Chapter 45
Chelsea spotted them as soon as she bolted out of the car. They sat in the open bay of an ambulance, Grace holding Annabelle in her lap while the paramedics checked her out.
“There she is.” Chelsea grabbed Leo’s arm as her eyes misted over.
Their baby.
“Hey, Annie-bananee,” Leo called when they were a few yards away, and just like that Annie turned her head toward his voice. Her blue eyes took them in. She really saw them. She recognized them.
And she smiled.
Chelsea pressed her lips together to keep from crying as she approached slowly, not wanting to scare Annie after a few days away, days of possible trauma.
But Leo—earnest, gregarious Leo launched into a joke and messed up her hair and held her in the air with a rant that made Annie laugh. He chattered on, telling Annie the whole story as he took Grace’s place on the back of the ambulance. He snuggled her against him, face out, as she always insisted.
“Yeah, I remember,” he said. “You always need to see the world. I know that about you, Annabee.”
Chelsea sat beside them, drinking in the details of her daughter’s features.
A mother’s inventory.
Her steely eyes were bright and alert. Her downy hair swirled over her pale, delicate skull. Chelsea took in her rosebud lips, her shiny nose, and those irresistible double chins that reminded Chelsea of an old grandfather.
She lifted Annabelle’s hand to kiss it, and noticed the perfection of her tiny fingernails, the delicate curve of her fingers, the whorls of her fingertips and lines of her palm that made Annabelle unlike anyone else on the planet.
It was as if she were seeing Annabelle for the first time. She had been cheated out of a glorious first look when Annie had been born. The hours of surgery and the weeks of recovery had removed her from her newborn daughter.
But not anymore. She could see Annie clearly, and she was coming to this as a whole person now. Time and medication and sleep had accelerated her healing, and she was hopeful that therapy would help her deal with it for the long haul. The dark side was still there, lingering at the edges, but it was a different world when you could keep depression on the other side of the fence.
She turned Annie’s hand around and planted a kiss in her palm. “Hold on to that,” she said quietly, and she and Leo both smiled when Annie squeezed her hand into a fist.
Chelsea let her head rest on his shoulder as her hand outlined Annabelle’s chubby shoulder. She would relearn every inch of her daughter with a thousand baths and diaper changes. It would no longer be baby jail, because she knew the way out. She would have her occasional nights out and even her work again. This time she would get help and figure out how to maintain some balance.
“How does our little girl check out, Doc?” Leo asked the paramedic who had given them some space.
“I’m not a doctor, but her heart and lungs sound good. You might want to bring her in to get checked out by her regular pediatrician, but this little girl doesn’t need to go to the hospital.”
“Good,” Leo said. “Because we want to take you home.” He stood up. “Let me just tell the detectives that we’re going.”
As he handed Annabelle over, Chelsea’s breath caught in her throat at the wonder of it all. Her arms knew how to wrap her baby securely; her lips traced the smooth shell of Annie’s ear. “Are you a miracle in my arms?” she whispered to her sweet-smelling baby.
Annie did not respond, but Chelsea knew the answer. She had known all along.