“You called yesterday, remember.”

“Right.”

“So, when do you want me over?”

“How about 10:30?”

“10:30. Sounds good.”

“See, you then.”

“See you then,” he hung up. I would have to hang up first next time.

I went and got in the shower. I turned on the steam on shampooed my hair. Strawberry, my favorite shampoo. Mixed with the hot water and the steam it was extremely calming. I slid down to the floor of the huge steam shower and put my head in my hands. God, what am I going to do. My baby girl was dying. She was going to be taken away from me. I was going to lose her. I gasped in pain as these thoughts assaulted me, and the tears ran down my cheeks. No. She was going to get better. She had to get better. I couldn’t lose her, I just, I couldn’t. She was my baby, my angel. She’d grown inside of me, I’d given birth to her, I’d raised her, watched her learn how to sit up and crawl and walk and talk. My baby meant the world to me. I’d die for my baby. Why couldn’t I be the sick one, and she the healthy one? Why did she have to suffer? She hadn’t done anything wrong! She was an innocent little girl! How was it fair?! I started sobbing then. I turned the water off and got out, knowing Edward would be here soon. I got dressed, comfy but cute.

I checked on the girls, Antoinette was standing in her crib. I knew it was only a matter of time until she was walking, for now she had to crawl. “Come here, baby,” I picked her up and she smiled at me. I couldn’t help but smile back. We walked into the kitchen her muttering nonsense baby words the whole time. Although she couldn’t yet talk she was more advanced in her speaking than Aurora was at her age. I had asked her pediatrician about and she had just said she was really smart. I put her in her high chair that was sitting next to the granite counter top. I pulled out a bowl and started on the waffle batter, which I got from my mother, who got it from her mother, and so on. It was special because it was specifically waffle batter. I tried making pancakes with it once like you would with normal batter and it tasted like crap. That’s when I realized that waffles must be in our genes, my mom and I call it the waffle gene. I heard Rora get up right as I pulled the waffles out of the waffle maker, this was new, not antique. I’d discovered modern waffle makers were just easier, from an…incident…and new ones were just better. Rora walked in looking so exhausted it startled me, I almost dropped the plate I was holding. I hid the emotion on my face as she looked up at me, I didn’t want her to know how hopeless I was.