TWO
Felice had
plenty of friends. One of her dearest friends, Rita Thornton, had two children,
so Felice sought her out for advice about what to expect during childbirth,
newborns and the things she may need to know.
For the next
six months, she kept herself busy with her volunteering work and shopping with
Rita. She bought maternity clothes and anything Rita suggested the baby would
need for the first six months: car seat, diapers, cream for rashes, bottles,
toys and clothes. The list seemed endless. She didn’t want to know if it was a
boy or girl, so they chose the clothing neutrally. Rita also helped her
decorate the baby’s room with the necessary furniture: baby changing station,
rocking chair and a crib. She knew there would be things she would need to get
once the baby was born, but for now she was as ready as she was going to be.
Not once in
those six months did Pavel try to call her, nor did she call him. She knew it
was over. The knowledge didn’t make it hurt any less. Even after all of this
time, Felice cried herself to sleep every night. She remembered all the times
they shared together; the time he flew her to Paris for dinner, the many times he brought
her flowers, and the love and laughter they enjoyed. She couldn’t believe he
was no longer a part of her life and that he would never know their baby. Their baby would never know his or her father.
It was that thought that made her heart ache even more, if that was even
possible.
She moved
from her one bedroom house into a two bedroom, knowing she would need the room.
Even though she missed Pavel terribly, she settled in to her new life.
She was with
Rita more and more as the time grew nearer. She always considered Rita her
dearest friend, but since becoming pregnant and sharing more with her, Felice
now labeled Rita her best friend. Rita was there for her when she needed her
and Felice could not have been more thankful. They began sharing everything,
including very personal anecdotes and information. Rita told her the story of
her first kiss with Darryl and Felice told her of the first night she and Pavel
made love.
Rita
provided a comfort to her, as she knew what Felice was going through. The only
difference being, Rita was married to a wonderful man who didn’t desert her
when he found out she was having his child.
The night
her baby came was one she would never forget. Her water broke just like Rita
warned her it would. She remembered her words.
“Usually,
for your first, things may happen slow in the beginning then speed up. Everyone
is different though. When your water breaks, you’ll know it and you should get
right to the hospital. Then things will really start moving.”
Felice
immediately called Rita at home. There was no answer. She tried Rita on her
cellular phone, but didn’t get an answer there either. Not knowing what else to
do, she called a cab company, who told her it would be about forty minutes
before they could pick her up. When she said she didn’t have another way to the
hospital and was having a baby, they promised to dispatch a cab in under
fifteen minutes. She then called the hospital as she was instructed to do and
warned them of her impending arrival.
As promised,
the cab was at her door ten minutes later. Grabbing her bag she pre-packed, her
house keys and a jacket, she moved as fast as she could in her condition out to
the car.
The cab
driver was told she was in labor and drove as fast as he could. He didn’t say a
word to her the entire way. Even if he did, she doubted she would have heard
him through her groans of pain.
Once in the
delivery room, she begged the nurses to get in touch with Rita. Throughout the
remainder of the night and even through her contractions, she kept asking if
they reached her. They were unable to.
The next
morning at four forty five a.m., she gave birth to a beautiful seven and a half
pound baby girl. Since she didn’t want to know if she was having a boy or a
girl, she didn’t yet have a name picked out for the baby. It should have been
something she and Pavel did together.
Felice held
her baby in her arms and was unable to stop crying as the beauty of her child
overwhelmed her in ways her heart never understood before. She couldn’t believe
she held such precious life in her hands. She cried harder when she realized
what Pavel was missing and that her daughter could not look up and see the
adoring eyes of a father.
Later that
day, the nurse came in and told her they finally reached Rita’s husband, Darryl.
“He said he
would come by in a while,” nurse Hickman told her.
“What? Is
Rita coming with him?”
“He didn’t
say. Now rest. I’ll be bringing your daughter by soon for a feeding.”
Felice felt
as if she just dozed off when nurse Hickman came in with her daughter. Felice
sat up in bed and smiled. She couldn’t get over how beautiful her daughter was.
“Here’s mommy,”
the nurse cooed to her daughter.
“Hey,
sweetheart,” she cooed. “Are you hungry?”
She
carefully took her daughter from the nurse and held her to her breast. Even
though she didn’t have a clue as to what to do, it seemed like the most natural
thing. Her maternal instincts made up for the lack of knowledge and experience.
“Have you
picked out a name for her yet?” the nurse asked.
“No, I can’t
seem to make up my mind. I love the name Grace. It seems so eloquent and
charming. She is a beautiful girl and that is one of the definitions of the
name. Maybe it will be Grace, I’m not sure yet.”
“Well,
there’s no big rush, but you will need a name to put on her birth certificate.”
“I promise I
will have a name for her before we leave.”
“You get to
go home tomorrow with her. Since both you and the baby are healthy, there’s no
reason for you to stick around here.”
The nurse
started to leave, then turned back and said, “Oh, I almost forgot. A man came
by earlier asking about you and the baby.”
“Really? Who
was it?”
“I didn’t
get his name. As a matter of fact, he didn’t offer one. He just asked if you
and the baby were okay and if you had a girl or a boy. When I said a girl and
that, yes, you and the baby were doing just fine, he said, ‘thank you’ and
left.”
“Huh. I
wonder who…did he have an accent?”
“Yes, a rather
sexy one I might add.” The nurse smiled and continued, “I’ll be back shortly.”
Could it be Pavel? Do I dare to hope he
changed his mind? She thought to herself. Why would he leave without even seeing his daughter? Surely, he must at
least be curious if nothing else.
All other
thoughts of Pavel disappeared when Darryl walked in the door. He was unshaven,
his clothes were rumpled and he looked like he had been crying.
“Darryl!”
“Hey,
Felice.”
“Where’s
Rita?”
Darryl just
looked at her and didn’t say a word. He walked away from the bed and stood in
front of the window.
“Felice…” he
choked on his words.
“Darryl,
you’re scaring me.”
“Rita…she’s…she’s
gone.”
Darryl
quietly started to cry. Because his back was to her, Felice could see his
shoulders shake with each sob.
“What? What
do you mean, gone?”
“There was
an accident last night, Felice. A car accident.”
Darryl rubbed
his arms across his eyes to dry his tears, turned around and walked over to the
bed.
Taking her
hand in his, he said, “They couldn’t save her.”
“What? How?
What happened?”
Felice
started crying now. At that moment, the nurse came in.
“Is
everything all right?”
“No. Please
take my baby,” Felice told her.
She handed
her baby to Nurse Hickman and asked, “May we have some privacy, please?”
“Of course.”
After the
nurse left with her daughter, Felice grabbed Darryl’s hand.
“Please,”
she begged. “What happened?”
“Rita was on
her way home. She went out to the store to pick up some milk. I should have
gone. Why wasn’t it me?” Darryl sobbed. He continued, “I was home with the
kids. A drunk driver was racing down the road just as Rita was coming out of
the parking lot. He broadsided her. She didn’t have a chance.”
Felice’s
tears were streaming down her face as she looked at Darryl. His face was
twisted in torment. He was as pale as a ghost and looked like he hadn’t slept
since he heard about his wife’s death.
Now she knew
why she couldn’t get a hold of Rita or Darryl last night.
“Darryl…”
“This is my
fault,” he interrupted her. “I should have gone to the store. She insisted,
saying she needed to get some air anyway. I let her go. Damn it! Do you hear
me!” he screamed in pain. “I let her go!”
His knees
buckled and he collapsed to the floor. He leaned his forehead against the
mattress and continued to cry. He was unable to stop the tears. The anguish was
too much to bear. He began pounding the side of the bed with his fists like a
child throwing a tantrum. He needed to let the agony out somehow and he didn’t
know what else to do.
Felice
grabbed his wrists. During the time she spent with Rita, she also befriended
Darryl. They were part of her now and to see him in such pain was killing her.
“Look at me.”
When he
didn’t, she repeated the request.
When he
finally looked up at her, his eyes were red and swollen.
“Darryl,
this isn’t your fault.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No, it is
not. You didn’t know what would happen any more than she did.”
“Oh god,
Felice, I can’t handle this.”
Darryl got
off his knees and tried to stand. Because he was physically and emotionally
drained, he was weak and almost fell into the chair next to her bed. He put his
head in his hands and sobbed again.
“I’m so
sorry, I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t
know if he was apologizing to her, or to Rita.
“Darryl,
this is not your fault,” she repeated.
“It is, and
no matter how many times you try and tell me it isn’t, I won’t believe you. I
know it’s my fault. My Rita…my darling wife. She’s gone. I can’t believe it.”
“The kids…where
are they? Are they all right?”
Rita and
Darryl were blessed with twins, a boy and a girl. Glenn and Gabriella were
eight years old. Felice’s heart went out to the children. What would they do
without their mother? Darryl was a good father, but for children to grow up
without their mother was hard.
Felice knew
that. She lost her mother from a long battle with breast cancer when she was
only eleven and her father passed away from a brain tumor when she was
nineteen. Although she loved her father just as much, she remembered feeling a
deep heart-wrenching loss when her mother died.
“The kids
are with my parents. They flew in first thing this morning. The kids are too
young to really know what’s going on. They certainly know they don’t have a
mother anymore, no thanks to their dad.”
“Darryl!
Stop it. You cannot think like this. Your children need you now more than ever.”
“I know, but
oh god! How do I get through this? How do I live my life without Rita?”
“I don’t
know,” Felice quietly answered.
He sat there
and quietly cried as he remembered the first time he kissed Rita.
They just
left the movies and it started to rain. At first it was a gentle fall of rain
and she insisted on walking the two blocks to her apartment.
By the time
they arrived, the rain became heavier and they were drenched. They stood
outside the front door of her apartment. She, not wanting to go in and end the
evening and he, not wanting to leave her. She looked incredibly sexy, soaked
from the rain.
She looked
up at him, smiled, and asked if he wanted to come in for a night cap. He barely
heard her question as he couldn’t take his eyes off of her lips. They were so
soft looking, so inviting. That night, as she stood there with rain dripping
onto her face and sliding down her lips, all he could think of was he wanted to
kiss her. Had to kiss her.
He took her
in his arms and slowly brought his lips to hers. He tasted the rain and felt the
softness he knew he would. He didn’t want to push it too far with her. As it
was only their second date, he started to pull away, but she put her hand on
the back of his head and leaned up to once again meet his lips. They tenderly
kissed with tongues intertwining.
It was the
hardest thing he ever did, but he pulled apart from her, took the key from her
hand and opened the door. He promised to call the next day. He wanted her to know
he was an honorable man, not one that was just after sex. He was smitten and her
respect meant everything to him. It was a relationship he wanted to bloom
slowly…and it did. He loved her beyond all measure. They became a family and had
a nice life together.
Then one
night, in one single moment out of time, it was all taken away; his Rita, his
life, the mother of his children. He didn’t know what he was going to do
without her. This memory of Rita would stay with him forever, and when the
children were old enough, he would share it with them. He planned on sharing
all of his memories of their mother with them. Each and every one of them was
too precious to keep hidden. The children needed to know their mother as much
as he needed to tell them.
Darryl
stood, filed the memory deep in his mind, stifled his tears, and promised Felice
he would pick her and the baby up from the hospital to take them home.
The next day
she was discharged. Even though Darryl said he would take them home, she still planned
on calling a cab. However, despite the many arrangements he had to make, Darryl
called in the morning and insisted on following through with his offer. He
needed to keep his word for Rita if nothing else.
He told
Felice not to worry. After he brings Felice and the baby home, he would do all
he could to make sure Rita will have a perfect funeral, as perfect as funerals
could be, that is. He left the children with his parents again and was at the
hospital at eleven a.m., as promised.
Felice
didn’t know what to say to Darryl to comfort him. She wasn’t even able to deal
with her own grief yet. She knew and loved Rita for more than ten years now and
she was her dearest friend.
She
couldn’t believe that the night she gave birth to her daughter, she lost her
best friend. Despite the fact that Rita would have understood the bond between
mother and child completely, she felt guilty for being happy with her daughter
when she just lost such a wonderful friendship.
Neither
of them spoke for the first few miles after he picked her and the baby up.
Felice
felt the need to let Darryl know he could count on her.
“I
really appreciate you bringing us home, Darryl. I know you have a lot to deal
with right now and I want you to know I am here for you. Anything you need,
please just ask. I want to be there for the children as well.”
Darryl
tried to smile, “Thanks. That means a lot and I know Rita would love you for
that, but right now you have a lot to deal with as well. You have a new baby…speaking
of, do you have a name for her yet?”
“Yes,
I have decided to name her Rita Grace. I hope you’re okay with it.”
For
a few minutes, Darryl didn’t say anything. He just stared straight ahead as he
drove.
Finally,
he told her, “I’m more than okay with it and I know Rita would love it. She
would be honored. Rita Grace Bellicini, I like it. It has a certain ring to it.”
“Thank
you,” she said, “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind.”
Darryl
took one hand off the steering wheel, took her hand in his and squeezed it.
“Thank
you, Felice. You have no idea what
this means to me. Think about it. The night I lost the love of my life, you
gave birth to a new Rita. It is reassuring to know she will live on, and it
means everything to me. When I see little Rita, I will always think of my Rita. What’s more, I know she’ll grow
up to honor her namesake. She is after all, your daughter and you are my Rita’s
best friend. If I believed in reincarnation, and I’m not sure if I do, then I’d
say my wife isn’t dead, but reborn to start a new life, to touch another’s life
like she touched mine and everyone she knew. God doesn’t make mistakes and he
took her for a reason. Maybe Rita Grace is that reason.”
When
he finished speaking, Felice just stared at him for several minutes. She hoped
he would be happy about her choice in names, but she never dreamed he would be
so touched. Knowing she gave him a reason to believe and a reason to smile, she
was quite happy with the name she gave her baby. Darryl just confirmed what she
already knew in her own heart, that her daughter’s name was a perfect fit.
Somehow, Felice felt deep in her soul Rita was smiling down at them at that
very moment.
She
smiled at Darryl, squeezed his hand in return and said, “Darryl, Rita will
always be with us. She’s in our hearts and that will keep her alive for us and
for your children,” she turned and looked in the back seat, smiled at her baby,
and continued, “and for Rita Grace.”
* *
* * *
The
services were difficult. She grieved for her best friend, while Darryl cried
for his lost wife. She wept openly, as did nearly all the people in attendance.
Rita was well loved and would be greatly missed by many people, but none more
so than her precious children.
Contrary
to what she was feeling inside, the day was glorious. The sun was shining and
there was a gentle breeze blowing. It was a gravesite service. The entire area
was bathed in flowers and it was beautiful. If they were inside, the scent would
have been overpowering. The flowers signified the love everyone felt for Rita. Darryl
had an arrangement of Rita’s favorite flowers created. The day lilies and white
and lavender roses draped over the casket were exquisitely displayed.
During the
service, many people stood and shared their memories of Rita, as did Felice.
Darryl tried to, but failed. He rose, walked up to the pulpit and stood there just
looking at everyone. Tears began to spill down his cheeks and he was unable to
speak. Instead, he turned and walked to the casket. He laid his hand upon it
and quietly cried.
Gabriella
was inconsolable. She kept crying out for her mother. Glenn tried to act grown
up by taking care of his sister. He held her hand and told her that mommy was
okay. Darryl tried to reassure Gabriella the only way he knew how. He told her
that mommy loves them and didn’t want to leave them, but God told her it was
time to go. They were hollow words, even to his adult ears and Gabriella didn’t
understand. Felice tried to help, but her words fell on deaf ears. Gabriella
only wanted her mother.
Later,
everyone went to the church’s banquet hall Darryl rented since their house was
not big enough to hold everyone. Felice arranged to have the reception catered.
She didn’t want Darryl to have to worry about what kind of food to serve or any
other facet of the minute details. He had enough to deal with.
It
was an emotional day and by the time it was over, the children were cranky.
Felice offered to drive them and Darryl home, but he refused to allow her to.
He reminded her she had her own daughter to tend to and told her he remembered
how it was to have newborns that didn’t sleep through the night.
Felice
took her baby home, tucked her in and wearily lay down on her bed. She never
felt this alone before. She lost her beloved friend and there was no one to
comfort her. It was times like this where her thoughts turned to Pavel, what
they shared and what they could have shared had he not been the coward he was. She
ached to be held and consoled. Instead, she cried herself to sleep.
She
wanted to be there for Darryl and the children. She didn’t question what that
meant. She just wanted to do what she could for her best friend’s family. The
next few weeks were the hardest ones Felice ever endured. Even though she was a
single parent, which was difficult in itself, she did everything she could to
help Darryl with the twins.
It
was trying and each night she fell asleep the minute her head hit the pillow,
only to awaken a few hours later to feed the baby, but she didn’t mind. Rita
would have done the same for her and she knew it.
No comments:
Post a Comment