by Amy Muscat
“Hi ya, Munchkin,” I say into her ear, giving her kisses all over her beautiful face.
“Hi,” she grins cheekily, giving me a kiss back.
“Wanna do me a favour?” At her nod, I let her down and tell her, “I want you to go over to mummy and daddy, and I want you to smile big for me.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to take a family photo of you guys,” I reply.
She starts giggling, but she nods and runs over to her parents. “Hi kiddo,” Peyton says to Ivy, giving her a kiss.
“There's my princess,” Keller grabs Ivy in a bear hug and kisses all over her face, too, making her go into hysterical laughter.
I see Keller's Dad, Rob, come into view, and say hello to him.
“Hello, Lottie. How have you been?” When I tell him I've been okay, he nods looking like he wants to say something but thinks better of it.
I frown in confusion, but I end up letting it go. I turned back to my friends, and see that they are more or less back into the position they were in before, only the addition of Ivy making it complete.
I again start snapping picture after picture of them, and I feel my eyes start to water slightly. What the fuck was wrong with me? It seemed like all I did lately was fucking cry! It was driving me crazy.
But before I could think about it anymore; we hear Peyton's name being called.
“Miss Emerson?” A nurse calls out. We all perk up and stand as one. The nurse smiles at us and tells us to follow her.
We walk down a hallway and turn left into room 216.
“The doctor will be with you in a minute. Miss Emerson, if you could get onto the bed, and pull up your top, and pull your pants down under your stomach, please?”
“Yeah, sure,” Peyton replies, jumping up on the bed, and pulling her green tunic dress up; her black leggings are already under her belly.
The nurse leaves, and we start to chatter when the doctor walks in with a happy smile.
“Hello Peyton, Keller, it’s nice to see you again; how’re you both?” The Doc says, smile still intact.
“We’re good thank you, Doctor Martins,” Peyton replies back.
“Is this Ivy? Your daughter?” When they gave the doctor a nod, she smiles and reaches into a drawer and pulls out a lollipop. “Hello Miss Ivy, would you like one? Is that okay?” Peyton again nodded, and Ivy takes the lolly with a thank you.
“Okay, let's get the show on the road, shall we?” The Doc says, pulling out a probe and some gel stuff. “Peyton this is gonna be cold as you know. Did you drink water before?”
“Yes, I've drunk two bottles, I'm pretty sure my bladder is full.”
“Good, good.”
I watch as she squirts the gel onto Peyton's belly, and I see Peyton's belly flinch. Then she starts to rub the probe-thingy around, and then we all look at the screen seeing the black and white picture of two babies.
“There they are,” the doctor starts tapping away at her keyboard. “They’re at the perfect size, guys. Your ECG levels are fine, so no worries there. Now for the million dollar question: do you want to know the sex of the babies?”
“Yes!” I shout excitedly and then blush as everyone turns to me. “What? I'm an excited aunty, don’t look at me like that.” I say laughing, everyone joining in with me.
“Yes please,” Peyton answers the Docs question.
“Okay, give me a sec…” The doctor’s concentration was written all over her face as she started moving the probe around again. “…There! And we have a boy!”
“Yes!” Keller shouts in elation, a smile gracing his handsome face. We all started laughing at his expression. “What about my other baby, Doc?”
The doctor continues to smile as she runs the probe this way and that way. “Hmmm…”
“What? Is there something wrong?” Peyton asks, panic clearly evident in her tone.
“No, it’s just that the boy is hiding the other baby behind him… almost protectively. If I could just get the baby to turn slightly; I will be able to tell the sex.”
Keller, always the quick thinker, moves down Peyton's body, and starts speaking to her belly. “Hey little man, could you do daddy a favor? Will you shift slightly over so the nice doctor can tell us if you have a brother or another sister?” His hand rubs over Peyton's bump and we all watch in amazement as said bump starts moving. When we look back at the screen, we see the babies legs kicking out and then he starts to actually shift around.
“Oh, my God.”
“That’s so cool…” I say.
“What's happening, momma?” Ivy's innocent question brings our faces to her, and Peyton explains what is happening. “Oh!” She grins brightly.
“Okay, okay… come on just a little more… yes got it. Got it!” Dr. Martins says excitedly. “…And we have a little… girl. Congratulations guys!”
“Yes!” Now I'm shouting in joy. I fist-pump the air and start dancing around in a circle. I stop after a minute and rush over to give my best friend– my sister– a hug.
“Congrats sweetie, I'm so happy for you all…”
“Thanks, hon,” she says giving my cheek a peck.
I stand back up. “You owe me a hundred bucks, mate. I told you aunts intuition is never wrong,” I say with a wink hearing her laugh as I turn and give Keller the same treatment as I did with Peyton before I pick Ivy up.
“You're gonna have a little brother and a little sister! Are you excited, Munchkin?”
Ivy has just the biggest smile on her sweet face. “Yep,” she nods happily. “They can even play with my Elsa doll, Aunty Lottie.”
My heart, for the second time today, melts into a pile of goo. This little girl was just something special. I give her the biggest kiss before I place her into her daddy’s arms.
I look over and see the perfect family. Peyton's still laying on the bed, Keller's sitting next to her with Ivy in the middle of her parents, and all three of their hands are touching Peyton's belly, talking quietly to themselves. I feel my eyes water slightly. Fucking Hell! These bloody waterworks are driving me mad. But regardless of these blasted tears, this was one of the most beautiful moments I have ever witnessed.
Total Kodak moment.
I, again, get my phone out and snap just one perfect picture.
It’s funny; three weeks ago two pictures completely ruined my life, but today? This one picture made me feel almost whole again.
Almost.
“HEY, ARSEHOLE! WATCH where you're fucking going!!” I shout at the cabbie. New York’s cab drivers are complete psychopaths, I tell you.
The prick flips me the finger, and I call him a word my Nan would blush at. But I don’t care, because I'm running late for my lunch date with Melody.
Two blocks later I've arrived at Greenwich Project, wishing that I had drove. My calves were burning, and I cursed myself for not taking a cab. At least I had thought to wear boots and not heels. It was getting chilly in New York now that summer was almost over. I had pulled a pair of navy blue skinny jeans on, which did wonders for my arse, and combined them with a loose black t-shirt with the words, ‘NERD? We prefer the term intellectual badass’, written on it. I loved this top; I saw it in a shop for fifteen dollars and had to get it.
I walk into the restaurant, and spot Melody already sitting there waiting.
“Hey Mel,” I say when I stop behind her chair.
She turns her head and jumps up to give me a hug. “Hi, Lottie. I'm so glad you came,” she replies before taking her seat again.
“What? Did you think I wasn’t going to turn up? I told you yesterday when we were texting that I would definitely come.” I said to her confused.
“Yeah, I know you did but…”
“But what?”
“It’s just… with me being Blake's sister… I didn’t know if you would actually show up or not,” she grimaces, twiddling her hands together.
“Don’t be silly, love. I told you I would come, and I don’t break my promises.” Unlike
some… I shake the thought off. I don’t want to go there right now.
She just smiles at me gratefully… For what? Turning up? Pfft.
The waitress comes over and asks if we would like to order.
“I'm going to try that burger you raved about… and I'll have a glass of white wine, please.”
“Yes miss,” the waitress says writing my order down before she looks at Melody pointedly. “And you miss?”
“I'll have the same, please, but a bottle of water instead of the wine. Thank you,” she says handing back the menu along with mine.
The waitress walks off, and we begin talking.
“So… did you ever go on that date? With the football player, right?”
I watch, as she blushes beetroot-red before she answers me. “Yes, I did.”
“And…? How did it go?” I ask her smiling, as she blushes even more.
“It… it went really well. I've been on a couple of dates with him now, and I really like him. It’s just…” She trails off, biting her bottom lip.
“Just what?” I ask worriedly.
“There's something I need to tell him, and I'm just afraid he won't like me after I tell him. He might just drop me, and I don’t want that to happen,” she says sadly.
“Tell him what?” I ask her curiously. What could sweet, Melody possibly be hiding?
She opens her mouth, but our drinks are placed down on the table before she can say anything. I see her breathe out a relieved breath, and silently wonder again what she had to hide.
I decide to drop it. If she wanted to tell me, she would in her own time.
“THAT WAS LOVELY,” Melody says happily running her hand over her stomach. “Definitely filled a hole.”
I laugh. That was totally something I would say after I had eaten. “I have to agree with you, it was fab.”
I take the last sip of my second glass of wine, and she takes another of her water.
“Do you not drink alcohol?”
She bites her lip. “No.”
“Why not?” I'm curious. I mean, what twenty-one-year-old doesn’t like alcohol?
“Oh well, alcohol and me just don’t agree with each other. I've been drunk once, and that was on my twenty-first birthday…” She shudders. “Ugh. Never again.”
“Fair enough. I've been like that quite a few times in my life… and the end result isn’t nice; just ask your broth–” I stop myself. I didn’t want to talk about him. I thought of him all day, dreamt of him, of what he might be doing– or who. And every time it breaks my heart all over again, just thinking about him with Lucy. I knew he had started working as her guard a couple of weeks ago, and just the thought of them fucking every chance they could get made my skin crawl. It was torture really. Even if Blake wasn’t shagging the whore, I just fucking knew she would find any and every opportunity to hang all over him. It made me want to high-five her face with a steel chair. Repeatedly.
I watch it all play out like a movie in my head and smirk.
When I look over to Mel, she’s looking at her phone with a furrowed brow.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing… my mom’s just texted and asked if I was sitting down…” she trails off as she starts texting back frantically. I hear a beep come from her phone, and watch as wonder, happiness, and excitement cross her face before she springs up and starts shouting. “Tillie’s in labor!! This is so exciting… I can't wait! I need to get to the New York- Presbyterian Hos… oh no! No, no! Not now,” she says making me completely confused. But then, to my horror, she drops to the ground, completely unconscious.
“MELODY!” I shout out, dropping down next to her. There's movement behind her eyes, and I'm worried that she having a seizure. “Call 911! Hurry!” I scream.
I lift her head and place it in my lap; I don’t want her to bang her head. “Oh, my God Mel. What's happening? Please wake up…” I beg her.
“The ambulance is on its way.” I look up to see a man bending down, and checking her pulse before speaking back into the phone. “Yes, she has a pulse…okay, I'll ask. Do you know if she suffers from epilepsy?”
“No,” I moan. I feel my eyes water. Fuck, fuck, fuck! How could I know? She never told me and nor did Blake. Blake! I should ring him. But before I can do that, there’s a commotion at the front of the restaurant and I watch as two paramedics come rushing through the crowd that has gathered around us.
That was quick!
They ask me a ton of questions that I try my best to answer.
No, I don’t know if she is epileptic… Her name is Melody Walker… No, I don’t know what happened… She just fainted… No, she hasn’t drunk any alcohol or taken any drugs…
They quickly place her on the stretcher, and rush to the ambulance and I jump into the back watching as the male paramedic fusses over Melody.
I'm sitting on the small fold-down chair, crying and worrying about what had happened.
Minutes, but what actually feels like hours, later we’re at the hospital; and the paramedic are saying all these sayings that I don’t understand.
“Female, twenty-one… fainted in a restaurant. BP is normal. There is REM. No drugs or alcohol in her system.”
I'm running behind the team of doctors and nurses. Frantically trying to dissect these meanings. BP obviously stands for blood pressure, but I haven’t got a clue what REM stands for.
“Can somebody tell me what they think is going on?” I call out to them, but I go unnoticed. “Hello! She’s my sister-in-law. I need to know so I can call her family.”
A nurse turns around to face me. “Ma’am, we don’t know what's wrong with her, but we’re gonna do everything we can to help her.” And then they all walk through a door that I'm not allowed to go into apparently. I walk over and slump into one of the chairs they have in the waiting area.
I see the paramedic walk back through the door a couple of minutes later.
“Sir?” He stops walking and raises an eyebrow at me. “Can you tell me anything?”
“No, miss, I can't. I'm sorry. All I know is that the doctors are looking her over right now.”
“Okay, thanks… Oh! What does REM mean?”
“It means Rapid-Eye-Movement.”
“Why is that important?”
“Because it normally happens when a person is asleep,” his walkie-talkie starts buzzing and then he’s running off in the direction we came in from.
Blake! Fuck. I completely forgot to call him. I grab my bag that’s sitting on the chair next to me with Melody’s bag, too. I press on his name in my contacts, but it says there’s no service. So I grab our bags and rush outside.
Ring… Ring… Ring…
“Come on, Blake, answer the fucking phone!”
Ring… Rin-
“Hello, this is Blake Walker. Sorry, I couldn’t get to the phone, but if you would leave your name and number; I’ll call you back.” BEEP…
“Goddamnit!” I shout out. I redial him again, and again but no answer. When I get his voicemail again, I start shouting into the speaker. “Blake answer the fucking phone, will you! I'm at Beth Israel Hospital with Melody. I don’t know what happened Blake, she was fine, and then all of a sudden she just drops down unconscious. Hurry up and come here. Please call me back–” Beep beep. I pull my phone away from my ear and see the blank screen; my battery had died. “Fuck!”
I pull a cigarette out and light it up before I start pacing around like a mad woman.
Seven minutes later, I'm back in the waiting area. I've already asked two doctors if they know what was happening with Melody, but they’ve said that they didn’t know but would get someone to find out.
I'm wracking my brains out when all of a sudden I hear my name being called.
“Lottie!” It’s a voice I haven’t heard from for weeks. It’s a voice I have missed greatly. And it’s a voice that sounds deeply panicked.
I look up and see the man who has had my heart, my whole heart, and completely shattered it, to
o.
Blake.
He runs over to me, and in the seconds it takes for him to reach me, I silently take him in. Hair in complete disarray, his beautiful face scruffy with stubble, worried lines marking around his eyes and tightened mouth. He has a pair of black suit trousers on and a white button-down shirt. He looked so handsome, and maybe that was wrong of me to think, you know being that his sister is in the hospital and no one knows what’s wrong with her, but my body and my heart didn’t care about that. All they cared about is that I haven’t seen this man for over a month. Haven’t seen or felt his presence for four weeks. Haven’t felt his lips on my lips for fuck knows how long. Oh god, I've missed him. It didn’t matter at that moment what he had done, it didn’t matter at this moment the vile names he had wrongly called me. My body just acted on instinct and I flew into his arms. I wrapped my legs around his waist and held onto him, sobbing into his neck.
“Blake…” I wept. “I don’t know what's the matter with Mel, and no one will tell me anything.”
“Shh… Shh Lottie,” Blake coos, wrapping me up in his strong arms. He holds onto me like he never wanted to let go. He walks over to the bench of chairs, and sits down on one, but keeping me straddled on him. “What happened, Lott's?” He asked worriedly.
I take a deep breath through my nose, and his smell instantly hits me, and I feel nostalgia roll through me. I missed his scent: soap and spice. I loved it. It reminded me of better times with him. It reminded me of home.
Getting my breathing under control, I say, “I don’t know. Melody and I were out having lunch, and then she got a text from your Mum–”
“Saying that Tillie had gone into labor?”
“Yeah. Then she got all excited saying how she needed to get to some hospital and then bang. She’s on the floor, unconscious and unresponsive… what…?” I ask him. His face just relaxed and the tension ran from his body. I felt it.
“Thank fuck…” He breathes.
“Thank fuck, what Blake?” Thank fuck? “Your sister just collapsed and you say thank fuck?”
“She’s fine… well, unless she hit her head. Shit, did she hit her head?”
“Yeah, she did… but Blake. She just passed out! How can you be relieved about that? What is going the fuck on? What aren’t you telling me?” I demand.
