Page 79 of Endurance
My family.
My sister could have died today. My niece almost didn’t make it. Whatever Belle needs from me pales in comparison to that. I’m a Harris. That name and my family has been my identity for twenty-six years. Our lives haven’t been easy. The loss of our mother left us in a dark hole where the only light we had was each other. I can’t discredit that.
I steel myself to walk into the hospital room, sticking my hand under the antibacterial machine by the door as I go in. All I see are backs huddled around a bed. I can’t even see a glimpse of Vi, Hayden, or the baby, so I pause, resting my hand on the nearby bassinet. It has clear walls and looks clinical and sterile, but inside is a tiny pink hat. I reach in and pick it up, rubbing my fingers over the knitted ridges. It’s so small. So innocent. So—
“Come over and see why we don’t have the heart to put it on her head.” Vi’s voice cuts into my internal reverie.
I look over and see a sliver of her between my dad and Booker. They separate so she can see me better, and I feel my knees wobble when her tired, tear-soaked blue eyes find mine. “Hiya, Tan,” she smiles.
I swallow. “Hiya, Vi.”
“Would you like to meet your niece?” I nod and move closer to the bed, the baby entering my eye line as I approach. My breath is pulled from my body. “Now you can see why she’s not wearing the hat.”
I gaze down at the tiny bundle resting against Vi’s chest and note the huge mass of golden blonde hair sticking straight out all over her head. It’s shiny, bone straight, and thicker than any baby’s hair I’ve ever seen in movies or in real life.
Vi’s hospital gown is split open across her chest and there they lie together. Skin to skin, heart to heart. A soft baby cheek pressing against Vi’s collarbone. A pink blanket covers the baby’s back and Vi’s exposed chest.
“That hair.” I reach out and brush my fingertips along the feathery soft ends.
Vi sniffles. “I know. The nurse said they usually wait to do their first baths, but with everything that happened…” She pauses and looks at Hayden for reassurance. His grey eyes are already locked on her in silent devotion. “They thought I’d like to wake up to her all clean and ready to be loved on.” She drops a soft kiss to the fluff. “They want us to do skin to skin like this for a while since I didn’t get to bond with her when she came out.” Her chin trembles as tears fall freely down her cheeks.
“You’ve got her now,” I reassure her. “And she’s perfect, Vi.”
She laughs with a garbled cry mixed in. “That she is, even if she did scare the shit out of us.”
Everybody chuckles awkwardly except for Hayden. He lowers his head to Vi and kisses her temple, breathing her in for a moment before he repeats the gesture to the baby.
“What’s her name?” I ask, looking between the two of them.
Vi swallows around a smile. “Well, none of our choices suited her. Then Hayden suggested Adrienne from Rocky because she had a bit of a rocky entrance, and well…” Her lips crumple with the onslaught of more tears and my eyes fill right along with hers.
I reach out and grab Vi’s hand, squeezing hard and ignoring the IV and medical bracelets littering her small wrists. Suddenly, my sister who has always been bigger than life to me, seems so small, so young, so tired, yet magically stronger than I’ve ever seen her look.
I move my hand from Vi’s to the baby’s, picking up her tiny clenched fist and testing the weight of it. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Rocky.” I smile and Vi laughs, the sadness in her eyes depleting fractionally.
“Where’s Belle?” she asks, looking around the room like she must be standing in a corner somewhere.
I swallow and divert my attention back to the baby. “She wanted to give you guys some privacy.”
Vi tilts her head. “Privacy? What the bloody hell is that? She was seconds away from delivering the baby herself.”
“I know.” My gaze lifts to hers and I silently will her to leave it be.
Gareth’s voice rescues me from a Vi interrogation. “You never mentioned what her middle name is.”
Vi nods and looks past me to Dad. “It’s Vilma.” A sad smile breaks across her face as she utters our mother’s name aloud. Vi’s given birth name, actually, even though she’s always just been our Vi.
I turn and see Dad’s eyes are red-rimmed as the presence of our mum’s memory grows in the room. He nods stiffly, turning away to hide the pain and regret shimmering deep in his eyes.
Gareth’s voice breaks the heavy silence. “She’d be very proud, Vi.” He clears his throat and pulls himself up tall. “You’re going to make a wonderful mum, just like her.”
Dad and Gareth exchange a look that’s equal parts emotional and tense. What they experienced together—caring for Mum when she was sick at the end—is such an unspoken territory to the rest of us. There’s a pain between them that none of us can ever truly know. Camden places a hand on Gareth’s shoulder, which causes him to blink and a single tear slips down his cheek.
“Gareth’s right,” Dad says, his brow furrowed in determination. “It will be nice to continue her name in the family.”
I hear a shaky intake of air come from Vi as she clutches Adrienne to her chest, eyes closed, tears flowing. Hayden folds over on her, rubbing the baby’s back and pulling Vi’s attention to him. The three of them finding strength in their own little family.
They gaze into each other’s eyes, saying things that none of us could ever understand. Only them.
