6

Elena's Point of View

Two years later.

Lisbon was hard right from the start.

I had pictured a quiet life there. A small apartment, nobody who knew my name, a fresh start. What I got was a lot of throwing up and a lot of being alone. I was sick every morning for months. I got lost on the way to my own doctor's appointments because I couldn't read half the street signs. One afternoon I cried in the grocery store because I couldn't find the right milk and the lady behind me kept talking to me in Portuguese I didn't understand.

Tessa called every night, but she was a whole ocean away. She couldn't hold my hair back, and she couldn't cook me dinner.

When I was five months pregnant, I sat on the bathroom floor one night with my hand on my belly and admitted something to myself. I couldn't do this by myself. I needed my mom.

So I called her.

"Mom, I have to tell you something."

"What's wrong? Are you sick?"

"I'm pregnant."

She didn't say anything for so long that I checked if the call had dropped.

"I'm five months along," I said. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner. I was scared. But I need help, Mom."

"Five months?" She started crying and shouting at the same time. "You went to another country pregnant? And you've been there alone all this time? Elena, what is wrong with you?"

"I know. I'm sorry."

Then my dad took the phone. His voice was low and hard. "Who's the father?"

"He's not in the picture."

"That's not an answer."

"It's all I've got, Dad."

He hung up on me.

I cried myself to sleep that night, sure I had lost both of them. Three days later someone knocked on my door. I opened it and my mom was standing there with a suitcase and red eyes. She looked at my belly, then at my face, and pulled me into a hug so tight I could hardly breathe.

"You silly girl," she said into my hair. "You should have called me the first day."

My dad came a week later. He walked into the apartment without saying hello, checked every window and every lock, and then sat down at my kitchen table.

"Tell me where you work," he said. "I want to see how you get there."

That was his way of saying he wasn't angry anymore.

My mom stayed with me. She cooked, she cleaned, and she came to every doctor's appointment. She argued with the doctors in English when they couldn't follow her, and somehow they always understood. I started sleeping through the night again.

Amelia was born on a Sunday morning in spring.

My water broke at three a.m. My mom was already out of bed before I could call her. She helped me put on my shoes, grabbed the hospital bag, and held my hand the whole way there in the back of the taxi.

"Breathe, Elena. Slow, like we practiced."

"It hurts, Mom."

"I know it does. I went through it with you, remember? You took twenty hours and made me miss my own birthday."

I laughed, and then the next contraction came and I stopped laughing.

It was a long labor. I squeezed my mom's hand so hard I was sure I'd broken something, and she never let go. She wiped my face with a cold cloth. She hummed a lullaby she used to sing to me when I was little, one I hadn't heard in years. I cried, I cursed, and I told her I couldn't do it. She just kept saying, "Yes, you can. You're almost there. I'm right here."

And she was. She didn't leave my side for a second.

Around six, the sun came up and filled the room with soft pink light. The nurse told me to push one more time. I did, and then there was a tiny, furious cry.

"It's a girl," the doctor said. "And she's got a lot to say."

They put her on my chest, and I stopped hearing anything else.

She was so small. Warm and wet and a little red, with a head full of dark curls and two fists squeezed tight like she was angry about being born. I looked at her and forgot about the pain, the tiredness, and the whole awful year. It was just her and me.

"Hi, baby," I whispered. "It's me. I'm your mom."

She opened her eyes. They were gray. For a second my heart dropped, because I knew exactly whose eyes those were. But then she sighed and wrapped her little fingers around my thumb, and I didn't care about anything else.

My mom was crying beside me, one hand over her mouth. "Look at her, Elena. She's perfect."

"Her name is Amelia."

"Amelia," my mom said softly. She kissed my forehead and then the top of the baby's head. "Welcome, sweet girl."

I had never loved anything so much in my whole life. It scared me a little.

Nobody is ever going to hurt you, I promised her in my head.

My parents stayed for three months after the birth. My dad held her for hours at a time, and my mom taught me how to bathe her and how to get her to sleep. When it was finally time for them to fly home, I cried so hard that Amelia started crying too.

"Come back with us," my mom begged at the airport.

"I can't, Mom."

"He doesn't know where you are. He doesn't even know she exists."

"I know. But I'm still not ready."

She didn't push me. She kissed my cheek and said, "Then we'll come to you."

And they did, twice a year, sometimes more. I never went back to New York.

Until last Tuesday, when my mom called me late at night, and I knew something was wrong as soon as I heard her voice.

"It's your dad. It's his heart."

"What do you mean, his heart?"

"The doctors say he has to rest, but you know how he is. He won't listen to anyone. He keeps asking about Amelia. He wants to see her." She started to cry. "While he still can."

I booked the flights that same night.

This morning, I stood by the door of our apartment with the last suitcase and looked around one more time. Two years of our life was in that little place. Amelia's first steps were in that hallway. Her first word was in that kitchen. She still had scratch marks on the table from her toy cars.

"Come on, baby," I said softly. "Let's go."

Amelia was waiting by the door in her yellow coat, hugging her stuffed rabbit. She looked up at me and frowned.

I couldn't help smiling. That frown.

She looks so much like me. Same nose, same dark curls, same stubborn chin. Everyone says it. Dona Clara at her daycare says, "She is a little copy of you, Elena." But then Amelia looks at you with those gray eyes, and you can see exactly who she got them from.

She got his temper too. At two years old, she had already thrown a bowl of oatmeal at a waiter, bitten a boy who took her toy, and stared Dona Clara down until the poor woman handed over the red crayon. She never cries when she's mad. She lifts her chin and glares at you.

"Where do you get that attitude?" I always ask her.

"Mine," she says.

I know exactly where she gets it, but I'm not going to say that out loud.

"Are we going to see Grandma and Grandpa?" she asked, pulling on my sleeve.

I nodded. "Yes, baby. We're going to see them."

"Grandpa has big hugs."

"He sure does."

"I give him my rabbit."

I bent down and fixed her hat. "That's very nice of you."

She nodded like it was a serious job.

The flight was long. Amelia slept for most of it with her head on my lap, and I stayed up, tired but too nervous to close my eyes. It had been two years since I last stepped on American ground. Part of me felt like I was coming home. The other part wanted to turn the plane around.

When we landed, I was so tired that I almost forgot one of our bags at the carousel. Amelia woke up cranky and demanded juice. I had juice. I had snacks, wipes, a spare pair of socks, and her favorite blanket. I had been a mother long enough to be ready for anything.

My dad's driver was waiting for us outside, holding a small sign with my name on it. He smiled when he saw Amelia.

"Welcome back, Miss Elena. Your mother said to bring you straight home."

"Thank you, Henry."

He loaded the suitcases while I buckled Amelia into her seat. She held her rabbit in her lap and stared out at the cars going by, quiet for once.

"Mommy," she said after a few minutes. "Are we there?"

"Not yet, baby. Almost."

"How long?"

"About twenty minutes."

She sighed like I had told her it would be twenty years. Then she leaned back and tapped the rabbit on the nose.

"Grandpa's going to like you," she told it.

I laughed. For the first time in days, I felt my shoulders relax.

When the car turned onto my parents' street, I could see the old oak tree in front of the house, with the swing my dad had put up when I was a kid. The porch light was on, even though it was daytime. Somebody was standing at the front door, waving.

"Look, baby," I said, pointing. "That's Grandma."

Amelia pressed her face against the window.

"Big hugs?" she asked.

"The biggest," I said.