Thanks for sticking with me. I thought this would be a two-shot, but now it is clear to me that it needs to be at least three chapters long. Sorry for not posting sooner, but I had the craziest work week where I worked almost the equivalent of two weeks of hours in one week to satisfy a deadline.

Chapter 2: An Early Mother's Day Morning

Elizabeth awoke with a start to the slight buzzing of her phone on vibrate, feeling the crust of drool on the corner of her mouth. It was a quiet sound that would not have woken her up before she had Liam, but she now found herself hypersensitive to any sound. Often, she woke to feed Liam because he had begun stirring, and if she caught him before he woke up, he would drift back to sleep from nursing, and she would not be awake too long herself. That made for better nights.

Elizabeth wanted to fall back asleep, but an irrational fear gripped her. What if something has happened to Papa or someone else? Her mind considered the risks of bad news: Her father had A-fib and had too many complications to take blood thinners; he was scheduled to get a watchman implant which would decrease his risk of stroke, but that surgery was still two months away. Catherine had recently had a bad allergic reaction to kiwi, a food she'd never had problems with before, and despite having an Epi-Pen for her tree nut allergy hadn't used it when that happened, relying on the ambulance EMTs to see to her instead. Uncle Edward had just tested positive for Covid for the third time but had weathered the first two illnesses just fine.

Ever since her mother unexpectedly passed away from a heart attack, Elizabeth found herself fearing disaster around every corner. She used to dream of William dying, but the good thing about having him right next to her was that she needed only to cuddle closer to him to feel his reassuring heat and measured breaths.

When Elizabeth was in the last trimester of her pregnancy with Liam, she dreamed about the baby that she knew was a boy, dying in her womb. In the dreams, she had to deliver a still born child, and he looked just like William.

These dreams were so realistic that each time Elizabeth woke terrified, her heart pounding, making further sleep impossible. As much as she told herself upon awaking that they were simply dreams, she wondered each time if they portended disaster, if even though still pregnant, the baby in her womb had somehow passed on. The only thing that could reassure her was when she felt the baby move.

The first couple of nightmares Elizabeth had dealt with fully by herself, neither waking William nor even saying anything about them later. But the third one was so bad that she brought it up when he left their bed to use the bathroom. She had downplayed the terror that continued to grip her, but still felt better when William held her tight and spoke words of reassurance.

On another occasion Elizabeth had no choice but to share because she cried out in her sleep yet did not wake herself. This roused William enough that he pulled her close, and when he felt her trembling, shook her gently and murmured, "You're okay, it's okay, it's okay Lizzy."

Muzzy with sleep and half still in the grip of the vivid nightmare, she replied, "Our baby, our baby!"

He patted her bump, "He is fine and safe right here." Elizabeth's fears then poured out as she shared that even now, she was uncertain he was safe, that she needed to feel him move. Remembering some tricks from the ultrasound, William tickled her to make her laugh and then pressed gently on either side of her. The baby responded to all the jostling with a firm kick. "See, he's just fine. He's wondering why his crazy parents woke him and telling us to leave him alone."

That evening William had been a little bit late getting home from work but returned with a surprise for Elizabeth. It was a portable doppler, a very expensive one, that let them hear the baby's heartbeat at any time. Whenever Elizabeth was henceforth anxious or scared, hearing the baby's heartbeat had helped.

Things were better after Liam was born, but Elizabeth still had occasional nightmares about him suffering a crib death. That was why his crib was right in their room (although it was also very convenient for night nursing, and she had also read that babies regulated their breathing from hearing their parents breathe). If Elizabeth had a nightmare of something happening to Liam, she would get up and put a hand on him to make sure that Liam was still breathing.

Understandably then, the faint buzz of her phone with such dark accompanying thoughts, was enough to get Elizabeth up. She arose, first checking on Liam, and saw by the dim morning light how his chest rose and fell at the steady pace which said he was still deeply asleep. Then she retrieved the phone from across the room, and crouching by the charger, pulled the cord loose and observed it was only 4:32 a.m. before calling up the text. It was from Jane. Elizabeth skimmed, found it was nothing bad, and then by now wide awake returned to the warmth of her bed to read the message.

Jane wrote:

Happy Mother's Day, Lizzy,

I wanted to be the first to send you my good wishes. Hopefully you are getting to sleep in a little. You are a good mom, a great mom. Liam is so blessed to have you. I will take you as an example of everything a mom should be.

I find myself with mixed feelings today. Of course I miss our mom, but I know she was a flawed individual. She loved us all but had her favorites and her picks had nothing to do with merit. I hated how she would criticize you for stupid things, about how she always acted like Lydia and I could do no wrong. It was wrong of her, so very wrong, but do you remember how she used to braid our hair when we were little, all the good meals she would cook up (with a very nearly even distribution of each of our favorite desserts, key lime pie for you, butterscotch cookies for me), how she kept gum and TicTacs for us in her purse and always had a spare hair tie and pad in there even when she no longer needed either for herself? It is these little things I think about and miss somehow.

Elizabeth paused. She remembered all those things, and how her relationship with her mother had improved once they'd really started to talk to one another, when Lizzy finally saw her mother as someone with real hopes and fears and not a caricature comprised simply of her deepest flaws. The adjustment in their relationship had started with a conversation she'd had with her mother on her wedding day when they were in the dressing room together at the church. Jane had just finished doing Elizabeth's hair, had arranged her flower crown over her veil and had left to make sure the men were ready, leaving Elizabeth and her mother Fran together.

"Well, look at you, so pretty today. You've done so well for yourself, Lizzy, I would have never believed it." Fran turned toward the mirror, applying a bit more lipstick to herself before smoothing a stray hair in her bottle-blonde bob.

"Why not?" Elizabeth replied, hands on her hips, glaring at her mother (in real life and in her reflection in the mirror that was visible to Fran), daring her to criticize her once more, on this most important of days. She was angry and lovely.

Fran turned, "Well, you know, Lizzy," her mother fluttered her hands, one of her nervous tells. "I never thought such a successful man could have any interest in someone like you. I mean, you have an art history degree (who wastes their time that way?) and work at a used bookstore, you are barely five feet tall, don't ever wear heels as much as I've tried to get you to over the years, and most of the time don't even bother with makeup or going to a good stylist for that unruly hair. Really, it's remarkable that-"

"Enough! Really Mom, you've got to insult me one more time? Today of all days?"

Fran's hand fluttering increased and then turned into hand twisting. "I don't mean to. I just want the best for you. For you to do the best with what you have. I . . . clearly, I was wrong about what I was trying to get you to do, since it all turned out well in the end. I mean, you won't have to work now, he'll buy you anything you want."

"Why would you think I would give up my job?"

Her mother swallowed and clasped her hands together. "Well, you needn't now, but when the babies come . . ."

"That isn't going to be for years Mom. We want time to ourselves. We will plan well. But when it does come, I'll have every right to keep on working. There's good quality daycare, or we might get a nanny."

"Sure, I suppose, although it probably wouldn't make sense financially. But you won't have to work. That was one very good thing that your dad did for me, and well, all of you, told me that I didn't have to work. A university professor's salary (only assistant back then, he got his first full time job when I was seven months gone) only goes so far, but he never did insist I get a job. He's like any man, really appreciated coming home to a clean house and a hot meal. You've got to keep up with such things, keep it fresh in the bedroom, too, to keep your husband happy, make sure he doesn't regret marrying you, and it is so much harder if you are working and have children to look after also."

"Stay out of it, Mom." Elizabeth glared. "We all know that you only got married because you got pregnant on purpose, and Dad's upbringing was traditional enough that he agreed to marry you. Not all of us have to trap a husband. Have the decency to let me get married before you plan how I am supposed to live my life with my children. The only reason probably Dad was content to have you stay home with us is that daycare for us all would have cost more than you could make!"

While her mother usually had pretty thick skin, could dish it out as well as she could take it, her bottom lip wobbled and then she burst into tears.

Elizabeth stood there shocked, uncertain as to what to do. She knew she had gone too far but told herself: Mom deserved that and much more. Why does she always have to be so critical, to raise that little niggle of doubt in my mind about Will, right before I'm about to about to walk down the aisle, on the most important day of my life?

However, Elizabeth was not without any compassion for the woman that she by turns loved and found extremely aggravating. She finally spotted a tissue box and brought it to her mother. Her mother wiped at her eyes, messing up her careful eye makeup, blew her nose, rubbing off some of her foundation and then replied. "That was really hateful. It takes two to tango. I didn't plan to have Jane, though she is the best thing that could have happened to me. And what do you know? The condom broke. That can happen. And we didn't have that Plan B back then. I tried to finish my teaching degree, but when it came to the observation time, well then I was already expecting you and I was so sick that entire pregnancy. I was supposed to not get pregnant while nursing and taking the mini pill, I think that maybe I threw up the dissolved pill when I had the flu, and well your dad was always after me, he always was into me when my breasts were so large from nursing, could hardly keep his hands off me."

"Really? That's how Jane and I happened?" Elizabeth asked, astonished. It had been years back that she and Jane had found their parents' marriage certificate in their filing cabinet and made some calculations. Jane had always said that she was sure their parents had planned to marry and finding out about her had probably just speed up their plans; Elizabeth had always attributed the quickie wedding to her mother being determined to get her claws into her father. How else could the marriage of such a mismatched pair be explained? But now, now she had to think about her dad being ruled by his sexual appetites instead of his rational thoughts.

"Yes, really."

"Well, why didn't you ever tell us?"

"And risk that you would think condoms were no good and decide not to use them, or that the pill was ineffective and say the heck with the whole thing? What kind of mother would I be? I know lots of people have babies now without getting married, but there is a proper order to things and while I wish you girls would have waited, I made sure you knew how to not get pregnant."

Elizabeth found herself saying the one thing she almost never said to her mother. "I'm sorry."

"I mean, I half thought myself that condoms and pills were no good. After you, we figured why bother to prevent? Boy was that a mistake. Who knew I could get pregnant just six weeks after having you? After that, I gave up on the whole going back to college thing. We were really careful after that, doubling up, so Catherine was planned, came two years after Mary, and then because I wanted just one more, then two years later we had Lydia. Sure, I've regretted sometimes not having a career, although I think all those classes on teaching helped me teach all of you to read and help with your homework later."

"So, what's standing in your way now, Mom? Lydia's sixteen."

Fran dabbed at her eyes some more. "I looked into it once, but now a lot of the requirements have changed for a certification. It would take at least two years if not more, I'd be going to classes with students young enough to be my children, and I don't know all these programs and apps they will expect me to use. I'm a different person than I was back then. I'm not sure if I could even do it; I'm not smart like your father."

"Mom, don't be so down on yourself. Why not go to the university and talk to them about it, and then start off just taking a class or two?"

Fran shuffled from one foot to another. "I'll think about it." She caught a glance of herself in a mirror. "Oh, I look a wreck and on your wedding day of all days." Fran hurried over to the mirror and began blotting at her eyes carefully (fortunately she had worn the waterproof mascara). "Grab my makeup bag, would you?"

Elizabeth had just handed her mom that bag when Jane came in and announced "The guys are all set, and the minister is here. We can go whenever you're ready."

"It'll be a minute," Elizabeth replied. She expected her mother to complain to Jane about how mean Elizabeth had been, but instead her mom covered for her.

"Help me, girls." Fran requested. "I'm so emotional, with Lizzy getting married, that I couldn't help but cry. It's the end of an era, first you Jane, now Lizzy, and I suppose it'll be Mary or Kitty next. At least I should be able to keep Lydia for a while. But I don't want to hold up the wedding."

"Don't you worry about it, Mom." Elizabeth replied, thanking her mom in her own way. "Everyone has to wait for me, right? And I'm waiting for you."

"Thanks, dear," Fran replied. She gave a little nod that told Elizabeth that they were alright.

Elizabeth mainly let Jane assist with the makeup repair, and just kept them company by talking. "Did you know, Jane, that Mom is thinking about going back to college to finish her teaching degree?"

"Oh, that's great. You should totally do that!"

The next two hours whirled by. The ceremony was simple and as arranged Will and Elizabeth were turned toward each other and holding hands the entire time. There was a quiet intensity in looking each other's eyes as they waited to make their promises to one another. It was of course somewhat solemn to be getting married, something they both took very seriously, but underneath it was such joy, that this was the person who the other was always supposed to marry, that their separate lives had just been a prelude to this, this joining, this being a couple, this change from two into one. Elizabeth and William were both incandescently happy, to finally be marrying each other and so caught up in that happiness that they had trouble recalling themselves when it was time for the actual vows. And even though the wedding kiss was only moments away, they kissed once between each other's vows. It was a mistake that everyone teased them about afterwards even as they could see the devotion and joy behind it and more than one divorced man and woman admitted to themselves that they should have known their marriages were doomed to fail because they had never looked at their future spouse (later to be ex) that way.

The reception went as those things normally do and the bride and groom were too busy receiving well wishes to get more than a sip of their champagne and a bite of food before it was time for the dancing, and then the cake cutting, and then the bouquet throwing and then time to leave. Fortunately, the caterers knew their stuff and packed them with full servings of everything they had missed.

The honeymoon was wonderful, and those two weeks flew by with swimming and excursions, mutual application of sunscreen where their hands lingered on each other, and nights filled with fervent loving, as they sought to know each other more, to be closer, to meld as much as their flesh would allow.

When the Darcys returned home, they quickly settled back into what was to be their new normal married routine. They had their minor tiffs and misunderstandings of course, but as love overlay everything, it was easier to forgive and forget, and they both began to smooth out each other's rough edges, were more understanding and compassionate to each other's way of seeing things and how their needs differed. Most importantly of all, they told each other what was bothering them and what they needed from the other. And of course, all the affection in and out of bed, the sweet words and tender touches, helped to cool and then cure any minor but potentially festering resentments.

They each had their own flaws of course, but they were becoming more aware of them and how they might bother the other. Elizabeth tended to be messy, but tried to clean up when she was done with something so the mess wouldn't bother Will. Will tried to not clean up or throw out things that Elizabeth left out without checking to see if she was really done with them.

Given all of this, Elizabeth didn't give the conversation with her mother another thought until she and Will went to their first family dinner at the Bennet home a month later. She perhaps wouldn't have recalled it at all, except that after dinner her mom proudly showed her a university brochure. "I'm thinking about it, Lizzy, I might just go back."

Her dad, Tom, who was balding and whose wrinkles and slight stoop showed his fifty-five years, came up behind his wife and nuzzled her neck. "She should do it, right? Of course, I might be having to fight off all the undergrad men who want a crack at a hot but experienced woman."

Fran giggled like a schoolgirl and gave Tom a half-hearted shove which meant that she was not displeased at all. Elizabeth, freshly married and aware of all of those tender touches, saw for perhaps the first time (or the first time that it really registered) that there was real affection there.

When the Darcys were leaving, Tom followed them out and he and Elizabeth talked for a moment after Will got in the car. "Thanks for encouraging your mom to go back to school. I've been trying to get her to go back for years. Somehow, she listens to you and not me."

Fran the student was somehow different than Fran the mom. She was more of a peer, or not even that. She was actually asking Elizabeth for help with schoolwork and how to negotiate college. It was weird for Elizabeth, but in seeing her mother that way, she was much more relatable, and they got along so much better. It wasn't fair then, that only six weeks into her first real teacher job (student teaching not counting of course), that after complaining about arm pain, but being certain she had just strained something, that Fran went to bed and never woke up.

If Elizabeth had not had that glimpse of a different mom, a genuine but flawed individual, had not had the promise of a deepening and more respectful relationship between them, perhaps she would not have mourned her mother as she had. To have glimpsed a better future between them and to have it then all taken away, was half the pain of the loss.

Elizabeth tried to banish those thoughts. It did not do well to dwell on things she could not change, not if she wished to get through this, one of the most difficult of days. Elizabeth tried to focus on her sister's text, read then next couple of sentences, realized she could not remember what they were and then scrolled back to try again. She had to pick up with what she last remembered reading:

It is these little things I think about and miss somehow. Charles understands how tough this day is for me and we have plans later to go to the cemetery and lay an arrangement on her grave at about 10. You are welcome to join us if you want to, but please don't feel obligated. You should be enjoying your first Mother's Day.

This may sound strange, but I am kind of looking forward to it, because I have some good news to share with her, something she would be really happy for me about. I really want to talk to you about it, too, when you are up.

Love,

Jane

Elizabeth admitted to having some curiosity. Jane was usually an open book, told Elizabeth everything almost at the same time it was occurring. She remembered that Jane had been up for a promotion at work. Maybe that had gone through?

Elizabeth texted back:

I'm up now. Want to talk? If so, give me five to ten to get situated and I'll call you.

The dots popped up and Jane replied: Yes!

Elizabeth ran for the bathroom, put the washed clothes in the dryer from the previous night's poop disaster, and then picked up a stirring Liam, taking him to the playroom at the other end of the house so she could both nurse him and talk without disturbing the still slumbering William. Once she was settled with a drink, a blanket and a latched on Liam, she called Jane (who answered on the first ring) and put her on speaker.

"Morning Jane. What's your good news?"

"It's happened, Lizzy, it's finally happened."

"What?"

"I'm pregnant and this one's sticking. Oh, I never thought I could be happy about vomiting, but the doctor said that was a good sign and I've made it to fourteen weeks."

"Oh Janey, that's the best news! Charlie must be over the moon!" Elizabeth grinned, imagining their shared happiness.

"He is, he is! I had been wanting to hold out telling him until Father's Day. You know, be cautious, given what happened before."

"Totally understandable." Elizabeth nodded to herself, recalling Jane's two early miscarriages. Each time, Jane had called Elizabeth just minutes after sharing the positive stick tests with Charles, and then a few weeks later had to call with the news that she'd gotten a heavy late period.

"Yeah, I didn't want to have him have to go through that again, better for him not to know, you know?"

"Maybe better for you, but not for him. He'd want to know, to be there for you."

"Oh, I know, but I didn't have a choice. Barfing two mornings in a row made it kind of obvious, or at least it meant I couldn't hide it or he'd think something really bad was going on, when he woke up at around three this morning to my barf-a-thon. He was all 'Jane, you're really sick. This is worse than yesterday, you must have a bad stomach flu or something. I think we ought to go to the ER.' I tried to tell him it was no big deal, but he wouldn't let it go. So, finally, I told him."

"I am so happy for you Jane, the both of you. Not about the barfing of course but . . . "

"But what it means. I'm better now, by the way."

"Oh good."

"We're going to want you and Will to be the Godparents, of course, just like you named us."

"Oh Jane." Elizabeth felt her eyes fill with happy tears. "We'd love that."

"Just think, our kids will be able to grow up together. How cool is that?"

"The coolest."

There was a little pause and then an audible burp over the phone. "Uh, gotta go."

"Feel better," Elizabeth replied to the now ended phone call.

Liam detached with a cry and Elizabeth expertly propped him up and started patting his back. A loud burp erupted along with the spewing of slightly chunky milk. Elizabeth wiped it off and then noticed to her horror that there was dried poop from the night before streaked across her left arm. That meant . . . that there was probably dried poop on her bedsheets, too.

Just then a sleepy looking William walked in. He yawned. "Early morning, huh? Is he done? Let me take him so you can go back to bed."

"Yes, take him for a minute." Distracted from Jane's good news, Elizabeth dashed back to their bathroom and scrubbed at her arm. Once it looked clean, she went to the bedroom, saw there was indeed a big, brown streak on her side of the bed and promptly stripped the sheets and then the mattress protector for good measure. She had one thought on her mind, to get the dirty sheets scrubbed and washed, and then to take a shower and make sure she was truly clean. She was marching back to the laundry room when she passed William.

"So, no breakfast in bed for you? I had been planning . . . What's wrong with the sheets?"

A juicy sounding poop noise erupted from Liam.

"Don't ask. Just take care of him please."

"Of course."

A/N: I'm not sure that's where I wanted to end this chapter, but it is too long already and I need to get ready for work. And also I am hoping to strike while FF is still giving people alerts.