pertwee.
"Alright, here's Lily," Dr. Pertwee announced as he lay the baby into Anita's arms. "I'm sure you'll need some time alone with her..."
He walked off for a bit and left Lily alone with her would-be parents. Victor and Anita cradled their baby and weren't at all bothered by how absolutely tiny she was or how severely underdeveloped she was. Lily could've easily fit inside the palm of Victor's hand. Still, Victor and Anita had mentally prepared themselves for this, but they hadn't been emotionally braced themselves for when she would've been born. They spent all this time talking to her as if she were alive and observing how much she looked like them.
"She's beautiful," Victor whispered. "She looks just like you."
"She might look just like me, but she has your hair," Anita replied.
"I guess, but who knows whose eyes she would've gotten?"
"Maybe she would've gotten yours."
"Maybe." All of a sudden, Victor had an idea. "Hey, why don't I ask my mother to bring the kids down to meet Lily?"
Anita was a little taken back by this suggestion. "Are you sure? You don't think it might upset them?"
"They should at least get some kind of explanation on what happened to her."
Anita sighed heavily. "Fair enough. Call your mother real quick."
"Okay."
Victor left Anita alone to be busy with Lily while he called up his mother and asked her to bring Liam and Millie down to meet their sister.
"Are you sure you want me and the twins down there?" Mildred asked, perplexed. "You don't want to be alone?"
"Yeah, I'm sure," Victor replied. "Anita and I owe them an explanation on what happened to their little sister."
"Alright, if that's what you want to do, then I can't stop you. What room are you in and what floor?"
Victor gave his mother the directions she needed to bring Liam and Millie with her. Within several minutes, Mildred and the twins were there.
"Kids, your dad wants you to meet your little sister," Mildred told her grandchildren.
Mildred felt the tears start to well up in her eyes, but she knew she had to be strong for Victor and Anita and especially for the twins. She let them take a peek at their younger sister.
"Is she sleeping?" Millie asked curiously.
Victor and Anita looked at each other uncertainly, but they knew they had to tell them. They had to rip off the banadge.
"No, honey, she's dead," Victor told his daughter.
"Dead?" Millie asked again.
"Yeah, dead. When people die, they don't come back... ever."
Now it was Liam's turn to speak up. "Never ever?"
"Never ever," Anita answered her son.
"Why?"
"Well, they just can't. People can die because they're too sick or hurt too badly. Lily... well, Lily died in my belly because she was too sick. The doctor had to give me something so I would go into labour and I could deliver her in the natural way."
"Why was Lily sick?"
"Why do you think?"
Liam thought about it for a minute. "Maybe she wasn't ready."
"I guess so. The point is, we need to accept that death is something that happens to all of us and we can't reverse it, no matter how sad it makes us."
Liam and Millie both seemed to nod in agreement.
Almost immediately, Dr. Pertwee came back into the room. "Time's up. I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to take her with me."
Victor and Anita both nodded to show that they understood.
"Goodbye, sweetheart," Anita whispered while she stroked her daughter's translucent face. "Thanks for choosing us to be your family..."
"Goodbye, Surprise Lily," Victor whispered as well. "We'll... we'll never forget you."
After Victor and Anita had said their goodbyes, Dr. Pertwee proceeded to lift Lily out of Anita's arms and take her away. Part of him wanted to believe that the baby could be still alive, but he knew she wasn't. He'd confirmed it himself. As much as he hadn't wanted to do this, he knew that it was his duty as a doctor to do this. He was a father himself (as well as a grandfather), so this kind of thing tended to affect him more personally than any other medical situation. Still, he needed to be strong for his patient and give her the closure she needed.