Chapter Two: Gracie Coming Home
“Gracie is gonna love sleeping in here,” Ashlyn says. Sitting in folding chairs, Ashlyn and her twin, Megyn watch as Peyton and Anna paint a mural on the left side wall of the room that will be their sister’s.
“You think so?” Peyton responds, still concentrating on what she’s painting on the upper middle of the wall.
“Definitely,” Megyn agrees. “Daddy is going to love it too, especially that angel you made, Auntie Peyton. It’s beautiful.”
“Thanks.” Peyton smiles.
“Hey, you know what?” Ashlyn says, staring up at the mural, nearly finished now. “That angel looks like mommy!”
Peyton stops painting and steps back to admire her work. She smiles as she stares at the mural, particularly the angel. She remembers now how strangely simple it had been for her to come up with a face for that angel. Actually, it wasn’t that strange at all. Brooke had been her influence for that face, as she had been for the whole mural. She’s been working on this for a good two months now and it is almost complete. Thinking about it, she remembers how she had decided to paint this mural.
“What do you think?” She asked as they entered the room she was fixing up for her own baby. She smiled at Brooke, staring at the walls in pure amazement.
“Oh my god, Peyton,” Brooke gasped. “This room is gorgeous.”
Peyton looked around again and said, “It will be. Once we get all the furniture moved in. Then it will be perfect.”
“No, it already is.” Brooke walked further into the room. “Your little girl is going to love this room.”
“You think so?” Peyton wondered, resting her hands on her extending stomach.
Brooke moved closer to the back wall. She bent down to get a closer look at the lower part of the wall, painted to look like a real garden, with green for grass and several other bright colors for flowers, going all around the lower borders of the four walls.
Then, Brooke stood up and admired the beautiful angels painted higher up. Each wall had a very unique angel. On the light, sky blue background paint of the walls, Peyton had sp0onged on white to make realistic looking clouds.
“Absolutely,” Brooke finally answered. She walked back to Peyton and threw an arm around her shoulder. “Baby Ellie is going to love it…you know, when she can appreciate it.”
Peyton chuckled and hugged her. They continued admiring the newly painted nursery.
“This is what I want.”
Peyton looked over at Brooke as she explained. “When Lucas and I have another baby, if it’s a girl, this is exactly the kind of room I want for her.”
“Then you know I’ll be happy to paint it for you…and her.”
“Thanks.” Brooke chuckled and hugged her best friend again.“It does, doesn’t it?” Peyton says, looking down at her best friend’s daughters after remembering that time with their mother.
“Good job, Mom.” Anna stands up, smiling at her mother.
“Thanks.” Peyton looks down at the border of the wall, at the same garden border as Ellie’s room, which Anna has been working on. She smiles proudly at the realization that the wall was not only beautiful, but also at the fact that Anna had once again proven she had inherited her mother’s artistic talent. “Yours is looking magnificent.”
“Thanks.”
“Hi, Jess!” Megyn says to her big sister when Jessilyn stops in the doorway of the room.
“Hi,” Jessilyn greets in return to the others’ greetings.
“Do you want to help Anna and I paint?” Peyton switches to a smaller paint brush. “We’re almost done, but it looks like Anna could still use some help finishing the border if you want to help.”
Staring at the walls, Jessilyn shakes her head and answers, “No…I have to go finish my homework.”
Peyton and Anna both watch curiously as Jessilyn turns and leaves the room. Anna looks up at her mother and says, “I’ll go see what’s up with her.”
“Okay.” Peyton smiles as she taps her daughter’s nose with her finger. She returns to her painting. Anna stuffs her hands in the pockets of her denim overalls and runs from the room, her short, blond, curly ponytails bouncing from the sides of her head, underneath her blue bandana on top of her head. She enters her best friend’s bedroom as she is turning on her pink and gray CD player on the nightstand next to her bed.
Anna walks over and plops down on the pink and red striped bedspread, seating herself next to Jessilyn. “Do you need help with your homework?”
“No, I just don’t want to help paint.”
“Oh…” Anna nods and looks away for a moment. She listens to the chorus of the song playing, a song she and Jessilyn refer to as their ‘theme song’ Sung by The Remembrandts, it’s a song from one of their favorite and funny television shows,
FRIENDS.
I’ll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour
I’ll be there for you
Like I’ve been there before…
“So how come you don’t want to help paint the room for your sister?”
“I just don’t want to.”
Anna waits for an explanation.
You’re still in bed at ten and work began at eight
You’ve burned your breakfast, so far things are going great…
“No, that’s not it,” Anna says, staring at her friend. “Come on, Jess…I’m your best friend. I’m here for you. You can tell me anything.”
Your mama warned you there’d be days like these
But she didn’t tell you when the world has brought you down to your knees, and…
“You haven’t wanted to help with anything to get ready for Gracie to come home. How come?”
Finally, Jessilyn looks at her and answers honestly. “Because I don’t want her to come home.”
I’ll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour…
“What?” Anna follows Jessilyn over to her desk. While Jess sits down at the desk, she plops down in the pink mushroom chair, sitting next to the door and the desk.
“What do you mean?”
I’ll be there for you
Like I’ve been there before…
“I don’t know how to explain it exactly. It’s just…it’s not fair that she’s coming home and my mom isn’t. I want my mom to be the one coming home today. I mean she was here first. She was here my whole life before that guy kidnapped her, and it should be her coming home, not a baby.”
“Yeah, but the baby is your sister.”
No one could ever know me No one could ever see me
Since you’re the only one who knows what it’s like to be me…
“It doesn’t feel like it.”
“Well, that’s ‘cause she hasn’t been home yet, Jess. You haven’t gotten to know her.”
“But it’s still different. Today is different. I don’t want another sister, I want my mom.”
Someone to face the day with
Make it through all the best with
Someone who always laughs at
Even when I’m at my worst, I’m best with you…
Anna nods. “I think I get it now. You don’t want Gracie to come home…”
“Unless my mom comes home too,” Jessilyn finishes.
Anna stands up and hugs her best friend close.
I’ll be there for you
When the rain starts to pour
I’ll be there for you
Like I’ve been there before
“It’s okay, Jess. Your mom is going to wake up soon and then you can feel better. You’ll have your mom home soon. But until then, you can have fun with your new baby sister. Hey, you can teach her to pick on the twins so they’re not always such pains. If you start teaching her early, she’ll be on your side when she gets older. It’s working for me…at least I think it is. Ellie sometimes gets on Ryan’s nerves.” She smiles as Jessilyn does too. “Who knows, maybe having Gracie home will make it feel like she’s your sister. And maybe time before your mom comes home will go by faster. It’ll be fun, right?”
I’ll be there for you
I’ll be there for you…
“Sure,” Jessilyn agrees, somewhat unconvincingly. But Anna hugs her again anyway.
I’l
l be there for you
‘Cause you’re there for me too.
“Hey girls.” Kelsey steps into the doorway of the bedroom. “Jess, your dad is pulling up in the driveway with Grace. Let’s go meet ‘em downstairs.”
Anna looks back at Jessilyn and asks, “Are you ready?”
Jessilyn glances at her aunt, still standing in the hall waiting for them. She looks back at Anna and answers. “I guess I have to be.”
“Okay.” Anna turns and passes Kelsey on her way out of the room.
Jessilyn walks slowly out of the room, meeting her aunt in the hallway.
“Are you okay, Jess?”
She nods. “Uh, huh.”
“You sure? You look a little sad.”
“I’m okay. We were just talking about mom.”
Kelsey nods and hugs her niece as she says, “It’s going to be okay, sweetie. She’ll be the next one coming home.
Jessilyn fakes another smile.
“Now, let’s go welcome that adorable sister of yours, shall we?”
OTHOTHOTHOTHTOHTOHTOHTOHTHTOHTOHTOTOHOTHTOHTOHTOHTO
It was a wonderful welcome home for Gracelyn, Lucas thought. Granted, she’d slept through most of the party, but that didn’t seem to bother anyone. They all had enjoyed watching her sleep and holding and playing with her when she was awake.
His mother was especially overjoyed in finally having her new granddaughter home and healthy. She was the first one to hold little Grace when he’d brought her inside. She’s even offered to take the baby from the others when she thought they looked to be getting tired. Yep. His mother had definitely hogged the baby today, but Lucas was not surprised, nor upset. She had done the very same thing with the twins and Jessilyn too.
As he tucks the twins into their beds after checking that they were asleep, Lucas thinks back on the day again. He smiles as he remembers watching them interact with Gracie earlier in the afternoon. He can hear their giggles again as they had played with her on the floor. Again, he saw the grins on their faces as Kelsey has taken a picture of them, sitting together on the couch, holding their baby sister for the very first time in the three months since she’d been born.
Lucas pulls the twins’ bedroom door closed after he leaves. As he stands across the hall from Jessilyn’s bedroom, he frowns as he tries to remember how she had been with Grace today. The more he thinks about it, the more he realizes she hadn’t been anything with her sister today. In fact, he remembers, it seems she had tried to avoid Grace as much as she could.
When everyone else marveled over Grace when he’d brought her inside, Jessilyn had been away from the group. Then, while Kelsey took the picture of the twins and Gracie, Lucas remembers he’d asked Jess if she wanted to hold the baby next. And she had smiled (which he now realizes was a fake one) and shook her head.
“Maybe later,” had been her reply.
In the excitement and happiness of watching the twins enjoy their new big sister status, Lucas hadn’t thought much of Jessilyn’s attitude and reaction to Grace’s homecoming. But now, as he stands in the hallway, staring at her door and thinking about it all again, he wonders, as well as worries about what her attitude might mean.
Slowly, he turns the knob of the white door and enters his daughter’s bedroom. The light from the hall pours into her dark bedroom. Lucas stops when he steps inside, surprised to see her sitting up awake in her bed when he’d been certain she was fast asleep just an hour ago.
“Hey,” he walks closer to her. “What are you doing awake?”
“I can’t sleep.”
Lucas sits down at the end of her bed. “Again? What’s on your mind, kiddo?”
Jessilyn stares at him with a sullen expression. “Mom.”
Staring back at her, Lucas sighs. Brooke has been on her mind every night lately too, making it difficult for her to get to sleep. His own thoughts and worries about Brooke have kept him from getting anymore than a few hours sleep on most nights for the past eight months (since she’d first been kidnapped). And he’s gotten used to the insomnia since her coma, but he doesn’t like that his daughter is beginning to face the insomnia too.
Ever since Brooke went into the coma, on and off for the past three months, Jessilyn has been waking up in the middle of the night, unable to sleep because of thoughts and dreams of her mother. And her insomnia has been occurring a lot more often the past month…and tonight is the third night this week she hasn’t been able to sleep/
“Your mom is going to be okay, Jess,” he says. “She is okay. She’s just…taking a long rest until she gets better.”
“No, she’s not, Dad. That’s what you told Ash and Megyn so they would understand and not be scared, but I can understand like a grown up. I’m not a baby anymore like they still are. I’m eight now, remember?”
Lucas nods. “Yes, I…definitely remember. But honey, this coma your mom is in isn’t going to last forever. It’s just a way for her body and mind to heal from the trauma and stress it went through. She is going to wake up.”
“But how do you know?”
Lucas stares at her more. It saddens him to see so much fear and sadness in those beautiful brown eyes of hers. It makes him want to cry too. He moves his hand and touches her cheek gently.
“Because I believe in her,” he whispers softly. “Just like she believed in me.”
He pauses, remembering his accident and the coma it left him in. And he decides to share his story, hoping maybe it will bring some relief, some hope to his little girl and in some way, to himself as well.
“When your mom and I were in high school, back in our junior year. I was involved in a pretty bad car accident with grandpa Keith. We were on our way to the airport to pick up your grandmother. She was finally coming home after spending six weeks at a cooking school in Italy and we were both really anxious to see her.
“But as Keith was turning the corner, another car or truck maybe, rammed into us on the passenger side.”
He watches as Jessilyn’s expression turns to fear, but interest as she listens.
“Grandpa Keith was okay with a few cuts and bruises, but I wasn’t so lucky. I had to have emergency surgery and the doctors had to remove my spleen—don’t worry, it’s okay…you can live without it. It’s like an appendix—and they had to reset my shoulder. I was in a coma afterwards.”
“For how long?”
“Just a couple of days. But, as strange as it sounds, I can remember your mom being with me while I was unconscious. In some unexplainable way, I could sense she was there with me, holding my hand and talking to me. And all I had to do was find my way back to her and just open my eyes. And that’s all your mom has to do now. She just has to open her eyes, and she will. We just have to believe in her and have a little faith.”
Tears forming in his eyes, Lucas moves a hand to his daughter’s thigh.
“Your mom is a fighter, Jess, and I know she’s not ready to let go, not now. She still has so much life left in her, and she wants to spend that life with her family. She wants to spend it with me and you and your sisters…her little girls. You know, you and your sisters are her whole world, Jess. You girls made her biggest dream come true.”
“We did?” Jess tilted her head in curiosity as tears roll off her cheeks. “How?”
“You came into her life. You’re her daughters, her little girls, the family she’s always wanted. You girls love her with all your hearts and that love is the love she’s dreamt of having her entire life.”
Finally, a smile appears on her face and Lucas smiles at that. Granted, her smile was a small one and lasted maybe a few seconds, but it was a smile nonetheless. He waits for her to speak, knowing from her expression there’s more she wants to say and that she’s not yet ready to try to sleep again.
“Dad?” She looks up at him. “When she does wake up, she’s going to remember us, isn’t she?”
Whoa, he thinks, staring at her again. Now that’s something he’s never even thought about until now. He’s never even considered the possibility that this coma might take away her memory.
Will Brooke remember them when she finally does wake up?The longer he dwells on that possibility, the more fear builds up in him. He can’t imagine her not…no, he can’t think about it anymore. But he can’t not think about it either.
Will Brooke remember her life with them?“Of course she will.” He answers with his biggest hope, and at the same time, his biggest fear. The hope being, of course, that Brooke will remember them. And the fear being, obviously, that she won’t.
Laying in bed a little while later, Lucas is still bothered by it. Thinking about it, Lucas realizes that this thought has been with him ever since that first month of her coma. But it’s just become a more realistic possibility now that someone else has thought about it too and has actually spoken about it.
But the question still is…will that possibility become a reality? Brooke will wake up, he has no doubt about that. But what worries him now is the realization that the longer she is asleep and away from her life, the harder it will be for her to remember anything when she wakes up