If I Lie : Book 2

74. Is That You?

Eliza POV

Only she wasn't a baby, no she was a full-fledged girl, a teenager to be exact. "Mama are you just going to stand there?" the child asked. I was still in shock by the looks of her, my daughter was here and yet. . . Growing in my wife's womb. I just stood there, dumbfounded, completely statuesque until the child hurled herself at me in a hug. 

Instinctually I wrapped my arms around my daughter, sniffing her scalp-- The smell of purity, whipped cream, roses, and baby powder. I sighed in contentment. "My sweet, sweet girl this is all too much. H-How are you?" I ask. 

She nods into our embrace and I can feel her smile against my breast. "I should be asking you that, mama, you were shot. I'm fine, I missed you is all. I missed you and mom being happy together. Every day I get to eat corndogs here, if I want and never get fat!" It didn't occur to me that she would be able to look down on us and see what her mother and I were up to. I felt embarrassed for the first time in forever, that our daughter may have witnessed things she was not ready to see, much less by her own mothers. No things a child should have to see; The times Ashley and I were together, happy, we were often tangled into one another, naked or doing something that would question her morality. 

I laugh at her childlike personality. "I am much better now. God, you're more beautiful than I could imagine." I said, ignoring the previous fact. 

"Virginia covered my eyes at the parts she didn't want me to see, but I don't get what is so wrong!" She whined, pulling away from me and glaring at her sister. 

I laughed again. "Your sister is doing her job. Oh, come here again, I can't get enough of you. You're absolutely beautiful, my girl!" I said, pulling her in for another hug and kiss to the head. "Do you know how much I love you? How long I've waited for you? Watching you grow inside of your mother? It almost makes me grateful for dying."

I finally released the girl and let her stand on her own two feet next to her sister. She cries, tears welling up in her almond shaped eyes, they pour down her cheeks quickly. "Mama you can't say that, please don't say that!"

"Why, my little Sun?" I asked. 

"Because you're here now and we don't know if you're going to die or not?! You should be with mommy, she's going nuts without you. You shouldn't have did that, shouldn't have jumped in front of us."

I wanted to slap some sense into the child but I felt it cruel to do that to her upon not even knowing her for a full two minutes and yet, I knew my child. It was just there. "Nonsense! You would be here for the rest of your-- Well. . . Eternity and I can't have that. Your mother would be there-- Not to say she doesn't deserve all of the majesty this place is but think of everyone else, your brothers and sisters. I know it's a lot, asking you to leave this place but your mother needs you, everyone needs you and her and you see, if it means sacrificing myself for all that then I'd do it over and over again. 

I've done everything that I could on that planet, I've served my time. I've lived with myself and have committed too many atrocities and have still lived a happy life with your mother in those flailing moments to the point that dying is okay for me. I can retire knowing the rest of you will be safe."

"This isn't how I wanted it." She whimpered, wiping away the tears with her sleeve. 

I chuckled light-heartedly. "But it is the way,"

"It's the way," Virginia repeated, placing a comforting hand on her little sister's shoulder. We took her in another hug until her tears subsided. "She's only a few months old, she doesn't understand much, she only knows of happiness and innocence, until she saw you were shot, she couldn't take it. Even grandpa won't tell her how he died."