She pressed her ear to the child’s chest, desperate, and heard the faintest flutter. She looked up, and Felix stood above her, hands clenched.
“She’s still fighting,” he said.
Rose nodded, but she could not speak.
Somewhere outside, a clock struck two.
The only thing left was hope, and Rose did not know if she had any left.
By evening, Rose was dizzy from fatigue. Her eyes stung, her limbs ached, but she dared not put Lizzie down. She held the baby in the crook of her elbow, running a fingertip along the delicate blue vein at the child’s temple, watching for the smallest flicker of response.
Once again, Felix tried to intervene. He approached quietly, reverently, and put a hand on Rose’s shoulder.
“You need to rest,” he said, and for a moment the old arrogance was gone, replaced by something so fragile she could barely look at him.
“I cannot,” she answered.
He reached for the baby, and Rose, too tired to argue, let him take her. Lizzie lasted a single minute before wailing with such force that Rose was certain the child would shatter from it. Felix tried everything: pacing, bouncing, a clumsy attempt at the song he’d heard Rose sing. Nothing worked. The baby only calmed down when she was returned to her mother.
Rose clutched Lizzie so tightly she worried about hurting her, but the child nestled against her, exhausted but silent. Rose buried her nose in the crown of Lizzie’s hair, breathing in the sour-sweet scent of fever and soap.
Felix sat on the edge of the nursery bed. For the first time, Rose saw the depth of his defeat. He looked as if he’d been hollowed out, every clever thought and retort stripped away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and the words were so small they nearly vanished.
Rose did not reply. She could not bear to waste even a single breath on anything but Lizzie.
That night, the baby’s breathing grew labored. Rose propped Lizzie upright against her shoulder, using her own body as a wedge against the darkness. She willed herself not to sleep, not to miss a single moment.
At some point near dawn, Rose’s own body betrayed her. Her eyelids drooped. She dreamed, briefly, that she was back at the convent, walking the cloisters with a crying child in her arms, only to find that every door was locked, every face turned away. She woke with a start, the panic clutching her throat, only to find Lizzie limp and frighteningly quiet against her.
For a long moment, Rose was certain the child had stopped breathing. She pressed her ear to Lizzie’s chest and listened for an eternity. Then, a tiny, watery gasp was exhaled by the child.
Rose sobbed, unable to contain it. She wrapped both arms around Lizzie and rocked, back and forth, the motion desperate and wild. She begged—out loud, for the first time—for the child to stay. She promised everything she had, everything she would ever have, if only Lizzie would keep fighting.
Felix came and knelt beside the chair. He put his arms around both of them, and for a minute they formed a single, shuddering knot, suspended between hope and terror.
Neither spoke. There were no words left.
The siege continued, but now it was less a battle than a last stand. Rose let herself fall, piece by piece, into the hollow space where only the baby’s survival mattered.
Rose noted that Felix was also showing signs of surrender. He made no more attempts at control, no more displays of stoic command. He existed to serve Lizzie and Rose, to fetch what was needed, to keep the fire alive and the room warm.
They became, in that long, suffocating night, not husband and wife, but two desperate souls orbiting the same flickering point of light.
The hours crawled by. Sometimes Lizzie opened her eyes, cloudy and unfocused, and Rose would cry again, all the old pride gone.
When the sun finally rose, Rose could not tell if it was the next day or the next life.
But Lizzie was still breathing.
So, Rose held on and hoped.
Night again.
Rose found herself at the window, Lizzie limp in her arms, the moon’s blurred reflection overlaying the ghost of their two faces against the glass. It should have been quiet, but in the hush every sound was amplified: the scrape of branches on stone, the faint ticking of the nursery clock, the whistling of Lizzie’s breath as it sawed in and out, more ragged with every hour.
For a while, Rose tried to pretend it was only sleep. The baby’s eyelids fluttered, her fists clenched and unclenched, and her head rolled against Rose’s shoulder. But the lull of it was all wrong; the rhythm, instead of reassuring, hinted at something broken beneath.
