She'll Understand

She quickly called her brother before her mother had a chance. News travelled fast in such a small family, and she wanted to be the one to tell Paul she wouldn’t see him tonight.

“Do what you need to do,” he said simply. Kindly. Without hesitation or judgment.

“I love you. Tell Louise…” Greta’s voice trailed off, torn between the realization about what she wanted and her sense of obligation to her family.

“She’ll understand. I have to go, though. It’s crazy around here,” Paul’s laugh charmingly mingled irritation and adoration, a combination Greta assumed he juggled on a daily basis living with her sister-in-law.

“Kiss Elisabeth for me,” Greta said before hanging up, hearing the love in her own voice outweigh the pain that stabbed her heart at the thought of any baby.

She intentionally thought about her goddaughter as she pulled a towel off a shelf in the linen closet, new since James had moved out. The shocking pink plush had leaked into the washing machine for weeks, but the color turned her mood up at least a few notches every time she used one. Picturing Elisabeth’s perfect, chubby cheeks, Greta buried her face in the towel, ready for the inevitable tears.

Needles pricked the back of her eyeballs, but her tears never made it to the surface. Instead, she grinned involuntarily as she thought of a newborn Elisabeth happily gurgling breast milk onto an impossibly soft blanket the second before Louise’s shutter snapped shut, the ruined shot somehow sweeter than the one now hanging in the small gallery.

“She should hang those,” Greta said aloud. “Maybe people should see the spit-up.”

Water cascaded through her hair, warm bordering on hot, soothing her aching muscles. She couldn’t remember exactly when she had stopped needing the water to be scalding in order to feel clean, in order to forget the feel of the water turning cold around her as she crouched in the corner, unable to find the strength to stand. For so long, she had automatically thought of that particular shower every time she entered the bathroom, poking at the memory as if closing the curtain without crying was some type of betrayal.

Paul’s words bubbled to the surface: “She’ll understand.”

No, she wouldn’t. Louise wasn’t going to understand. Paul had believed the words as he spoke them, though; Greta had heard the honesty in his voice without even trying. If he believed his words, it meant that maybe Louise would at least try to understand.

Maybe there was a chance their relationship could begin to piece itself back together after it had fallen apart in ugly chunks since Elisabeth’s birth. No, Greta corrected herself, since the miscarriage. After the miscarriage, Greta hadn’t been able to look at Louise, or Louise’s growing-by-the-minute pregnant belly, without feeling waves of pain that crested into resentment before breaking into regret for what she had lost.

What she had lost.

With that thought bouncing back and forth in her mind, Greta again braced herself for tears. For the second time, the tears didn’t fall, and this time she hadn’t even had to blink them back into submission.

Steam billowed out of the bathroom as she sashayed into her room, singing bits and pieces of the Lady Gaga song she had cranked louder during the hardest part of her run. Without thinking, she pulled the pink thermometer out of her drawer and tossed it towards the trashcan.

“Ovulation schmovulation. I’ve got better things to do with my time,” she said, testing out the idea aloud.

Now she just had to discover what those things might be.

The Red Dress Club prompt this week was to write a scene that includes a happy ending - it doesn't have to be the actual END of your story, if you're working on continuations, but it should include at least one challenge for your hero to overcome.

This is a continuation of Greta's story. 

This one was tough for me, because I felt like Greta finished last week in a pretty good place.  I almost gave up, but a few well-timed and encouraging tweets from Kelly (@DancesWithChaos) helped me get something together.  So thank you Kelly!