Caroline used to have it all: she was madly in love with her husband, Peter, and they worshiped their beautiful baby girl. But as Lily grows into a toddler, Caroline notices that her daughter seems to live and act with a disconnect, and soon the perfect future Caroline had envisioned, along with her marriage, begin to crumble. Now she and Peter are no longer lovers, they’re plaintiffs in the throes of divorce while still struggling to care for Lily. After years of blame and overwhelming despair, Caroline’s chance encounter with a stranger at University Hospital opens her eyes to the prospect of accepting new support, new loves, and new dreams.

From the acclaimed author of The Final Piece comes a story of a family broken and unable to cope with a daughter’s disability. And a mother who finds that letting go of the life she imagined may be the only way to get to the life she was meant for.

Prologue

“Where’s my baby?” I startle awake. My heart starts racing before my mind completely registers where I am. A nurse hovers above me, tending to the frantic beeping of a monitor.

“Welcome back, darlin’. You gave us quite the scare,” she drawls out in a thick southern accent.

“Where’s my baby?” I try to sit up, but can’t coordinate my movements. The nurse silences the alarm on the machine she’s tending to. It’s then I realize all that noise was the rapid increase of my own heart rate on an EKG. The more the veil of unconsciousness lifts, the more aware I become of my surroundings.

No Peter.

No Lily.

The panic I feel in that moment is indescribable. Every instinct in me screams for me to get up and go find my daughter and husband. My body refuses to cooperate with my brain, taking a herculean effort just to lift my head.

“Shh, now.” The nurse speaks with a gentle firmness. “Your baby girl is just fine. She’s in the nursery with your husband. You can’t get yourself riled like that. You had a stroke, Mama. You’ve been in and out for two days.”
A stroke.

I close my eyes to sift through the pieces I can recall. I remember riding in the back of the ambulance and feeling nauseated from motion sickness. The paramedic who rode with me did his best to keep my spirits up, chatting about movies and books, anything to keep my mind off of my early labor.

“Caroline?”

The sound of my name brings me back to the present and to a harried Dr. O’Donovan.

“How are you feeling?” she asks. I blink at her, confused, as she uses her pen to scratch the bottom of my feet, sending an uncomfortable shiver through my body.

“Reflexes are good. You’re very lucky.” She sits next to me on the bed and shines a penlight into my eyes. “Do you remember what happened?” Her face reflects such kindness and compassion, it makes me want to cry.
***

“Is Peter here?” Dr. O’Donovan smiles brightly. Too brightly. I place a protective hand across my swollen belly and wait for bad news.

“No, he had a meeting he couldn’t get out of.” I swallow hard. “Why? What’s wrong?”

“Well, you have some protein in your urine and your blood pressure is elevated. Those are indicators of preeclampsia, which is very serious. The good news is the baby isn’t showing any signs of stress. Her heartbeat is nice and strong.” The doctor places her hand on my knee, squeezing gently.

“What is the treatment for that? Do I go on bed rest or something?” My mind races through the litany of things I thought I had two more weeks to take care of, none of which seems important now.

“The only way to resolve the preeclampsia is to deliver the baby,” she says in a manner so matter-of-fact, I’m almost put at ease. “Jackie will start an IV, so we can begin a course of magnesium sulfate immediately.”

“Wait,” I cut her off. “I need to go get my overnight bag and call Peter. Can’t I meet you at the hospital?” To punctuate my question, Dr. O’Donovan’s nurse, Jackie, comes into the exam room with her IV kit.

“Caroline, I don’t want to scare you, but this is very serious. Reception will contact Peter to let him know what’s going on.” Dr. O’Donovan knows how hard it was for me to get pregnant. She’s been my doctor through all of my fertility treatments and three miscarriages. She would never unduly alarm me.

“What exactly is going on? I don’t understand.” Fear shakes my voice.

“Listen to me very carefully, Caro.” Dr. O’Donovan grips my hands in hers and levels her resolute gaze on mine. “Jackie is going to start an IV so we can begin to treat you right away. The sooner we get your blood pressure under control, the better. This means that I need you to stay calm, okay?”

“Her name is Lily,” I whisper. I need her to know this isn’t “the fetus” or “the baby.” This is Lily Hope, the little girl I’ve dreamed of holding for the last nine months and prayed for all these years.

“Concentrate on Lily, Caroline. Once the IV is in, we’re going to ambulance you to Durham as a precaution. Duke is the closest hospital with a NICU. We’re being extra cautious; there’s no reason to think we will need it, but we want it on site if we do. Lily is full term at thirty-eight weeks; it’s going to be okay,” Dr. O’Donovan reassures me. “When we get you all checked in, we’ll induce your labor and then Lily will be on her way. You’ll be able to hold your little girl by tomorrow, Caroline.” As if she senses the conversation is about her, Lily kicks with a force that shakes my belly. “See? She’s ready for her debut.”

My little girl. I’ll get to hold her in just a matter of hours.
I tell myself to concentrate on that, and not to be scared, but I’m terrified.

Dr. O’Donovan is talking again.
“We had to induce your labor, and you had a very strong reaction to the Pitocin we used. It sped up the rate and strength of your contractions, also causing your blood pressure to spike. You had a mild stroke, Caroline. Do you understand?”
I nod my head, but I don’t really understand. My pregnancy was easy. Sure, I’d had some morning sickness in the first months, but that was it. Everything else had been flawless.

“Neurology will be in shortly to explain the logistics of what happened, but I’ll give it to you straight- you’re very lucky to be alive, and even luckier that the stroke was as mild as it was. You’re going to make a full recovery, Caroline, but this is it. No more pregnancies.” She studies my face while she waits for my reaction. Before I get a chance to make sense of what she’d said, Peter walks into the room.

“Caroline, baby,” he whispers as tears fill his eyes. The instant my husband sits on the bed and wraps me in his arms, my anxiety disappears.

“She’s so beautiful.” He is weeping. “She’s absolutely perfect.”

A moment later, the nurse with the heavy accent brings Lily to me. My arms shake with the effort of holding my beautiful girl, as hazy details of delivering her begin circulating through my brain.

Lily didn’t enter into this life with her eyes swollen shut, howling at the injustice of being ripped from her mother’s womb. She exploded into the world with her little eyes blinking in wonder, her lips pursed into a perfect pink rosebud. While the doctors and nurses rushed around my broken body, scrambling to keep me from slipping into the quiet call of darkness, a nurse placed Lily against my chest, encouraging me to focus.

“Look at her, Caroline. Look at your baby girl.” The nurse’s words had sounded tinny and distant through the thickness of my exhaustion. “Stay with us.”

“Caroline, open your eyes.”

I recall the furrowed concern on the doctor’s face as she cut the umbilical cord, and how Lily’s tiny body shuddered as she drew her first breath. It’s the last thing I remember before closing my eyes.

When Peter kisses my temple and brushes a finger down Lily’s cheek, my heart melts. I’m the luckiest woman in the world. After so many years of struggling with infertility, we’ve finally gotten our happy ending.

If I could go back to the moment I bought into that lie, would I change anything? I don’t know. To change the past would mean changing the future. If I admit I would change my choices, it makes me an awful person. If I say I wouldn’t change a thing, I’d be lying. That’s the way of the world, I suppose. We’ve been conditioned to believe that things always have a way of working themselves out and that happily ever after is within our reach, if we just work hard enough. The truth is that none of us are immune to tragedy. No matter how hard you work, no matter how good you are, life isn’t obligated to give us all a fairytale ending.

Sorta Fairytale

As I glance out the window of Children’s Hospital’s waiting room, the memories of my daughter’s birth haunt my mind. I’d been so incredibly naïve back then.

“Mrs. Williams?” I glance up as the nurse pulls me from my memory. “Yes?” I sigh.

“Lily is asking for you now.” The physician’s assistant is dressed in cartoonish scrubs that are meant be soothing to the young patients of Children’s Hospital. I find them mocking. You’d think after three years I’d grow accustomed to the fluorescent lights and sickly smell that are unique to hospitals, but they do little to soothe my frayed nerves as I wait, yet again, for Lily’s MRI to be done.

God, when did I become so cynical and bitter?

I follow her into the belly of the MRI clinic, where I hear Lily’s shrill cry. “Mama, Mama,” she wails.

When Lily finally started to use words in a meaningful way, her speech pathologist told me that “mama” was just a word approximation. A meaningless consonant/verb combination that she was using to test out her voice.

“She’s getting used to how her voice sounds, Mrs. Williams. It could be baba, yaya, dada. Those are sounds most babies make when they’re discovering language,” she condescended to me.

What the speech therapist couldn’t understand was what the word meant to me. It resonated with me on a level no else could ever understand. It meant that Lily recognized me, and it was a connection I needed more than I did air to breathe.

Now the most beautiful word in the world sounds like nails on a chalkboard. I feel like the biggest hypocrite for even thinking it.

“Is English her first language?” the P.A. asks.

If she’d bothered reading Lily’s chart, she’d know that Lily has profound speech delays. Her use of language is different from ours; her words sound foreign. Different. Everything about Lily is different; that’s why we’re here.

“Mama,” Lily slurs when she sees me. Without hesitation, I climb into the hospital bed and wrap her in my arms.

“Shh…Lily pad. Mommy’s here,” I whisper against her beautiful strawberry-blond hair.

“Mama, mama, mama…” she murmurs rhythmically into my chest.
“She’ll be out of it for a little while longer, Mrs. Williams,” the nurse explains.

I know the drill; this isn’t the first time Lily’s had to be put under general to have an MRI. It’s the only way she can be still enough for them to get an accurate reading.

My phone chirps from my purse as I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of Lily’s hair. Only one person would be texting me right now, and it makes my heart hurt.

He’s just checking on Lily; he doesn’t want you anymore.

No, Peter doesn’t want me anymore.

Despite my battle scars, the skin of my emotions is thin. The familiar pain of rejection tears open my heart once again. It hasn’t gotten any easier. The hurt is as pervasive as Lily’s problems, never ending, or with clear answers. Some things are never meant to make sense.

“Carolina on My Mind.” Max, the MRI technician interrupts my downward spiral. He fills the doorway and smiles at me. Max is beautiful at well over six feet tall; his gorgeous clear green eyes are set against skin the color of coffee with cream. I blush when I catch myself sizing him up.

“Hey, Max,” I whisper, “still speaking in musical metaphors, I see.” I give him a weak smile. His easy manner and the quirky way he speaks in lyrics only add to his appeal.

“How’s our girl?” he asks, brushing a hand across the top of Lily’s head. “She fell back asleep.” I watch curiously as he checks her chart notes.

Given the amount of time we spend at the hospital, we’ve seen quite a bit of Max. It shouldn’t surprise me that he cares about Lily–she is so easy to love–but it does.

My phone chirps again.

“Do you need to get that?” Max nods toward my purse, never taking his eyes from Lily’s chart.

“It’s okay.” I swallow hard, and try to sound carefree. “I can call him when we’re settled into a room.”

“Caroline, take a break.” He lifts his eyes to mine. “Call Peter back; grab a cup of coffee. I will stay with Lily Love.”

“Thank you, Max.” I smooth the hair from Lily’s face and gently climb down from the bed. “Please page me if she wakes up.”

“Of course, Caroline.” Max settles into the chair next to Lily’s bed. “I won’t let anything happen.” I know he won’t.

The first time I met Max, Lily was barely two years old. We had been ambulanced into the Children’s Hospital after Lily suffered a febrile seizure. I was a neurotic mess. Peter had been away on business and my sister, Paige, was on her way. I was staring at a pile of paperwork left behind by the admissions clerk when Max rescued me.

“I’m Max Swain from the MRI clinic. I can’t take Lily for her scan until they have an IV for anesthesia,” he said. “If you give me your insurance card, I can fill out the paperwork for you, and you can sign it when she goes in for her MRI.”

“Thank you,” I choked out.

“It’ll be all right, Mrs. Williams.” He placed his hand on my shoulder and gave me a warm smile.

“Caroline, please.” I sniffled.

When Lily’s IV was finally in place, Max had escorted us to Radiology, chatting with Lily the entire time. It didn’t matter to him that she didn’t answer; he just kept after her.

“I bet you like Sesame Street,” he tried. “No? How about Max and Ruby? Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood?”

Even though she couldn’t answer him, she fixed her hazel eyes on him and smiled. They clicked, and from that point Max became the bright spot on our trips to Children’s.

I look down at my phone now at the text message on the screen and feel sad. Peter: Hey, checking on Lily. How’d it go?

There’s this image I used to have of family coming together in moments of need, holding on to one another, being strong and resilient for each other. No one tells you how divisive crisis really is. How you’re forced to take on roles that you never intended, thus becoming someone you never wanted to be. I never wanted to be the mother of a child with special needs. I never wanted to be a failure as a wife.

I am both.

My daughter has an unspecified developmental disability and I’m alone. It’s not Lily’s fault and it’s not even Peter’s fault. It just is. That’s the horror of it all. I’ve had to sit by and watch my life crumble around me, knowing that there is no blame, no reason, just a tragic set of circumstances that no one has any control over.

Peter: Getting on the road in 15. Can I bring you dinner?
Me: Grabbing coffee, then heading back to MRI. Lily’s still in recovery.

If it weren’t so sad, I would laugh. I still feel an echo of the love we shared, but pain has long since taken its place. All that’s left is a bittersweet memory of the joy we had before Lily.
***

I met Peter in the fall of my senior year of college. I was standing in the keg line at the Sig Ep house, hoping to drown my chronic indifference with cheap beer. I was in a rut, feeling stuck in a relationship that had run its course, or at least that’s what I was thinking when I found myself at the front of the line. A boyishly handsome frat boy manned the keg, and made my heart stutter erratically in my chest.

“Hi,” he yelled over the party noise. “I’m Peter.” He held out his hand and, when I gave him my cup, laughed at me. Resting my cup on top of the keg, he reached his hand out to me again.

“Hi, Peter.” I blushed as I shook his hand. He stared at me expectantly, refusing to release his grip. “And you are?”

It made me nervous, how he commanded eye contact while he stroked my skin with his thumb. He was bold, unlike most of the boys I’d met so far.

“Taken.” I forced a smile and tried to ignore the stab of disappointment I felt.

If you’d just broken up with Trent, you’d be having lukewarm beer with this hottie, Ms. Non-commital Caroline.

Screw Trent. I cocked my head and flirted anyway. “It was nice to meet you, Peter. Can I please have a beer now?”

“Ouch.” Peter laughed and let go of my hand to grip his chest dramatically. “You slay me, beautiful nameless girl.” His smile spread warmth up my neck, staining my cheeks. “I’ll tell you what: I’ll refill your beer if you tell me your name.”

“Blackmail? Certainly a good-looking guy like you doesn’t need to resort to such things to get a date,” I teased, not feeling the slightest bit guilty.

“You think I’m good-looking?” Peter’s playfulness was adorable, and it was impossible to resist his charm.

“You know you’re good-looking,” I countered.

“I know you’re beautiful.”

I laughed. “Wow. You just have an answer for everything, don’t you?”

“Not everything, I still don’t know your name.” He handed back my full cup with reluctance.

“Caroline,” I finally answered.
“Caroline.” He smiled wistfully as he tried out my name.

I wasn’t one of those girls who giggled and swooned at the sight of a cute boy. Yet here I was, struck dumb by the sound of my name moving across the very delectable mouth of an equally delectable frat boy. I needed to get out of there before I started batting my eyelashes or something else just as horrific.

“Thanks for the brew, Frat Boy.” I chuckled when he crinkled his nose at the name.

“Caroline,” he called, as I turned to leave. Glancing over my shoulder, I found him still smiling at me. “I won’t need to blackmail you to get you to go to dinner with me.”

“Tell that to my date.” I giggled and blew him a kiss as I kept walking. I wasn’t ready to give Peter an easy in. Even back then, something in me knew how easy it would be to get lost in him.

A few weeks later, the boyfriend was a thing of the past. While I stood in the campus breezeway, waiting at the coffee cart, I ran into Peter again. He was right; he didn’t need to blackmail me into that date. I fell hard and fast, never taking a backward glance. I was young, in love, and completely idealistic. I finally had a plan, and it was all about me, Peter, and the life we would build together.

Born in West Des Moines, IA and raised in Miami, FL, I have an appreciation for the heartland and really good cuban food.

I want to write stories that make people think. The things you thought you knew about other people and their lives? I want to twist those perceptions and make you question everything.

I am a big fan of the underdog. The one that everyone else has written off? That’s where my heart is and where my most inspired writing happens.

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