I ducked behind a ridiculous swan shaped topiary and tried my best to blend in with the greenery. It might be hard in my current attire. I cursed my mother again for making me wear this stupid yellow dress. I looked like a stuffed canary. Of course that should have made me fit right in with the old birds currently squawking away inside the house. I didn't want to see their condescending looks or hear their barely veiled snide remarks anymore this afternoon. It was bad enough having to listen to my mother weeping every night over my 'condition'.
Mom was throwing a garden party, but as was the norm in our quaint little coastal town, the weather had forced the caterers to set up indoors. The french doors leading out onto the terrace were thrown open to allow the rain scented summer air to circulate through the house, but most of the ladies my mother invited to these stupid social events were allergic to water. They wouldn't step foot out into the rain dampened backyard.
When I didn't immediately hear my mother's voice raised in shrill reprimand, I slipped further back into the garden and made it to the little cottage hidden behind a trellis full of overgrown cabbage roses. I slipped into my haven with a sigh of relief, safe from gossiping socialites.
I didn't know how long ago someone lived in the little cottage in the garden. It was only two rooms, one obviously a sitting room and the other a bedroom. The furniture had still been here, covered with dusty sheets, when we'd moved in three years ago. The building itself had been drafty and there had been a hole in one of the bedroom walls, making it a nesting place for all sorts of animals. It hadn't taken alot of talking to get my mother to let me claim the little place.
I had spent most of my free time that first year cleaning and repairing the building. My mother complained that young ladies shouldn't watch so much This Old House, but since I pretended to be a girly girl most of the time she indulged my renovation hobby. I wanted to make an addition for a bathroom, but I was still studying up on framing and plumbing. When I wasn't rereading the journal, anyway.
When I had started moving things around, I had been surprised to find a leather bound journal tucked into the cushions of the dusty sofa. The pages had been yellow with age, but the writing had been neat and precise and absolutely fascinating. Rosalie Hale had been quite a character. She rarely said anything profound, but occasionally I was floored by her tortured insight. I gathered from the writing that she had been the victim of a horrible crime at the hands of her own fiancé and that she had been saved by someone named Carlisle. Sometimes she praised this Carlisle but more often she cursed him for bringing her into his world. She never said specifically what kind of world that was, but I gathered it wasn't for the faint of heart.
I settled into the overstuffed chair looking out on the garden, sprawling awkwardly as I was ought to do these days. Being pregnant made everything awkward, from the simple act of sitting down to bending to tie my own shoes. I had learned the value of a good pair of slippers. Not that I could wear them on a day like today, when the social elite came to call. It was days like today that I almost regretted not giving in to my mother's pleas to disappear for my final two trimesters and come back home empty handed. Almost.
'The thing I could hate Carlisle for, the one thing I would trade anything in this life or the one before it for, is a child. To be frozen in this eternal state, to never know the joys of motherhood, to always yearn for the unattainable. That is my curse, my burden, my sadness. Esme understands, a little, but she has resigned herself to it, thinking of us as her children. In that, I cannot fault her and hope that it gives her some little comfort.'
I had this passage in Rosalie's journal bookmarked and I read it every day. Sometimes twice. I wasn't ready to be a mother. I knew that. I wanted to go to college and become an architect, or at the very least an interior designer. But somehow Rosalie's tortured yearning made me consider the possibilities. What if this was my only chance to have a child? After Preston's reaction to the news that I was pregnant, I was wary to even consider dating again, much less sex. I knew it was melodramatic to decide after one bad experience that I would never have meaningful relationship again, but I was pregnant. The hormones did weird things to my brain.
Or worse, what if I was in a horrible accident, like Rosalie undoubtably was, and I was too damaged to carry a child? Granted back in 1930-something when this was written, they didn't have the kinds of medical advances they did now, but the 'what ifs' still tortured me. And so, I was willing to suffer the humiliation of becoming a single mother to have what poor Rosalie had been denied. A child of my own. I couldn't help but hope it was a girl so I could name her Rosalie.
****
"Miss Dwyer, you were in an accident. Can you hear me?"
The sound was like angels singing, and yet I was in so much pain I was sure this couldn't be heaven. I searched my memory for a reason for my suffering and vaguely remembered hitting a patch of ice on the way home from my doctor's appointment.
"I'm having a boy." I heard the words, but I didn't recognize my own voice. It was hoarse and my throat was on fire. I tried to open my eyes and managed, barely. Yup, there was the angel standing right over me. For some reason, my angel looked tired. He had deep shadows under his eyes.
"Miss Dwyer, I'm Dr. Cullen. We're going to do everything in our power to save you and your baby. You've been in an accident and we have to take you to surgery right away. I need to know your wishes, Miss Dwyer, if things go badly..." The angel that claimed to be a doctor trailed off, looking very sad for a moment. It took only a moment to realize what he meant.
"My baby. Save my baby." I managed to gasp this out, before the world tilted crazily and everything turned black.
****
"Well, Miss Dwyer, I'm pleased to see you up and about this morning." I turned slowly, grasping my IV pole like the lifeline it was. My pain meds were hanging there and I was going to need them soon.
"Hello, Dr. Cullen." I managed a smile for him, despite the painful pulling of stitches in my face. I felt like a jigsaw puzzle and I knew I had this man to thank for the fact that I didn't look like a Picasso painting. My parents sang the praises of the plastic surgeon that had seen to me afterwards, but the surgeon had mentioned that Dr. Cullen had made his job effortless.
"How is the little one?" I felt my smile spread a little further and worried that I might split my stitches. My beautiful four pound baby boy, Phillip Rosen Dwyer, was the only thing that had kept me sane the past three weeks of recovery. He was still in the neonatal intensive care unit, but he seemed to be improving quicker than I was.
"Oh, Phillip is doing so much better. I actually got to hold him this morning. Thank you so much, Dr. Cullen, for taking care of him. And me." I knew by talking with my nurses and Phillip's that I also had Dr. Cullen to thank for saving both myself and the baby. They swore he was a miracle worker. I was inclined to believe them since I'd snuck a peek at my medical chart. I wasn't exactly up on my medical terminology, but I knew enough to know I had been incredibly messed up when I'd been brought into the emergency room.
"My pleasure, Miss Dwyer. Its what I live to do. Tell Phillip I said hello, would you?" Dr. Cullen gave me a smile that quite literally dazzled me. I blinked out of a daze and nodded before he slipped away down the hall. I turned again and made my way down the hall to the NICU. One of the kind nurses came to help me scrub my hands and led me to a soft chair already set up beside Phillip's bassinet. I was surprised to see that someone had left a new toy in the plastic bin above his bed. I pulled down the plush white baseball and stared at it in confusion.
"Oh, Dr. Cullen left that. Said his daughter Alice insisted he have that. There's a new blanket and a couple of outfits in the drawer, too. He's so sweet, isn't he? Too bad his wife's such a knockout or I'd be chasing him through the halls." Phillip's day nurse laughed softly and I couldn't help but nod in agreement, stunned. Dr. Cullen had obviously talked about my Phillip to his family. For some reason, that touched me deeply. I pulled open the metal drawer and pulled out the card that lay on top of the new clothes. It was signed by several members of his family. Carlisle, Esme, Alice and...Rosalie.
"Liddy, are you okay?" My nurse's voice broke me out of my shock and I lifted tear filled eyes and nodded. And honestly, how could I not be? I knew there was no possibility that these were the same people Rosalie Hale had mentioned in her journal. Dr. Cullen couldn't be anymore than thirty years old and Rosalie was likely dead now, if not a very old lady. But these weren't common names. Rosalie, maybe, but Carlisle and Esme were not. This had to be more than just coincidence. This was like a great flashing neon sign from heaven telling me that keeping my baby had been the right thing to do.
I leaned over the bed and tucked the soft ball next to my son and watched his tiny hand reach out to grip it. I smiled.
