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Five days. It had been five days since the accident. It seemed ridiculous to remember this, as it seemed time lacked any kind of meaning. Even still, as time passed, they moved toward some sort of betterment in Mila’s condition. Time forward meant time away from the worst of it all. It meant time to heal.
It was the afternoon, a Wednesday. Jennifer hurriedly typed a memo for her social media firm assistant, a chirpy blonde named Samantha, and rushed from the second floor of the downtown office building, headed for her car. As Oliver remained out of town till Saturday morning, Jennifer had pledged herself as Amelia’s right-hand partner for all things baby. Amelia happened to have an appointment in no less than twenty minutes, which made Jennifer about six minutes late.
Amelia hovered in the foyer of the downtown government office building, all bundled up in a bulbous winter coat and a dark green scarf. Jennifer swept toward the curb nearest the door as Amelia popped out and delivered a sterling grin. Ordinarily, Amelia might have said something cutting, like, “I thought you weren’t going to make it.” But as she slid into Jennifer’s front passenger seat, she greeted her brightly. “Thank you so much for doing this. It means to world to me.”
“Ugh, you don’t have to do that. I know I was late.”
Amelia waved her hand through the air flippantly. “Come on, Jen. All I can do this week is feel grateful for Mila’s successful surgery and my overall healthy baby. At forty-one! What more could I possibly want?”
“Maybe your best friend to arrive when she said she would?” Jennifer teased as she moved the car back out onto the road.
“Life’s about compromise,” Amelia teased right back. “I take you as you are— lateness and all.”
The gynecologist’s office needed an update. It seemed almost exactly the same as it had back when Jennifer had been pregnant with Nick, around the time of her graduation from high school in 1998. The paintings that hung crooked on every wall echoed a very different modern art aesthetic, something incredibly retro and incredibly ugly (in Jennifer’s modest opinion), and even the music that spat out of the speakers very, very quietly was soft rock from the late seventies.
“It’s good to know that not everything changes so much,” she whispered to Amelia, who giggled in return.
“I know. It feels peaceful to hear Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young— a band my dad loved so much, while I sit here in fear about having my first baby,” Amelia returned softly. “Makes me feel like maybe my baby will still be able to see some of the world I grew to love, too. Maybe the old isn’t so lost, even with non-stop changes.”
Amelia was called a few minutes later. “See? We’re right on time,” Amelia said as they headed for the doctor’s office. “We would have waited on those sticky chairs for another ten minutes if you’d been on time.”
Jennifer blushed. “I guess there’s a method to my madness.”
Once inside the office itself, Amelia slung herself back on the chair with two stirrups. Just as she had with Nick, Jennifer held her breath as the technician squelched clear gel across Amelia’s lower belly. In a moment, Amelia’s baby appeared on the monitor— a prominent head and a curved spine with little legs and arms. Jennifer still couldn’t breathe. She imagined Nick seeing this view of his little one incredibly soon— imagined the wide-open, scary feeling he would encounter when he first witnessed his baby’s birth. It was one thing to experience life events; it was another to watch your baby experience it himself.
“Everything looks great,” the technician explained to Amelia. “The heartbeat is normal and healthy. You’re about seven months, which means I’m sure that you have a birth plan set up.”
Jennifer snorted. Amelia cast her a rueful glance.
“What? Did I miss something?” the technician asked.
“It’s just that my friends think I have a planning problem,” Amelia informed her.
“Never a bad thing when it comes to having a baby,” the technician explained. “However, I have to assure you. Your due date is just an approximation. Your baby will come when your baby wants to come.”
“Oh no,” Amelia said, mocking herself with bulged eyes. “Jennifer... How will I make a spreadsheet for a baby who doesn’t know what she or he wants?”
Jennifer laughed outright. “And this is only the beginning. Imagine, Amelia, if your baby happens to be... Type B?”
Amelia gasped as the technician burst into laughter of her own.
“All right, all right. Let’s get back to business,” she stated, grinning ear-to-ear.
**
BACK IN JENNIFER’S car, they received a message from the Sister Group Chat.
CAMILLA: Come by the house? Andrea’s having a last-minute bride-meltdown and I have to say, I need backup.
“We can swing over and then head up to the hospital?” Jennifer glanced toward Amelia to confirm.
“Of course. It sounded like Mila had another few visitors today. Her sisters stopped by to ruin her life, followed by her mother.”
“Oh great,” Jennifer returned sarcastically. “We’ll go save her soon.”
When they reached Camilla’s, they sat in rapt attention as Andrea, Charlotte, and Camilla confirmed the last elements of the weekend’s wedding. When Andrea went into an emotional tizzy— a sort of, “Oh gosh, it’s all going to be a disaster, isn’t it? Why did I think I wanted such a big wedding?” Camilla also found herself faltering. This left Amelia and Jennifer to pick up the pieces, while ultimately, Charlotte made the final decision. It was kind of a failed assembly line of emotional baggage.
An hour after their arrival, Andrea swooned and cast herself across the couch. Camilla rushed to her side, her cheeks blotchy, and demanded when she had last eaten. This left Jennifer and Amelia in the kitchen, chopping up vegetables for a low-carb, high-nutrient salad, the only sort of thing Andrea would put in her mouth before the big day. Amelia snuck a carrot between her teeth and said, “If me and Oliver ever get married, I think we’ll just go to city hall. I’ve felt all this residual stress from both Nick and Andrea’s wedding, and I’ve had enough.”
“Things have really changed since we did our little weddings back in the day,” Jennifer agreed. “Stacy wanted the kind of wedding you find in Home and Garden, and Andrea has a very particular eye.”
“Well, she does go to fashion school in the city,” Amelia countered. “I guess she’s allowed.”
“I, for one, can’t wait for Christmas.” This was Camilla, who stepped into the kitchen, pulled open the fridge, and drew out a bottle of Chardonnay. She filled her wine glass and sipped nearly half of it before she offered the wine to Jennifer, Charlotte, and Andrea.
“No offense, Jen, but I shouldn’t have to offer. You know how to open my fridge,” she teased.
Jonathon breezed in and out after that, grabbing a slice of red pepper along the way. His work remained hyper-focused on Oliver’s development project on the northern edge of the island, where he worked as the head of construction. He kissed both Andrea and Camilla on the cheek, then muttered to Jennifer, “I told Andrea I would pay her to elope, but she wouldn’t go for it.”
Jennifer giggled. “Oh, you. You’re a big sap. You’re going to love walking her down the aisle.”
Jonathon dipped his head from left to right. “I know, I know. I’ll be the blubbering one on the dance floor.”
When they finally sat Andrea down with a huge salad and a small slice of buttered bread, Jennifer and Amelia headed back to Jen’s car to meet Olivia up at the hospital. Camilla reported she’d be there later, as she had an all-night nursing shift anyway.
“Just when I think we’re done with all the minutia of this wedding, another thing crops up,” she grumbled as Jennifer and Amelia donned their coats. “It better be the best day of all of our lives.”
Mila did have a visitor up at the hospital: the woman in her sixties who worked at the esthetician salon and seemed to have incredibly inventive and chic outfits, the likes of which had made the other sisters gush “I hope to be like that when I’m sixty-four.”
From outside Mila’s room, it appeared that Hannah and Mila were in the midst of an intense conversation. Hannah furrowed her brow as she spread her fingers wide to articulate something. The light flashed across her vintage rings beautifully.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Amelia breathed.
“No idea.” Jennifer reached up and clacked her knuckles across the wood.
From within, there came a small cry. “Come in!”
As the door swung open, Hannah erupted from her chair and began to gather her things.
“You don’t have to rush out,” Jennifer said brightly.
“There’s plenty of space. We just came to pester our girl,” Amelia returned.
Hannah seemed flustered. “Oh, don’t mind me. I just stopped by on my way home from the salon to update Mila on what’s what.”
“So helpful, Hannah. Thank you,” Mila said.
“You’re looking brighter today.” Jennifer beamed as she eased herself directly onto the chair Hannah had vacated.
“Hannah brought me some of her skin creams. She’s trying to help me age backward.”
“As if you’d need my help with that,” Hannah said from the door. “Good evening, Miss Mila. I’ll see you soon. And I’ll bring those chocolates I told you about. I have a hunch you’ll love them.”
Once the door clipped shut behind Hannah, the air shifted toward something Jennifer understood— a world of just the girls she loved the most. Very soon, Olivia would arrive, and after that, Camilla would check-in before her shift. Day-by-day, they pushed forward through territory they couldn’t fully understand.
“Hannah’s been such a dear,” Mila said as she adjusted herself on her pillow. “I never knew much about her, but she has fascinating stories. It’s just one after the other with her. It’s like watching a TV show better than anything on TV right now.”
“And you didn’t have any idea about her past?” Jennifer asked.
“No. And I wonder why she offers it up now? She’s always seemed so timid and far away. I learned she doesn’t have much family.”
“Maybe she thinks of you as more of her family since you work together every day,” Amelia offered. “When I was single and working with the same people all the time, I think I thought of them differently than they thought of me. They had husbands and wives and children to get back to. I had you girls, but besides that, they were my work family.”
“I’m sure you’re right.” Mila tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, then continued. “In any case, with all the strain between my mother and me, it’s kind of nice to have a friend in an older woman like Hannah. Especially one who seems so...” She trailed off as she considered the words. “I don’t know. I’ll probably end up a whole lot like her, to be honest with you.”
“Don’t you dare say that,” Jennifer blared. “You know we’ll move in with you the minute you try to take up some kind of loner mentality.”
“That’s right. You’ll have to help me raise this baby,” Amelia teased.
Mila rolled her eyes back. She paused for a long moment before she added, “I can really feel Liam pulling away. For all my upbeat attitude, for all my gratefulness, I can’t help but think about my weird year of dating and how I thought all that was over for me. I thought I’d really found someone— someone stable. And now...”
Jennifer drew a hand over Mila’s. “I’m sure he’s scared. He doesn’t know how to do any of this.”
Mila’s lips curved into a soft smile. “Yeah, but neither do any of you. Not really. But you’re showing up for me, every day, despite everything.” She paused as tears welled in her eyes. “Thank you for that, really. I don’t even know how to express how much it means to me.”