In My Blood
Chapter 4
Addison Montgomery's Point of View
December 2010
"Thank you for doing this." Meredith says when I open the door, and usher them inside. She carries Willow inside and takes off her llama hat, colorful coat, and tan winter boots. I don't say much, just watch as she puts the boots by the door and hangs the coat and hat on the hooks so the snow that has fallen on them doesn't melt and drip all over the house. I watch Willow carefully. She had silently pulled away from her mom and sat on the bottom step of the staircase. She's moving a clear marble around in her fingers. Is this really the same little girl who was at my house just a few nights previously?
"It's alright." I say. I try, but I can't hide the resistance in my voice. Meredith had come over as soon as she got back from her business trip. Derek told her what happened. It wasn't really awkward or like a ton of time had passed. Maybe she is also putting on a mask, trying to hide her true feelings as hard as I am. I want so desperately to help with Willow. I just don't know how to go about it. I am still so empty, so lost. I can't even take care of myself much less a child. I don't understand why Meredith and Derek are willing to put someone so precious in my care. I couldn't even keep my own child safe and now they're trusting me with theirs.
"The weather is absolutely atrocious, but with Christmas so close and my work schedule I have no clue when I'm expected to get these errands done." She had planned on going Christmas shopping, and several other things I hadn't quite caught when she was over here yesterday. I haven't done any Christmas shopping this year. Mark is the only reason we have a tree, or Christmas lights. It vaguely crosses my mind that I should purchase something for Willow. I have every year since before she was born. Just the thought of going out is too much though. I don't have time to order something online. Maybe this year she'll just get cash. I wasn't planning on spending the holidays with anyone.
"Stop apologizing, I said I'll watch her, she'll be fine." I say, a little too harshly. Willow looks up at me, confused, and Meredith looks like she's not so sure this is a great idea after all.
"Addison if you're not ready…"
"I'm sorry." I say, quickly. "Meredith, we'll be fine. Go take care of your errands." This seems to have convinced her and she starts listing off instructions.
"This won't be as easy as watching her used to be." She starts, and I look at her blankly. Did she really think I assumed it would be? Even if you don't get down to the basic emotions of how closely we raised the girls there is still the fact that we've all been through a major trauma. Willow possibly the worst of us all. She is the one who was physically there when it happened.
"I'm aware." I tell her.
"She's still mute. The doctors have classified her as nonverbal, though they hope she will regain speech as she works through the trauma. She's regressed with the potty; we've had no choice but to put her back in pull-ups." She looks ashamed. Both of our girls were fully potty-trained day and night at two years old. She hands me the diaper bag with extra clothes, pullups, etc. "She'll need food at some point, but she's been eating so little she needs a nutritional drink with each meal, they're in the bag. Her special cup is in there as well." I look over to Willow who is rocking herself slowly back and forth, humming, and rolling her marble between her fingers, seemingly oblivious to our presence in the room.
"I'm sorry you're going through this." I say, and I mean it. It's hard to believe that she is facing so many difficulties. Even so, she will never be the same as she was before the accident. There is just no way. Trauma changes people. "She's going to be okay. Really Meredith. We'll just have a relaxing afternoon." I look over at the window seat, longingly, wanting to escape. There is no escape when there is a tiny human in the house though. The mask has to stay in place.
"We haven't been able to keep a sitter." She continues. "Willow just screams and cries the entire time. We've been blacklisted from five different Nanny agencies until her behavior has improved. If she gets upset, she may be difficult. She has regressed to hitting, throwing things and biting when she gets frustrated and cannot express herself."
"I'm sure I can handle whatever comes up." I say, feigning confidence. "Have you been having a hard time Willow?" I ask her. It strikes me that she's not giving all of these people and her parents a hard time on purpose. She's having a hard time. She looks up at me but doesn't respond. Meredith smiles weakly at us. She kneels down to Willow's level, gently making eye contact with her and explaining that she was going to run some errands and would be back as soon as possible. Willow just shrugs, looking down at her hands. Meredith sighs and stands up again. She gives me an encouraging hug, and whispers 'good luck' before leaving. I lock the door behind her and sit on the stairs next to Willow.
"Looks like it's just the two of us for a little while." I comment. "Is there anything special you'd like to do today?" I don't know what to think about her situation. I know it is psychological and not physical. It's clear that she can talk, but just won't. She spoke clearly the other night. It's true that trauma can affect a child's ability to learn and process things, but I do not feel for even a second, she is incapable of understanding. Her sweater is soft against my skin. I look her over and realize that Meredith still dresses her in the same way I used to dress Heavenly. Bow to toe. We both felt it made more sense to dress children in practical clothing they can play in. It seemed ridiculous to spend thousands each for a single outfit that would be ruined the first time they really played in it, or ate in it, or wore it. Today Willow is wearing one of the new Gymboree lines. I've unsubscribed, but I recognize her outfit from the emails and flyers they still send me. She's wearing a llama sweater dress and leggings with llamas on the knees. Her hair is in double French Braids, and each has a little llama clip in it. Even her socks match. Her coat, hat, and boots are also from that line.
"You look very cute today." I observe, and she shrugs. She looks exhausted, like she's carrying the weight of the world and it's just been too much. She climbs up on my lap and rests her head on my shoulder like she did that night Derek brought her. Unlike that night this morning the baby is awake. It pushes against her weight and Willow looks up at me, a mixture of shock and confusion. She studies my expression carefully, trying to gauge how I feel about this 'unexpected' thing she has just experienced. She looks right past me, and nods before looking up at me again.
"Heavenly says you have a baby in your tummy!" She exclaims.
"I do." I confirm, neither here nor there. I am just so thankful that she's talking she could have said anything. I don't know exactly what to think about the pregnancy. Mark absolutely dotes over this little unborn. He always places his hands on my tummy and talks to her. We haven't had an ultrasound, but I know it's a girl. Just a feeling. I'm not really used to her moving yet. Every time, she moves inside of me my heart races with anxiety. I try to keep my voice calm for Willow though. "I guess the baby just wanted to say hi to you!" I say forcing my voice into a singsong tone. I don't let her see the shock when she says Heavenly's name, and I force myself to smile at her instead.
"Can she hear me?" Willow asks, and when I nod 'yes' she moves and puts her face close to my tummy. "Hi baby!" She coos. The baby moves again, and I take her little hands in my own, placing them where the baby's movements are. She pulls her hands away, giggling this time, and dancing around saying 'the baby moved! I talked to the baby, and she moved!' when she feels the baby's movements against her hands.
"Her name is Oakley." I tell her. When I told Mark what happened in the car the night Heavenly died, he agreed on the name without hesitation. Even without an ultrasound, if the baby turns out to be a boy the name is gender neutral.
"I know." She says, knowledgeably. "Heavenly told me that too." I don't know what to say to this. It physically hurts to hear Heavenly spoken about as if she is still here. When I don't say anything, she climbs back on my lap, and continues talking to the unborn baby. When the baby settles back into sleep Willow turns to me.
"Aunt Addison when will the baby be here so that she can talk back to me?" She asks and then in rapid fire. "Can I hold her when she's born? Can she be my sister like Heavenly was? What do babies eat? Can she go sledding with me? Can I feed her? Where do babies come from? How did she get stuck in your tummy?"
"You are so full of questions. It's wonderful to hear your voice." I observe, though I cough a little bit at the last question. I am certain if she doesn't already know there is a reason, and her mother would not appreciate me giving her that talk at this age. We cuddle for a while longer.
"Can we play?" She asks, and I nod. She smiles big and runs straight up the stairs. I hear Heavenly's door open, and then close again. We never did get around to fixing that door so it would stay open. I lift myself up off the stairs and move up the stairs slowly. I haven't been upstairs in months, and I find myself out of breath with the effort. I feel heavy, off balanced. I don't want to go into Heavenly's room. I've been avoiding her room since the night she died. I can hear Willow laughing, talking, and playing with the toys in there.
"Willow?" I call, when I finally reach the top of the stairs. "Let's play downstairs." I say. She opens the door and sticks her head out the doorway. She steps out further and I see she is holding a barbie doll. She'd taken the clothes off and replaced them with a Christmas dress.
"I want to play here." She pouts.
"Bring a few of your favorite toys and I'll play with you downstairs."
"No." she says firmly, and I sigh. The thought of having to make it all the way back down the stairs right now, when I still haven't fully caught my breath seems daunting.
"I still need to look after you." I say, not wanting to give her a reason to be get upset. Maybe she needs to be up here to help her heal. I walk down the hallway and sit just opposite of the door. Willow opens the door fully and props it with a wicker basket of blankets so I can watch her playing. She takes out the bucket of Duplo's and begins building something on the building table. She had sat the Barbie dream house on the Duplo table and was using the area in front to build.
"Heavenly says Barbie needs a swimming pool expansion for Christmas." A stab in my heart. I had actually boughten the swimming pool expansion when it first came out shortly before Heavenly's death. It was meant to be part of her Christmas. So much for that. It's sitting in the upstairs guest bedroom closet. It's where I hide everything, I didn't want the girls getting into. I should donate those toys to toys for tots or something. There are going to be so many firsts. This is our first Christmas without her.
"Do you talk to Heavenly often?" I ask her. Certain that there has to be some mistake. She is so different when we are alone together than when her parents were around. Her mother had described her as a difficult child with special needs. I thought we may have an afternoon cuddling on the couch watching a movie or maybe even on the other side of the spectrum one full of screaming and tantrums. The child I am seeing is one that behaves more or less like an ordinary little girl.
"You can't tell Mommy and Daddy." She says. "They'd think she is imaginary."
"What does she look like?" I ask, and she looks confused.
"What do you mean? She's Heavenly. She looks like Heavenly." Willow insists. She continues building. Adding a bridge to her creation to connect the swimming pool to the grass surrounding it. She gets up and goes to the bathroom, using the toilet before cleaning and pulling her dry pull up back up. She washes her hands and then comes over to where I am sitting. I watch her, carefully.
"Why are you having a hard time when you're at home?" I ask her. "You have an entire team of specialists, your mommy and your daddy convinced you're not doing well." I say this gently, not accusatory.
"I don't know." She says.
"Do you want to try and talk it out?" I ask her, and she shakes her head no.
"I feel confused." She says finally. "When I'm here Heavenly isn't gone. When I'm home she's gone all over again. When I'm here I can visit her, and everything is okay again."
"That is a really big feeling." I tell her, empathetically. "I think we need to let your Mommy and Daddy know how you're feeling. They'd like to help you feel better."
"When they're around the talking doesn't work." She says, gently touching her own throat. I consider this for a minute before she adds. "They wouldn't understand anyway."
"You feel like I understand?" I ask.
"Yeah." She says simply.
"Okay." I whisper. "Well, I'm here now." I say. I don't want to make promises to her that I'm not sure I can keep. "I want you to try and talk to your Mommy and Daddy this week though. I know you don't want to. I know it's hard and it's scary, but I want you to try." She lays on me, crying. I'm just getting her to settle back down when I hear her mom coming back in the door. I look at my watch, we've been just talking and hanging out for about two hours of the five she said she would be gone. Willows expression glosses over again. Like a switch going out. I shake my head at her sadly. Her presentation around her parents' concerns me.
"Lets go downstairs and see what your Mommy has gotten up to." I tell her, trying to sound cheerful. She stands up and I take her hand, helping her to walk down the steps. We get to the bottom and find Meredith in the entry way.
"Hey." I say, she looks panic stricken. "Are you alright?" Willow goes to her Mommy and gives her a big hug. I am thankful that Meredith has a key to our place. It looks like the snow is really coming down. I'm glad she was able to come right in instead of having to wait for me to get down the stairs.
"It's been over an hour, and you haven't called me yet begging me to come get her." She says. "I think I'm having an anxiety attack. I couldn't take it anymore, I had to come back."
"Did you think I would?" I ask Meredith, but I raise my eyebrows at Willow. She meets my gaze but doesn't respond. She's playing with the marble again.
"The last time we had a sitter she lasted seven and a half minutes." Meredith responds, and I look at her sympathetically.
"Everything went fine." I tell her, keeping my voice soothing. It takes a minute for Meredith to calm down.
"She hasn't eaten yet, but she built Barbie a stunning swimming pool complete with landscaping for Christmas with Duplo's. We snuggled and talked for a little while."
"She spoke to you again?" Meredith asks, her voice breaking.
"Yeah." I say, looking over to Willow. She has laid down on the steps, her head hanging off the bottom step, so she has the sensation of being upside down.
"Anything specific?" Meredith asks, her voice longing.
"No." I say, deciding to give Willow more time. "Just she misses Heavenly greatly."
"We all do." Meredith says. "We still have pictures of them together up all over our house. I was going to take them down, but … I couldn't."
"Me either." I say, gesturing towards all of the pictures scattered about the living room, and entryway.
"How's the baby?" Meredith asks.
"Still here." I say. I wish we could talk, really talk. Something registers when Meredith asks about the baby, and Willow's eyes light up a little.
"Mommy?" She asks. Meredith looks at her, shocked to hear her voice. She instantly starts crying at even this simplest of words.
"Yes?" Meredith responds. Watching her daughter carefully. Hanging on her every word. Willow goes over to her, and gives her a hug again, looking up at her.
"Aunt Addison has a baby in her tummy. Her name is Oakley and she's going to be my sister like Heavenly was. When I talked to her, I felt her move!" Meredith looks from Willow to me, shocked, crying happy tears and pulls her daughter into her arms, cuddling her tight.
"I love you." She says. "Mommy missed hearing your voice more than you'll ever know."
*Mark Sloan's Point of View*
December 2010
I wake with a start. I'm not sure what woke me. I look around, noticing Addison isn't in the bed next to me. She is sitting at a small table on the opposite side of the room. Tonight, has been strange. I don't really know much about what happened, but Meredith had brought Willow over and then this evening when I got home from work Addison had cooked dinner. I get out of bed and walk slowly over towards her. She is holding a piece of paper with her handwriting on it. I don't want to startle her, but I make my presence known all the same.
"What are you doing?" I ask quietly, leaning over her shoulder and kissing her cheek. She is still, too still, like she's holding her breath. I realize that she's showered today. She smells sweet like chamomile and sandalwood.
"I don't know." She admits. "I can't do this Mark. I just cant."
"What are you talking about?" I ask. She has taken the paper and placed it face down so I couldn't read it over her shoulder. I notice five empty pill bottles sitting on the table next to her. I can feel the color draining from my face, automatically assuming the worse. I force myself to stay calm. "What have you done?" I ask, reading the different medication names on the bottles, her prescribed pain killers and sleeping medications.
"I just want this to stop." Her voice shuddered. My blood runs cold as I realize that something else is out of place. She's not wearing her nightclothes, or even the comfortable leggings and over sized tee shirts she has been living in. She was wearing one of her expensive black dresses. The same exact one she had worn to Heavenly's funeral. She has pantyhose on and one of her pairs of heels that seem impossibly tall for anyone to walk in. Her hair and makeup perfectly done. She had contoured in a way that makes her cheeks look less hollow. You can't see the dark circles under her eyes.
"Want what to stop?" I ask cautiously. I take out my phone off the charger, prepared to call nine one one if I need to.
"Everything." She says, making a vague gesture to the ceiling. "Everything hurts too much. I want it to stop."
"What did you take Addison?" I ask, panic running through me. The 'stay calm' approach no longer valid. My own body is too anxious. She doesn't respond and just looks at me, unseeing and then looks away again. I take her by the shoulders forcing her to look at me again; reluctantly she raises her eyes to meet mine once more.
"Mark?" She asks confused as my fingers press into her flesh. "Mark, you're hurting me." I am pressing hard, too hard into her thin upper arms. I know she's going to bruise. I am inches from her.
"I need to know what you took Addison. I have to call nine one one."
"Mark back off!" She protects, but I shake her, hard. "Please! You're scaring me!" She tries again but doesn't fight to get away. Maybe she hasn't the strength to do so. She lets her body go limp in my arms. Submissive, this scares me more.
"I want to hear the truth." I demand. "What were you doing? What's in that note?"
"I didn't take anything." She screams in anguish, her face crumples. I catch her as she suddenly bends forwards and despite her best effort sobs take over her body and she falls into my arms. "There's too much temptation." She says. "I couldn't do it though. I flushed them." Something I cannot understand or explain makes me believe her. Maybe it was the raw emotion, or the defeat in her tone.
"Okay." I say. "I trust you." I find myself saying soothingly, rubbing her back as a small fraction of the panicked adrenalin leaves me and exhaustion takes it's place. I take a deep breath, forcing my body to calm itself before I speak again.
"It's going to be okay." I soothe. "Just tell me what happened, the truth, everything's going to be okay."
Addison Montgomery's Point of View
December 2010
"I'm…not…sorry." I say numbly, catching my breath. Oakley kicks and squirms inside, causing my stomach to tighten painfully. I force myself to slow my breathing and press my hand against my tummy. The pain passes as she calms and stops moving so much. I feel like I'm going to be sick, and look up at Mark, weakly. He lets me go and I get up, moving faster than I've moved in months and making it to the bathroom just as the contents of my stomach make their reappearance in the toilet. "Ouch baby…" I mumble, she moved again this time stretching her legs under my ribs and pressing hard which induces another round of vomiting. Mark is in the bathroom now. He holds me reassuringly when it stops and everything that will come up has done so. I lay against him, too week, too exhausted to move.
"Do you want to talk?" He asks.
"I had a good day." I try and explain. "I had a good day and then I couldn't sleep. I feel so guilty. I shouldn't have a good day. The good days stopped when Heavenly died."
"It's never too late Addison." He says, and I look up dully at him. "You can turn this around. You had good days before you had Heavenly, and you will have good days again. You can turn this around Addison. You deserve to have good days."
"Our daughter is dead. How am I supposed to turn that around?"
"Oakley's not though. She's still here." He puts his hands on my tummy and she moves under his warmth. "I'm still here." He takes my hands in his. "Willow is still here, and God knows she needs you Addison. She's having such a hard time." He pulls me further into his arms, and I close my eyes. Wishing that his warmth could penetrate the icy cold numbness that has taken over me in the time since Heavenly has passed.
"I'm not strong enough to help everyone else." I admit.
"You're stronger than you know."
"When this baby is born, I need you to take her, I need you to take her and I need you to leave." I whisper. "I need you to promise me you'll give her the very best shot you can." He looks at me, pain reflecting in his eyes. The same pain that he has been made me so numb. It still there, but we're different. He was able to work through it, and I couldn't. "I'll sign the bank accounts over, you won't have to worry about money." I offer. I know it's ridiculous. It's nothing more than a pay off really. I can't think of anything right now though other than the guilt, and how badly I want to escape that. Every inch of my being is crawling at me to escape this place where the memories haunt me every hour of the day.
"I don't want your money Addison." He says. "I'm a board-certified surgeon. I don't need your money. I need you. I need our baby. I want you to try. I want us to have an honest shot at moving past this and raising our unborn child before you quit on us."
"I don't know how to want that." I say carefully. I move away from him. "It's so soon. This is all too soon."
"We can work through this." He says, his voice desperate.
"The way I see things is we only have two choices." I say. I am just so exhausted. Why does everything have to be a fight. "You can either take the baby and leave or I will leave, and you will never see me or this baby again. Either way when she is born, I'm leaving Mark. You have until then to decide what you'd like to do." I say. I get up slowly and walk out of the bathroom, leaving him to his thoughts. Maybe will feel more attached to the baby when she's born. Maybe this insane urge to flee will disintegrate. Things take time. I just don't know how much time I have to give.
Authors Note:
Thank you for reading Chapter 4 of In My Blood! Please review and let me know what you think! : )