She still had not adjusted to saying Jeremy’s name without a bit of nausea though it was lessening. These days, she could talk about him without needing a bottle of antacids. A half one would do.
Jeremy, through the patient, consistent work of a wife who had considerably more sense than he did, had made an effort to be a father figure once more. It had started with a Friday phone call. That had become a weekly occurrence. A supervised visit had followed.
Now, they would be coming to visit LA for a week. Rose and Jeremy had worked out an agreement regarding the owed child support. He was placing what he could into an account for Daisy to use when she grew up. To date, he’d made deposits that were impressive for a man who’d not paid a dime for years.
“France first,” Lizanne said. “September for Jeremy and Melissa.”
“France first,” Rose agreed.
Daisy appeared at the foot of the garden, looked up, put both hands on her hips.
“Come down!” she called.
Rose looked at Lizanne.
Lizanne kissed her once more, her hand at Rose’s jaw.
“Our daughter is calling,” she said. “She sounds serious.”
“She always is.”
They looked at one another once more and exchanged a lingering kiss before joining what had become their family downstairs.
Extended Epilogue
Lizanne
Three Years Later
The room held a quiet Lizanne had not encountered before — not silence, but a suspension, the whole world pausing to take stock of itself. Outside the window the city went on. Inside the room there was only this: eight pounds, four ounces, and the sound of someone brand new deciding the world was acceptable.
Maxwell had been in it for fifty-three minutes.
Lizanne sat against the raised bed with him against her chest and tried to locate words for what she was feeling. She could not. She had spent her career finding words for things and this had none.
Rose sat beside the bed with her hand over Lizanne’s on the blanket. She had been there through all of it, steady and warm and occasionally very funny at moments when funny was exactly what was needed.
The door opened four inches.
Daisy’s face appeared in the gap.
“Is it time?” she said.
“Come in,” Rose said.
Daisy came in with the gravity of a nine-year-old who had decided this moment deserved her full seriousness. She approached the bed and looked at Maxwell.
“He’s very small,” she said.
“He is,” Lizanne said.
Daisy considered this. “Can I hold him?”
“When he’s settled.”
She accepted the terms without negotiation, pulled the corner chair to the bedside, and sat down. She looked at Maxwell with genuine interest.
“What do you think of your sibling? Other than that he’s small?”
