An Unexpected Request

Chapter 38

Andy slowly opened her eyelids, and was greeted by Miranda's tender blue-green eyes, studying her intently.

"Hi..." The young woman stretched with languorous contentment and an adoring smile. "Have you been awake for long?"

Miranda smiled back, then reached over Andrea's face and brushed back a few strands of brown hair, which fell over her eyes.

"No, I just woke up."

Andy was feeling much better.

"I'm hungry," she said with a sly smile.

Miranda rolled her eyes, but turned around and grabbed her wristwatch from her bedside table.

"No wonder, we slept for almost three hours. It is already time for lunch."

"Wow! What are we going to eat? It's Carena's day off, and I confess that I don't feel like cooking anything else today-Miranda nodded in agreement-and since going out is out of the question, I think we'll have to order something."

"Do not worry about it," the editor sat up in bed and looked lovingly at Andrea. "Come on, let us change into comfortable clothes and go downstairs. Our girls must be hungry, too."

"Before we go," Andy pointed out, and Miranda paused to leave the bed, turning back to her, "I want to say thank you."

The older woman raised her eyebrows, and her hitherto tender face took on an icy expression.

"Thank me for what, for making your life hell?" Her tone came out hollow.

Andy shook her head. She sat up in bed and took Miranda's hands in hers, and looked at the older woman carefully."

"No. For letting me be a part of your life. Part of the girls' lives. For letting me be the other mother of our child..."

"Andrea-"

"No, Miranda. Stop it, please," Andy cut her off between firm and affectionate, and reinforced the request by giving the hands she held comforting squeezes. "I know you've been blaming yourself ever since this circus started. I know what you did to Lily...I know you, you took an opportunity...From the way Lily had been behaving, you knew the story would come out at some point. That I would finally connect the dots, or that she would burst out, and tell me everything. You were afraid this would happen later, at a more dangerous time for my pregnancy."

The older woman gave a defeated sigh and nodded weakly in confirmation of Andrea's theory.

"Of course I was hurt by this story, especially the way I found out about it," Andy confessed heavily. "But I understand your motives, Miranda. It was for my sake and our child's. Just like me, you want to protect our baby. My resentment is with Lily, and how things got to this point. Not with you. As for the rest, it got out of our control. When we started with this, we knew we would have to face more pressure from the press the moment they found out about the pregnancy. But this happened completely unexpectedly, along with the absurdity of the disclosure about the girls' disease."

"I know you blame yourself too for not being careful enough. But, Miranda, even you couldn't have foreseen that things would go so wrong...Please stop tormenting yourself. You've been wonderful to me and the girls. You even won my friends over," Andy flashed a proud smile. "And you've still been exceptional. Look how you've taken care of everything. For all that, I thank you."

Miranda's response was to take her in a tight hug.

* * * *

"Mom? Dad?" Andy could not believe her eyes, when she found them in the kitchen with Eliza, handling boxes of Chinese food. She ran to hug Laurie, then Richard. Andy turned to Miranda, smiling, her gaze thrilled. "But how?"