A Family Made in Rome

by Annie O'Neil

  Lizzy nodded, grateful that Autumn’s question was rhetorical and, mercifully, had been delivered without judgement.

  They made another vague plan to ‘do coffee’ before Lizzy did an about-face and headed back to the Bianchis’ room, where—thankfully—there was no sign of Leon. She apologised from the bottom of her heart. Even squeezed a few laughs out of them by re-enacting the time she’d dressed up as a unicorn one Halloween, only to get her horn stuck when the lift doors were closing, so the fire brigade had to free her.

  Now for the harder part, she thought, as she forced herself to head to Leon’s office. She owed him an apology for lashing out at him. For taking his appearance in the Bianchis’ room personally. He was a doctor above anything—especially here at the hospital—and of course that meant his patients came first.

  She heard him before she saw him. It sounded like a one-way conversation, so most likely he was on the phone. It couldn’t be that private, because the door was open, so she hovered beside it, waiting for the call to end.

  Thirty seconds later she wished she’d asked Autumn for that story instead.

  ‘...and if my daughter’s born here in Italy, her citizenship will be Italian, not Australian, right?’ Leon was asking. He murmured a few ‘I sees’ and a couple of ‘Interestings’.

  Lizzy tried to tell herself the question was a perfectly natural one for him to ask. Even so...prickles of fear ran along her skin.

  ‘So, no one can take her away, then?’

  Lizzy’s hands flew to her throat, where her heart had lodging too tightly for her to breathe. What was he doing? Was he trying to keep their little girl here? Trying to gain custody before she was even born?

  Leon’s voice had turned very serious now. ‘And how quickly can I apply for parental responsibility? Si? Straight away. And the mother’s parental responsibility is automatic? I see. Va bene.’

  Blood was roaring so loudly in Lizzy’s brain that she couldn’t hear any more.

  Leon was trying to take control of their child before she’d even given birth to her. It was precisely the sort of thing her father would have done. Precisely the kind of future she’d vowed her daughter would never, ever have.

  So, she did the only thing she could think of.

  She ran.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  LEON WAS BESIDE HIMSELF. He couldn’t find Lizzy anywhere. She wasn’t answering his calls or his texts. She wasn’t on the roof garden or in the flat. He’d careered around Rome on his scooter, revisiting the places they’d been together in the vain hope that he would find her. He’d even rung the airlines who had flights to Sydney that evening, only to be informed there was no chance he could get access to any flight manifest.

  When he got back to the hospital he ran straight to the Bianchis’ room, only to be told he had just missed her.

  ‘Literally,’ Gabrielle said, clearly clocking the frustration he didn’t have the energy to disguise. ‘Maybe five minutes ago?’ She looked at her husband who nodded. It had been about that.

  Leon’s instinct was to page her on the hospital’s PA system. Call Security and have them stop her. Or do more of what he’d been doing and run around with his eyes peeled for a glimpse of that singular swathe of straw-blonde hair. Surely he could catch up with a pregnant woman?

  He turned to go but the Bianchis were feeling chatty. Wreathed in smiles, the couple told him how Lizzy had been so kind. She’d made both audio and video recordings from the surgery, and done a fresh sonogram just twenty minutes earlier, so that they had plenty of updates to share with their families back home.

  ‘And what happened then?’

  ‘And then she left,’ Matteo said, hoicking himself up onto his wife’s bed and pulling her into a cuddle. ‘Said she’d check in tomorrow.’ He grinned at his wife, then dropped a kiss onto her forehead.

  The gesture doubled Leon’s need to find Lizzy. He wanted what they had. The automatic instinct to protect each other. To care. To be there even in this kind of unbelievably frightening time and still find a way to line it with hope. The kind of hope he should have invested in a future with Lizzy a long time ago.

  He’d got it all wrong on the roof.

  He should’ve held her. Supported her. Told her that her father had absolutely no idea what he was talking about and that she was one of the most talented, amazing women he’d ever met. But most of all, he should’ve just been there for her.

  She didn’t need the situation to be fixed. No one was ever going to be able to change her father. But he could change himself. He could admit that he loved her. Admit that it scared him because love was like that first surgical cut. You didn’t always know what you were getting, but you did it anyway because you had to. And that was where he was. At the do I/don’t I crossroads.

  ‘Did she say where she was going?’

  They both shook their heads in the negative.

  ‘And how did she seem?’ he asked, trying and failing to ratchet down the intensity of his request. ‘You know...in herself?’

  Gabrielle and Matteo shared a look. One that indicated they had definitely talked about Lizzy and, very possibly, about him.

  He gave up on being polite.

  ‘Per favore...’ He put his hands in the prayer position. ‘Did she give any indication as to where she was going? I must find her.’

  Gabrielle squealed and grinned triumphantly at Matteo. ‘I knew it! I told you, didn’t I? The baby may or may not be his, but he loves her!’ Her eyes widened and she clapped her hand over her mouth.

  Matteo shot him an apologetic smile. ‘Scusi, Dottore. My wife—she has far too much time on her hands, so she makes up little stories about everyone.’

  Leon felt more exposed than he ever had in front of a patient—but, in another first, he found he didn’t really care. Role reversal at its finest.

  ‘No,’ he admitted, priming himself for what he needed to say to Lizzy. ‘You’re right. I love her.’

  ‘And the baby?’ Gabrielle held her breath.

  ‘Mine,’ he confirmed, with a swell of pride gripping his chest so fiercely he knew what he had to do.

  He ran to the nurses’ desk, took the phone they used for the public address system and dialled in a code.

  * * *

  Lizzy cocked her head to one side.

  Had that been—?

  Her heart skipped a beat.

  It was Leon on the PA system. He was calling a Code Aquamarine.

  The colour he used to describe her eyes.

  She was transported back to one particularly perfect bubble bath they’d taken together in her tiny New York studio. It had been early days for their internships and their relationship. She frowned. If you could even have called it that. They’d just led their very first in utero surgery as a team. Twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome. It had been a resounding success and they had left the hospital feeling on top of the world.

  They’d walked to her place, grabbing some pizza and some ice cream on the way. Once there, they’d filled her tub with citrus-scented bubbles and sloshed around kissing, relaxing and reliving the surgery, revelling in how well they’d worked together. The dream team.

  He had kissed her bubble-coated fingertips and told her that if he was ever floundering, if he ever needed to feel as positive as he did in that moment, he would commandeer the hospital’s PA and call a Code Aquamarine.

  She’d locked that moment in its own compartment inside her heart. It was, she believed, the closest he’d ever come to telling her that he loved her. She’d almost blurted out that she loved him, but knowing somewhere deep inside her that their time in New York was exactly that, she’d stayed silent.

  So, like any career girl intent on climbing the ladder rather than walking down the aisle, she’d laughed and pointed out the flaws in his plan. She might not be in that hospital, for one.

&nbs
p; He’d snorted and said, ‘As if!’

  And, of course, he’d been right. Because here she was, seven years later, feeling more torn that she’d ever felt in her life. And where had she sought refuge? The waiting room of the emergency department.

  It was the best place to put things into perspective. Parents were bringing their children in, often in tears, as they sought help for a broken arm, or a fever that wouldn’t go away, or a cut on the forehead from a run-in with a countertop. She felt their pain by proxy, itching to take it away, and almost physically felt their relief as one of her colleagues took the child in their arms and said, yes, they would help. Of course they would help.

  The ones that really got to her, of course, were those terror-stricken parents racing in with a child in their arms, limp or screaming, clearly in need of immediate assistance. Those were the ones who got her back on her feet, adding herself to the ‘pit crew’ in the ED, proactively taking away both the physical and emotional pain the family were enduring and with it her own pain...whatever it had been.

  But this time nothing had moved her from her seat.

  She sat, her hands on her stomach, concentrating all her energies on her child—a baby who was little more than the odd flutter of butterfly wings in her belly—and praying for some sort of sign that would tell her what to do. Stay? Go? Endure the pain of loving someone who didn’t love her as perfectly as a Prince Charming, knowing that without the lows there couldn’t be the highs of making love, swapping ice cream cones, or sharing a secret smile in the operating theatre. The moments that made her world feel perfect.

  Or, in Leon-speak, aquamarine.

  Until this very moment the code had completely slipped her mind.

  Because, she snippily reminded herself, he’d never needed her before. And the only reason he wanted her now was to make sure she didn’t leave the country before he could take their baby away from her.

  Or... The tiniest ember of hope sprang to life in her chest. Or maybe he’d realised he didn’t feel whole without her...

  Unable to put herself through any more emotional turmoil—picturing herself being handed over to police custody until she gave birth had a way of tying a girl in knots—she pulled out her phone and texted him. As Autumn had more or less said, it was better to face one’s mistakes head-on, deal with the consequences, then move on.

  * * *

  Relief flooded Leon’s chest the moment he saw her, tucked away in a corner of the ED waiting room. Why on earth was she there?

  ‘Amore mio.’ He dropped to his knees and took her hands in his. ‘You scared me.’

  ‘Why?’

  There was wariness in her voice. That same self-protectiveness she’d worn like a shield when she’d told him she was pregnant.

  ‘I couldn’t find you. I wanted to talk.’

  She stiffened. ‘What about?’

  He looked round the waiting room. It was relatively quiet, but it wasn’t where he wanted to have this talk with this woman.

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Let’s go out.’

  She looked at him as if he were mad. ‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me whether or not my rights as a mother are protected.’

  What the hell...? ‘Your rights are precisely what I’ve been trying to figure out.’

  She shook her head, not understanding.

  ‘I’ve been researching what our child’s legal rights are if she’s born here—’

  Lizzy abruptly stood up, her eyes blazing. ‘Don’t you think for one second you’re getting sole custody of our daughter.’

  For a second time the oxygen left his lungs. ‘Lizzy, what are you planning?’

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ she said, her chin jutting out, eyes blazing with defiance.

  He caught the tiniest shake in her hands as she protectively knitted them together over the curve of her belly.

  ‘But I know what you’re trying to do. Get sole custody. I heard you on the phone.’

  Compassion replenished his energy stores. She’d got it so wrong. His instinct was to pull her in close, hold her tight, but she was radiating anger and cuddling was definitely not on the cards. Yet.

  ‘What exactly did you hear?’

  ‘You were talking on the phone to someone—a lawyer, I presume—about whether or not you could have custody of the baby.’ Her hands shifted protectively over her stomach.

  He knew he shouldn’t laugh at the misunderstanding. That was never a good way to react to an angry woman—especially an angry woman carrying your child. But huge blasts of relief and joy and, yes, love, were obliterating all the core-deep fear that had, mercifully, led him to her, each step opening his heart wide to their relationship and all its inevitable ups and downs.

  He wanted it all. The laughter, the joy, the pain, the trust. But most of all he wanted the love he knew would only grow stronger. So, instead of laughing at her mistake, he crowded his myriad emotions into a soft smile and was met, unsurprisingly, with a defensive glare. She looked proud, brave, fiercely protective—everything he’d imagined she would be when their child was finally born. Everything he hoped she’d embody as a mother.

  ‘Lizzy, I didn’t want to do this here, but... I was talking to an immigration lawyer about you.’

  He could almost see the flames stoking her fury.

  ‘Why would you need to do that?’

  ‘Because I don’t want you to leave.’

  Again, that defiant tilt to her chin presented itself. ‘You don’t get to tell me what to do.’

  ‘I know. Which is why I am asking, right here, right now, in the centre of the emergency department, if you would do me the honour of being my wife.’

  ‘You’ve got to stop asking me that when you don’t mean it!’ she said automatically, and then she looked at him—really looked at him.

  He watched her as what she saw caused her breath to hitch. He knew his eyes were alight with something she hadn’t seen before. Commitment. Pure, unswayable, solid-as-a-rock commitment. He’d felt the transition happen somewhere between the roof, the Bianchis’ room and the moment when her text had come through. The one that had said, I’m here.

  He loved Lizzy. With every fibre of his being. He wanted her. He wanted to be a father to the baby girl she was carrying and, if they were blessed, all the other babies yet to come.

  ‘I want you to stay. Here. As my wife. If you’d like that, too. That’s why I was speaking to the lawyer. To see what we needed to do for you to stay here. Legally. Beyond the Bianchis’ surgery. It’s up to you, obviously, but if you don’t want to go back to Sydney, it’s possible. I’ve spoken with Giovanni. He’s happy to offer you a job here. You can live with me. We can move flats, if you like. Move cities. Countries. Whatever it takes, Lizzy. I want to do whatever it takes to give you and our child a happy, loving life.’

  She shook her head, clearly trying and failing to match up what she’d heard him say on the phone with what he was asking now. ‘No. You were talking about the baby. How you wanted to keep her here.’

  ‘And you!’

  She shifted her feet, the tension in her shoulders giving a little. ‘Really?’ Her eyes narrowed, and her shoulders inched back up to her ears. ‘Not just until the baby’s born?’

  Leon gave in to the urge to laugh. He clearly wasn’t going to get an answer to his proposal just yet. Not without a long talk.

  ‘I wanted to find out how to get you an Italian passport.’

  ‘Why would I need one of those?’

  ‘It might be handy for when you travel with our daughter. It would also help if you want to work here. But if you’d rather be in Sydney, there are ways to make that happen, too.’

  She frowned. ‘So...you weren’t finding out ways to keep me here against my will?’

  Now he really did have to laugh. ‘Lizzy, I love you. I want to do everything in m
y power to make you happy. To write our own history. One where you don’t need your father’s approval. Or mine, for that matter. One where you realise how amazing you are. How strong. How resilient. And how very much I love you.’

  Her features softened enough to reveal the anxiety hidden in the creases of anger she’d been holding tight. ‘And would that make you happy? Is that why you called the code?’

  ‘Lizzy, you are the key to my happiness. You make my world a richer, better, much more interesting place to be. More than it could ever have been if I’d kept myself closed off the way I was taught.’

  She put her hands to her belly and frowned. ‘I’m hungry. I can’t think until I’ve had something to eat.’

  ‘Then let’s go.’ He held out a hand and pointed towards the exit.

  She gave him a wary look. ‘The canteen’s just upstairs.’

  ‘Per favore, Lizzy. My gorgeous, infuriating, deeply talented pompelmo... You’re safe with me. We can leave a message at the nurses’ desk, if you like. But let’s go somewhere we can talk. Properly.’

  She dithered, shifted her feet, looked anywhere but at him, until finally she looked him straight in the eye. ‘Okay, fine. But let’s go to the flat via the deli. And that pastry shop—the one with the pistachio thingies. If I’m going to be subject to all these...’ she scrubbed at the air over her swelling belly ‘...“emotions”... I’d rather do it away from the public eye.’

  ‘As you wish, amore.’

  He offered her his hand. She stared at it and then, to his surprise, took it.

  * * *

  ‘Shall we take the scenic route?’ she surprised herself by asking.

  Leon gave her a courtly half-bow. ‘By all means.’

  She realised as they walked that she wanted to look at Rome from a different angle. Not through a tourist’s eyes, but from the perspective of someone who lived here.

  Could she picture herself pushing a baby carriage through the higgledy-piggledy streets?