When I leave the bathroom my stomach sinks.
I can hear multiple voices down stairs and I stall at the top. Someone, presumably Ben's mother, chides him on needing a haircut, which I giggle to myself about.
An older voice is talking about her flower bed and I smile at the enthusiasm she has in telling Ben all about it.
I take a few steadying breaths and then I make my way down the stairs, my palms already sweating.
What if she wants to shake my hand?
I panickedly wipe my hands on the end of my dress and turn the corner to walk into the living room.
"Mom, this is Hayden." Ben stands from the couch when I walk in. He looks at me, and he stumbles over his words a little. "The...Elizabeth's aunt."
I look at the two women sitting on the couch.
His mother is thin, long tanned arms and legs. She has wild curly brunette hair pinned back into a clip and striking large brown eyes.
She must have had Ben young because, damn, for a grandmother, she's kinda a babe.
"Hi." I give a small wave. "It's nice to meet you. I've heard a lot about you."
"All lies I'm sure." She winks up at Ben. "It's nice to meet you as well, Hayden."
"And this is my Granny, Ellie." Ben inclines his head to the elderly woman beside his mother.
She doesn't even look up. Her narrow eyes trained on the baby in her arms. Her skin is thin and sags, showing her age, but her smile is bright and warm.
She looks at Elizabeth with such awe that it brings tears to my eyes.
"Ben says you've been helping him so much." His mother tells me. "He said you did a lot of research on helping with her condition."
I nod. "I can't take all the credit." I admit. "Ben has been amazing with her, really. And my friends back home are the ones who sent over all of the information for me to read through."
His mom smiles at me.
Ben got his dimples from her.
"Would you mind sharing some of that with me?" She asks politely. "I'm Heidi, by the way."
"Right, sorry." Ben says. "I forget she has a name other than Mom sometimes."
Heidi reaches out to swat at Ben's leg and I grin as he reaches over and messes up her hair.
"It is so hard to imagine my child having a child." She shakes her head, fixing her hair. Then she looks back to me, expectantly.
She pats a spot on the couch and I go over to sit beside her and dive headlong into spewing out all of the information I'd studied on NAS and caring for babies who suffer from it.
I go on and on about it, hitting all of the main points that stuck out to me, especially where it applied to Elizabeth.
By the time I'm done, I'm completely out of breath and Heidi's eyes are wide as she nods to me.
"You really know your stuff." She says. "Elizabeth is really lucky to have an aunt who cares so much about her and helping her father understand her."
I shrug off the compliment. "My friends and I were so overwhelmed." I admit. "We wanted to make sure we knew what we were doing. I'm the lucky one to have them on my corner the way they are."
His mom furrows her brows while his grandmother coos over Elizabeth.
"Your friends sure are dedicated to helping you." She says.
