Lost Without You

~43~

When I reached my hospital room again, showered, changed and incredibly exhausted, Lia was waiting for me.

"I'll stay with her." She told Helen the midwife, who has been around me since I arrived at the hospital hours ago.

"Thank you, Helen." I told the woman once the two helped me get in the bed.

"Anytime, Samara." She said, smiling at me good-humouredly, making me shake my head immediately in response.

"Oh no. No thank you. I don't intend to repeat the experience."

Lia laughed while Helen reminded me that we would see each other again before I would be discharged from the hospital, then she was off, leaving me alone with my friend.

"My baby... She's born, Lia." I stated the obvious, still incapable to wrap my mind around the fact.

The thought was exhilarating, and liberating in a way, but it also made me feel... empty. As if in giving birth to Aurora, I lost a part of myself.

"Where is she?" I asked, missing her whom I started to consider an inseparable part of myself over the long nine months.

I needed to see her, to touch her, to make sure that she was real.

Pulling myself up, I pushed my blanket away and scanned the bright, shiny, linoleum floor for my slippers. The strong smell of disinfectant reached my nostrils and made the room spin around me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, determined to stand up anyway. But before I collected enough strength to leave my bed, Lia was at my side, pushing me back down into the pillows.

"You've lost a lot of blood, Samara, you must rest." She said, sitting down next to me. "I'll bring the baby over as soon as your visitors are out, and my mum stops fussing around her. Your Aurora has a slightly odd heartbeat and she's smaller than what they expected her to be. They are all puzzled about it. But as Abraham had told you it's perfectly normal for those like her, so calm down, and rest while you wait."

Reaching inside the pocket of her green scrubs, she passed me her phone with dozens of pictures of my baby. "You are welcome," she smiled.

"She is..." I whispered, at loss for words, as my vision blurred because of the annoying tears gathering in my eyes again.

"She is beautiful, Samara," Lia said as I stared at the pictures, transfixed. "Her hair is like yours, just a little darker."

"And her eyes?" I asked, realising that I still did not see their colour.

"Incredibly green. Like..." she started, then stopped when she noticed the tears now trickling down my cheeks. "Well, you know whose." She added simply, passing me a tissue. "Pull yourself together. Everybody's here to see you."

"When can we go home?" I asked, trying to distract myself from my thoughts which kept strolling to Vlad, as I wiped the tears away.

"I'm sure they'll keep you two here for a few days at least, until they invent a reason why Aurora is different from the other babies. Abraham says it might take even a full week."

It doesn't matter at all how long you'll stay here. Your child is healthy and you know it, that's the only thing that matters right now, my subconscious murmured, making me relax a little.

I looked at Lia and nodded, then my eyes dropped to her hands, attracted by an unfamiliar movement. Lia, who never wore rings, was caressing a pink, oval gemstone glittering brightly as it caught the single ray of sunshine which found its way inside the room through the half closed blinds...  A diamond ring?

"Lia, are you..."

She followed my gaze, then beamed at me as she replied, "Engaged to be married. Since last night."