"Can I hold her? Pleeeeeease?" Alice asks in a whiny voice.
"Not yet, it's my turn,' Edward almost growls at her. I chuckle quietly. My mother, Renee is still here, but we're choosing to ignore her. She went and got coffee about 15 minutes ago. Or at least that's what she said she was doing. Alice and I both know that she probably ducked out for a smoke.
Elizabeth has gone to sleep in Edward's arms. Alice is bouncing up and down on her chair by my bed. I am sitting quietly in my bed, feeling pretty tired. More than anything, I just want to go home. The hospital smells funny, and the bed is uncomfortable.
"Alice, calm down, you'll get your turn," I say to her lethargically.
"But he's held her for like, an hour! Come on, I'm her aunt!"
"And I'm her father," Edward growls. I pat his hand soothingly.
"Do I get to hold her?" a quiet voice from the door asks. We all look in that direction, and the look on Alice's face immediately turns hostile. Renee has two coffee cups in her hands. She gives one to Edward, which he takes graciously with a small smile. She offers the other one to Alice. She however, snatches it and throws it hard into the nearest bin. She storms out. Renee sighs.
"Edward, I'm hungry. Could you please get me something to eat?" Edward takes the hint. He puts Elizabeth down in her crib next to the bed, gives me a kiss on my forehead, and walks out. Renee walks to the crib, looking down at Elizabeth with a gooey love in her eyes.
"She looks like you," my mother says quietly. I murmur, not really paying attention.
"Mom, why are you here?" I ask.
"I heard on the T.V. that you were in labour, and I knew you always come here, so I came to meet my granddaughter. I also wanted to see you honey, to straighten things out. I can't stand this distance between us."
"Yeah, the distance that you created…" I mumble tiredly.
"I know I screwed up. I know what I did was wrong. I should never have taken anything from you, much less your money, that you earned," she says apologetically.
"It's not just that, Mom. You were never around when Alice and I were kids. You left us to fend for ourselves, even when Dad went to jail. You never paid any attention to us, even when you were actually there. You never showed any signs that you loved us, or even acknowledged our existence. You were always clubbing and drinking. You would come home at 4 in the morning, drunk, and sometimes with a guy. You wouldn't wake up in the morning, which meant Alice and I had to walk to school, which was an hour walk. We always had this fear, that you would never wake up. You cried at the dinner table, you threw plates at the wall, you told us we were mistakes." She needed to know what she had done. I swore to Alice that I would never tell anyone, but she needed to know. "Mom, when we were teenagers, it was worse. We only had each other, Alice and I. It was the worst when you disappeared for 3 days. We didn't know where you were. We were worried, despite what you had done to us. When you came back, you burst through the door, drunk. A guy was with you. He looked drunk too. We went to hug you, but you pushed us away. You said to the guy "These are my bastards. Don't pay attention to them. They're like flies. If you stop paying attention to them, they don't bother you anymore." And with that, you pulled the guy up into your hole of a bedroom and didn't come out until the next morning. You didn't even notice that Alice was bleeding. That night, I was watching T.V, and I went to check on Alice, because she bandaging her cut. I found her in the bathroom, rope tied around the shower bar, about to kill herself. And she would have if I hadn't have gone in right at that moment."
Renee gasps and hangs her head.
"I never meant for… for that to… to happen," she sobs.
"Yeah, but it did."
My mother nods. "I know…"
"Mom, look. I really don't think you picked a good time to 'straighten things out'. I mean, I just had a baby. Alice just flew out, and I'm moving to Australia very soon. Maybe in the next year. But at the moment, I'm focused on other things."
"I understand," Renee says, still nodding her head. "Tell Alice I'm sorry."
"Tell her yourself," I say, gesturing toward the door, where Alice is now standing.
"Alice," our mother sighs. "I'm so sorry, to both of you. I was, and am, a terrible mother. That's going to change. I've been sober for over 6 months," she says proudly. I smile. Maybe this is going to work out… in the future. Renee walks out, looking at Elizabeth. "She really is beautiful. Like her mother," she says with a smile. I smile back. I see Alice relax as Renee leaves the ward.
Alice takes it upon herself to pick Elizabeth up and cradle her. She smiles down at her niece with a love that only my sister could provide. Elizabeth fit in her arms perfectly. Edward and I had talked about it briefly, but I knew that there was only one choice.
"Alice, I would like to ask you something…" I say ominously, already knowing what the answer will be.
"Yes…?"
"I know you're already her aunt, but if anything were to happen to Edward and I, I want to make sure she'll be with the right people…"
"Spit it out, Bella," she says, annoyed. I chuckle.
"Alice, would you and Jasper like to be Elizabeth's godparents?"
The look on her face was priceless. I could probably fit my whole hand in her mouth, it was open that wide.
"!" she squeals loudly. A little cry comes from her arms. I give her a frown as she passes my now awake baby to me.
"Sorry…" she says as quietly as she can.
"I'm guessing that's a yes though?" I grin at her. She grins back at me, nodding enthusiastically. I laugh.
"Well that settles that," I say sleepily. I want to go home.
Edward comes in, holding a sandwich in his hand. Thank goodness, I'm starving. After taking Elizabeth, he gives me the sandwich and I hungrily unwrap it from its plastic.
"I guess someone woke up," he says, half to me and half to his daughter. Alice grins sheepishly.
"To be fair, I was pretty excited…" Edward looks up.
"Excited about what?" he asks, looking at me specifically.
"Um, I asked Alice if she and Jasper would like to be godparents…"
"Oh, ok. From the squeal I heard down the hall, I'm gathered the answer was yes," he says, sniggering. Good, he didn't have a problem with it.
I attempt to sleep as Edward and Alice play pass the parcel with Elizabeth. It is quiet for a while, then out of the blue, of course Alice speaks.
"You should shorten the name. I mean, like, a nickname of sorts. Liz? Libby? Elly? Beth? So many different options. I like Beth personally. Liz is used too often. Libby is cool too…"
"I think we'll call her by her actual name, and she can decide what she'd like to be called when she gets older," Edward says calmly.
"That sounds fair, I guess…" Even though my eyes are closed, I can imagine Alice pouting in her Alice-y way. I smile to myself.
I hear footsteps come through the door. I wasn't expecting anymore visitors (all my work, or I should say former work colleagues, had come, wished me well and gone again), so it must be the doctor. Sure enough, I open my eyes, the doctor is checking Elizabeth over. It wasn't the same doctor who had delivered her, but he looked fairly doctor-y, with the white coat and balding head and all.
"Looks like everything going nicely. No irregularities, no discolouration, no breathing issues. She's the strongest premature baby I've ever seen. You should be free to go home now." I grin. Finally! "Yes, I thought you would be pleased. Now, there's some last minute paperwork to be done, that'll only take a few minutes. In the mean time, you can pack up, get dressed, and go home. And take it easy. No flying in airplanes for at least a month please. For your sake as well as your baby's," he tells me sternly. I nod, a little annoyed. How long would I be stuck in this country? Ugh.
I get dressed slowly; it's hard when you've been sitting or lying in bed for 2 days. Alice helped me a bit.
I couldn't wait to get home and be with my baby. Although we had limited resources on hand, as most of it was already at our new home on the other side of the world, we would manage.
The relief one feels when you step into your nice warm house after a few days stuck in a bed, is almost impossible to describe. Carrying Elizabeth in her carrier, I walk upstairs to my bedroom. As we were not expecting this little miracle quite so soon, we had a makeshift crib in our room, which would do fine for the extra month we would be here. The buyers of our house were happy to wait another month until we left.
Edward walks up too, also feeling the relief of being home. Of the 2 and a half days I had been in hospital, he had left my side all of once; to buy the portable crib. I told him he should go home and sleep in a proper bed, but of course he refused.
"Nice to be home, isn't it?" he says cheerfully. I nod in agreement. "Are you still sore?" he asks sheepishly.
"Err, a little… nothing unmanageable…" I say half-confidently.
"Oh good. Because I've been wanting to do this for 2 days."
"Do what?" I ask, but only get half a word in, because he has whisked me off my feet into a passionate kiss, that remained unbroken for what felt like forever. When we finally break away, breathing heavily, I am still in his arms, off the ground. His eyes are full of excitement and anxiousness. Full of life.
I think I can get used to this.