blondexhurricane:

teddyaltmcn:

Teddy  rocked   back  and  forth  on  the
hospital bed,  her gown hanging loosely
on her slight frame. It didn’t matter how
many times Delia asked — her answer
would always be the same.

                I want my baby. Give me back my baby.
                She’d lost a husband; she’d lost a child.
                And  somewhere  along  the way, she’d
                lost  h e r s e l f .

Her hand dropped from the door handle as she
turned to face the wall, needing a minute or two
to properly collect herself. The raw pain behind
Teddy’s desperate pleas was so palpable that it
sent chills shivering down her spine. Her words
hit harder than Delia was originally prepared for,
but she knew she couldn’t turn and walk out now.
No, she needed to stand by her mother’s side and
at least t r y to protect her from anymore suffering.

                “I’m not going anywhere.” Delia was barely able to keep
                her voice steady as she finally turned around, returning
                to her earlier spot next to Teddy’s bed. “You’re w r o n g
                about not having anything left to live for but me, though.
                I mean, what about Jake? It’s crazy how much he loves
                you. Even I can see it. And then there’s your career. Do
                you even realize how b r i l l i a n t of a surgeon you are?
                Need I remind you of how amazingly cool the whole heart
                in a box story is? That one n e v e r gets old. Should I go
                on, or are you starting to understand that there’s still a ton
               of things left for you to do with your life?”

Though she could hear her daughter’s  words,  they
all got  l o s t on the way to her heart;  she  couldn’t
bring  herself  to  believe them, no matter how hard
she  tried.  “How?  How,  Delia?   How   can   those
things even matter to me anymore? Everyone I’ve
ever loved has either died or left me, so what’s the
point  of anything else when I don’t even know how
to be happy?”

              In  this world, all alone, Teddy felt nothing more  than
              homeless. After all, if her home was where her  heart
              was, she obviously no longer had one.The things that
              had once mattered to her were now tainted  with  grief.
              The  hospital,  once  a  place of solace, would always
              be the place both her husband and her baby had died;
              that  house,  where  Henry  had once danced with her
              under  an ordinary moonlight, was now the place she
              fought off demons every night in a bed that was  f a r
              too big for just her. All of this — the fear, the pain,
              the lack of sleep — it made Teddy think that she
              just wasn’t meant to be happy.