Page 39 of Save You

Casey

“Xander?” I call out tentatively as the shadow of my former brother enters the house with a small baby sleeping inside of his arms. My uncle is coming up behind him with bags and coats, but no Beth. I know something is wrong but have yet to get any of the details. All I know is Stephen called my parents a couple of days ago to say they were coming home, and to expect Xander to be ‘out of it’. Looking at him now, ‘out of it’ doesn’t do what he appears to be the justice it deserves. I don’t even attempt to say anything further as I watch him walk past me with no eye contact, no voice, and no…anything.

His tall figure retreats up the stairs and then, with the bang of a door, he’s gone. Meanwhile, Mom comes rushing in from the kitchen looking flustered and ready to kill for answers. Dad soon follows behind, with a look of deep concern directed at my uncle, who looks pretty ‘out of it’ himself. Stephen manages to get to the hallway before dropping everything in a small heap, only to then rush to my mom, his big sister, to hold her and release sobs onto her shoulder. The last time I saw an adult like this was when he lost his wife, when Xander and I were only eight years old.

I feel like that little kid now; lost and confused in fear because one of the adults is crying and that can only mean something awful has happened.

“Hey, Stephen, what on earth is going on?” My mom asks as she returns his hugs, for she obviously has no idea why she’s needing to give him so much comfort. “Where is my son?”

Stephen eventually pulls away and wipes his eyes with the backs of his hands, trying to regain some sort of normal composure, but is still struggling with grief.

“He went upstairs,” I answer for him, sounding confused as I gesture towards the stairway, “he had a baby with him?”

All eyes turn immediately to my uncle who nods, but still refuses to look any one of us in the eye. Instead, he sighs and heads into the living room. We dutifully follow like lost sheep, desperate to know what’s going on.

“The baby is Xander and Beth’s child, a little girl,” he half-smiles, “Rosalie, after Beth’s grandmother. She’s about four days old, and, as far as I know, is absolutely fine.”

“What?!” Dad looks half-shocked, half-horrified. “Xander’s a father?”

“Wait, where’s Beth?” My question brings fresh tears to my uncle’s eyes, which tells me everything. “No!” I gasp, throwing my hands over my mouth while feeling the sting of tears building up at the bottom of my eyes.

“She’s…gone,” he murmurs. Mom grips hold of Dad’s hand, then leans forward for more of an explanation. “She hemorrhaged, and they couldn’t save her. She died.”

He looks away and covers his eyes with one of his huge hands before emitting another loud, uncontrollable whimper. This must conjure up a whole host of awful memories for Stephen, not to mention he must have been the first to witness Xander’s heartbreak after he found out.

“We…” he begins but pauses to take in a deep breath before releasing it again. “We would have been here sooner, but I couldn’t get him to leave the cabin. He wouldn’t even let me clear up the blood we found,” he cries, with his voice sounding pitched and trembly, “he said it was hers, it was Beth, and he didn’t want anyone touching it.”

“Oh, my poor boy!” Mom wails and even Dad is crying as he cradles her in comfort. “I have to go to him-”

“Please, Mom, let me?” I ask her with beseeching eyes because Xander and I have always been close, even if we did rub each other up the wrong way sometimes. We have a twin connection, and right now, I know what he needs. Mom falters in her response but when I take a step toward her, my eyes still begging for her to let me go to him, she reluctantly nods.

Before she can change her mind, I make a dash for him, climbing the stairs two at a time, all the while ignoring the pain of my fractured rib. When I reach his door, I take in a few deep breaths to try and steady my nerves. After all, I need to comfort him, not the other way round.

As soon as I feel able to, I push the door open to find the baby lying asleep on his bed, and Xander slumped on the floor, leaning up against the wall. His eyes are staring dead ahead and his whole body looks like he’s given up. In fact, he looks like an empty shell of his former self.

At first, I say nothing, because this is what Xander needs - quiet. Instead, I walk slowly over to him and slide down the same wall, so we are almost touching. We sit together like matching bookends for a long time, not really acknowledging one another, but him knowing that I’m here for him, if, and when, he needs me. After a few moments, I risk reaching out for his hand and interlink my fingers between his before resting them both on his thigh. He lets me but still says nothing, leaving me to wonder if he can even feel me. I give it a squeeze and as if pressing a magic button, it instantly has him bursting into fits of gut-wrenching tears, curling into the fetal position with his head resting upon my lap. I silently cry with him, stroking his hair softly while he lets it all out.

After what feels like such a long time, his breathing returns to a steady rhythm, deep and slow, telling me he’s finally lost the battle and gone to sleep. I bet he hasn’t slept since it all happened and must be completely exhausted. Whether he likes it or not, he clearly needs to have this.

Trying not to wake him, I reach out for a beanbag in the corner of his room to try and lift his head onto it. I needn’t have worried about waking him because he’s so tired, he doesn’t even stir when I shift him rather ungraciously from my lap and onto the cushion.

Just as I stand, my mom slowly opens the door to see that her son is safely sleeping. Her face is still red and puffy from crying, so I go and give her a quick hug before letting her check on Xander. She gently places her hand onto his shoulder and kisses his temple before getting a cover to pull on top of him. The baby has begun to stir, and her little hands begin to flap uncontrollably in the air, flying to her face and scratching her newborn skin with her nails which are like little talons. I gather her into my arms rather awkwardly, for I have absolutely zero experience with babies, then take her over to Mom to point out the damage she’s already done to her face. Mom smiles softly as if lost in memory over us being this small, then wanders off, only to come back in again with a few bandages to wrap around her tiny hands of mass destruction.

All the while Mom sorts out her hands, I can’t help staring at her. She’s so tiny and perfect. Eventually, Mom joins me in my hypnotized trance, looking at this mini version of Xander and Beth and smiling in wonder at her. Our gawping is short-lived when she opens her little mouth and begins to cry, literally screaming at the top of her lungs, causing my brother to shuffle and moan from his fetal position on the floor. Mom quickly pushes us out, taking the noise away before Rosalie manages to wake her father up while she works herself up into a frenzy.

As soon as we’re out of danger of waking Xander, I shove my baby niece toward Mom. If I was awkward before about a sleeping baby, I’m even more out of my depth with a screaming one. Mom laughs at me, shaking her head over my ineptitude to care for a tiny person. She takes her from me with the skill of someone who has raised babies herself. I follow behind, suddenly in awe of my mother’s ability to calm Rosalie down with only a little rocking and shushing within her arms.

Downstairs, my uncle, and father are discussing everything that happened, including who Oliver Lawrence is, and Mayfield. He explains that Beth’s body was taken before Xander even had a chance to see her again, which only hurt my heart, for not being able to say goodbye must be playing heavily on Xander’s mind. I then thank whoever might be looking over us for not letting Lawrence take my baby niece away too. I don’t think my brother would be here today if he had.

Beth

My first steps back inside of my prison, Oliver’s house, echoes under my feet, and I shudder over the new life set out before me. My whole world that existed before this moment is now gone. I instructed Oliver to tell my family I was no longer here, that I had been buried in a secret ‘Mayfield’ location before they returned to the States. He was more than happy to oblige, spinning off an email almost immediately as if it was a routine job to do on any other day of the week.

While I had watched him typing, I wondered if Xander might hold some sort of memorial for me or if he’ll be too broken and overwhelmed to do anything. I inwardly began to panic over how he’ll be able to cope with grief and a newborn baby at the same time. I prayed for him to quickly pull through whatever hurt he’s feeling because Rosalie needs him, now more than ever. She deserves for him to be the best father that he can be.

Back at the hospital, the doctor had to give me a sedative as I wandered in and out of panic attacks, hysteria, and deep misery. Given that I was almost out of it, and therefore less of a flight risk, the doctor managed to convince Oliver to let me stay in the hospital for a few more days. Leo told me he had been extremely irritated by having to stay but seeing as my daughter had been taken away from me, and Xander only knew that I was dead and gone, he had reluctantly agreed.

It’s now been a week since I had Rosalie and my breasts are beginning to feel full and painfully hard. The nurse had warned me that this would happen, explaining that this meant my milk was coming in. She had looked sympathetically at me when she advised me to stand in the shower and use my hands to squeeze the ‘unwanted’ milk away. None of this was her fault, but I could have slapped her when she said those words to me. My milk is desperately wanted by a little girl who has been ripped away from her mother, and right now, I cannot see anything rationally.

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