Chapter 21: La Primavera

Miranda sighed and jiggled baby Isaac on her hip. Her new son was a cutie, with soft, brown eyes and chubby cheeks and a perfect little bow-shaped mouth but she just didn't have the energy to deal with a fussy infant right now. For the past three weeks the burden of caring for her little baby and running a household with not only her own family members but also an additional two people who needed and depended on her under the roof had fallen heavily upon her. And while Miranda knew she was equal to the challenge, it still didn't stop her from falling into bed every night with limbs heavy with fatigue and a heart heavy with sadness. Her husband did his best to help her but he had to be at work at nine o'clock every morning and he needed a decent night's sleep. There was only so much he could do in the hours he was home and so many times he could hold her close in the dark and whisper that everything would be alright while she unburdened herself sharing her worries and cares.

"She doesn't seem to be getting any better. She's so quiet. Bonny too. I try, Tucker. I try so hard. But nothing I do seems to help at all."

Her husband's gentle replies were reassuring.

"I think you're helping, Miranda. I think just knowing you're there for her, knowing you'll support her, has got to help. But it's going to take time. You have to trust that things will get better in time."

But although she knew he was right, it didn't lift her sorrow or make her feel like she couldn't somehow be helping more. Miranda was used to quick fixes: cut, close, suture. It was hard, so hard to watch Addison and Bonny suffer day after day and hardly see any signs that things were getting better. On any given day, something as small as the hint of a smile in the corner of Bonny's mouth or even so much as a moment of eye contact from Addison might be the only sign that slowly, painfully, Addison and Bonny were beginning to heal.

Addison had started washing her hair again. And Miranda has stopped worrying about leaving her alone in the bathroom. Her stomach no longer lurched at the thought of Addison behind a locked door with a shaving razor. Bonny was sleeping through the night now. The nightmares that had woken her screaming for the first week in the guest room had lessened and lost some of their intensity. And both mother and daughter seemed to have regained as healthy an appetite as could be expected, given the circumstances. That alone was cause for relief. Addison was still almost as thin as she'd been three weeks ago but at least she was eating and her skin was a healthier colour than the sickly white it had been when she'd arrived on Miranda's doorstep in the middle of the night. Still, in spite of these improvements, Addison and Bonny had a long was to go.

Their silence had descended on the house and despite the baby, who could be counted on to make a decent amount of noise, it was still more quiet than Miranda was used to. Her older son seemed to realize instinctively that the television should be kept at a low volume and that he should refrain from running and yelling inside the house if at all possible. She and her husband had begun to speak in muted whispers that mirrored the few verbalizations that Addison and Bonny ever made. Even with each other Miranda wasn't sure they did much talking and the most she'd witnessed pass between them in her presence were a few whispers. They seemed to communicate wordlessly, in a language of touches and glances she was incapable of understanding. All it took was a flicker of eye contact to draw Bonny into Addison's arms where she might spend the entire afternoon wrapped in her mother's silent embrace. It was both touching and heartbreaking to witness. Addison could sit and stroke her daughter's hair and stare into space for hours, silent, unreachable, cloaked in solitude and cut off from the world. In the past three weeks Miranda hadn't seen her smile. In fact, she'd hardly seen her react to anything except her daughter.

Miranda sighed and jiggled baby Isaac on her hip. He was not in the mood to settle down for his nap and she had to have dinner on the table for five people some time in the next couple of hours. Her husband wasn't home from work yet, her son wasn't interested in entertaining his younger brother and Addison had spent the afternoon in suspended animation on the couch in the family room.

Still it couldn't hurt to ask. Miranda was pretty exasperated with her youngest at the moment and recently she'd noticed that Bonny at least seemed to be taking an interest in the baby. While her daughter approached Isaac and whispered a few questions Addison had merely watched sadly from across the room. Miranda had held her son and explained to Bonny that sometimes he cried because he didn't have any other way to express himself but singing Stevie Wonder songs usually seemed to calm him down. Addison had seemed to listen but had also kept her distance. Still, those few moments of attention were more interest than she'd shown in anything else in the past three weeks and with that in mind Miranda hoisted her son in her arms and went in search of the other woman.

She found Addison in the family room. Bonny was sprawled on the floor with some paper and box of crayons, colouring aimlessly and Addison was watching her, perched on the couch in the same position Miranda had seen her in hours previous. She blinked as Miranda approached and gingerly rubbed her temples.

Without asking, Miranda leaned forward and deposited her baby in Addison's arms. For a moment the other woman flinched and shrunk away from the wriggling body pressed against her but after a minute her shoulders relaxed and her arms curved to cradle the child almost automatically. She glanced from Isaac to Miranda with a hint of uncertainty still visible in her sad, blue eyes but Miranda only nodded.

"Just hold him for a while, Addison. Until he falls asleep. You're not going to hurt him. He likes it if you hold him loose enough so he can look around a little and…"

"Stevie Wonder," Addison whispered. "I know."

Miranda smiled. "So you'll be okay?"

Addison nodded hesitantly. "I just… I don't get to hold very many healthy babies."

Miranda thought she caught just the hint of a nervous smile in the corner of Addison's mouth as she spoke and she smiled herself as she left the room. Those few words Addison had spoken to her were more than Miranda had heard out of the other woman's mouth over the last three weeks and as she glanced back into the room she saw Addison gently stroke Isaac's hair and lean down to whisper something into his tiny ear. Maybe it would be easier for her to connect with another human being who wasn't capable of answering her back. Miranda felt like she'd tried just about everything else to draw Addison out of her silence. Spending a few hours holding a happy, health baby certainly couldn't hurt.

Bonny put down her crayons and watched her mother holding Tyler's baby brother instead. The baby stretched out his fat little hand and tried to catch hold of her mother's shiny red hair. Her mother let him tug on a handful and stuff it into his mouth and when he wrinkled his nose and tried to spit it out her mother's nose wrinkled too and the corner of her mouth quirked up into a slight smile. Bonny hadn't seen her mother smile in so long. And when the baby put all of his own fat fingers into his mouth and grinned her mother's smile got wider and she got those crinkles in the corners of her eyes that happened when she laughed. People always thought it was cute when babies did things like that.

Bonny liked baby Isaac. And she did think he was cute. But watching her mother hold him and smile at him and laugh at him made her wish he would go chew on his own mom's hair. Then her mother looked up at her and even though her eyes turned sad for a minute, the smile was still on her lips and Bonny forgot about everything else. Because she hadn't seen her mother smile in so long and it had been even longer sing her mother had smiled at her.

Her mother tilted her head and Bonny went over and sat on the couch beside her and put her head on her shoulder and watched her rub the baby's stomach until he started to fall asleep. He yawned a funny, little baby yawn and Bonny and her mother both chucked very quietly. Then her mother stroked Isaac's hair, looked up at Bonny and said,

"I can teach you to hold him, if you want. Come here."

Bonny scooted closer and her mother put the warm, heavy baby into her arms.

"His neck isn't very strong yet so you have to support his head."

"Like that?"

"Yeah. That's good."

Bonny concentrated on supporting the baby's head and her mother say beside her and put her arm around her and stroked her hair. The were quiet for a very long time. Isaac fell asleep in Bonny's arms and she gave him back to her mother.

"He's so little."

"He looks little, but he's actually pretty big for his age." Her mother held Isaac close and rocked him gently. She looked happier than Bonny had seen her in a long time.

Bonny rested her chin on her mother's shoulder and whispered,

"Mommy, are you ever going to have another baby?"

Her mother sighed.

"I don't think so." Her eyes were sad again. "Babies need a lot of love, Bonny."

"Yeah."

"And it's really hard to be a mommy all by yourself. It's scary."

Bonny wondered why her mother suddenly had tears in her eyes.

"I could help you with the baby."

Her mother smiled a little and a tear rolled down her cheek.

"But I'm supposed to be the one who looks after you."

"It's okay."

"It's not okay."

Bonny leaned forward and put her arms around her mother's neck and laid her head on her mother's shoulder. She felt her mother's tears splashing the top her head.

"You're the best mommy in the world. And I don't want you to have another baby, anyway."

"I don't want another baby either," her mother's voice floated softly through her hair and whispered against her ear. "You're my baby, Bonny. I don't want anyone else to love but you."

Addison sighed and buried her face in her daughter's hair. She inhaled that smell until everything else disappeared. The weight of the baby in her arms, her own tired, aching body, the pain that still lingered in her heart, none of it mattered. All the mattered was Bonny's arms around her neck, Bonny's hair against her cheek, Bonny's breath against her shoulder and Bonny's heartbeat pressed into her side.

If she could just hold on to that…

If she could just let go of everything else…

If she could just hold on to Bonny…

If she never let her go…

Somehow every thing would be alright.

Somehow…

She would be alright.

THE END.

A/N: Finally.

Please review because I have put a lot of work into this fic for the past year almost.