Page 390 of Wicked Brutal

“We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Tobias says it loud enough for the whole waiting room. “Ya tebya lyublyu!”

My eyes fill. “Ya tebya lyublyu.”

Ryan takes the phone from me. “We’ll update you,” he says, and

Penny nods. “We’re right outside.”

_

It hits me somewhere in the long middle hours, between contractions, when I’m too tired to hold it back. Cassandra is holding me, and I’m crying about things I have no way to know.

“I want my mommy.” The word comes from somewhere so deep inside me that for a second I’m not here anymore. I’m not eighteen. I’m not in a hospital. I’m not somebody’s mother yet. I’m just Mom’s little girl, and I want her. “I want my mommy.”

Cassandra makes a broken sound and wraps both arms around me. “I know, baby.”

Darla’s fingers tighten around mine. Ryan presses his mouth to my shoulder.

“She should be here,” I say. “She should be holding my hand. She should be telling me what it was like when she had me.” My chest heaves. “I never asked her.”

“Oh, Ally.”

“I never asked. I should have. I should’ve asked her everything.”

Cassandra pulls back enough to look at me, tears covering her face, and cups my cheeks. “You were her daughter. Listen to me. You were supposed to be her daughter. That’s all. You weren’t supposed to sit beside your mother and memorize her because someday she wouldn’t be here to tell you again.”

I break, completely. “I don’t remember enough.”

“You remember her.”

“Not enough.”

“It will never feel like enough.” My hand goes to my stomach, and the grief shifts — gets bigger — because Mom isn’t only missing this for me. “She doesn’t get to meet our baby. She should get to know if it’s a boy or a girl. She should get to hold them. She should get to be a grandma.”

Cassandra cries harder. Darla turns away, wiping her eyes. “She should be here.”

“She should,” Cassandra says.

Ryan’s arm comes around me, and when I look past him, Walter is crying too. He looks at me, at Cassandra, at Darla — and something passes across his face. He doesn’t say anything. He just turns and leaves. I barely register it, because another contraction is starting.

Nobody tells me she’s watching. Nobody tells me she’s here in some other way. Nobody tells me this happened for a reason. My mother is gone. She should be here. There’s nothing beautiful about that.

Darla just presses her hand into my back and says, “You don’t have to stop needing her. You can miss her. You can cry for her. You can want your mother every second of this. And you can still bring your baby here.”

The contraction finally fades and I collapse against Ryan. I don’t know how long we stay like that. Then the door opens, and I don’t look up — until I hear her.

“Oh, my sweet girl.” Katya.

Walter stands behind her, and tucked carefully against her chest is a tiny bundle of blue and cream fabric. I know it instantly. But she doesn’t bring it to me. She sets it gently on the chair beside her purse, and comes straight to me instead, gathering me against her.

“I want my mom.”

“I know, little love.”

“I want her so bad.”

“I know.” One hand cradles the back of my head, and she rocks me, slowly, gently.