Rose Garden [book two]

Chapter Three

It felt like the most depressing thing in life, watching her own body fight against itself.

She lays on my chest, her ear against my heart. One of her tiny hand latches onto the necklace that Niall gave me before she was born. My hand is pressed to her bare back that is exposed from the back of her hospital gown. Rosemarie's other hand is in front of her face, pressed to my chest, her thumb in her mouth.

Watching her, I slowly start to become nauseated and unconscious. Either from my lack of sleep and crying so much or from watching the small IV needle that is entered in on top of her hand rather than her forearm.

"I love you," I mumble, kissing her beautiful curly afro that would no longer be. Her usual pink and blushing cheeks would now be pale and purple.

She doesn't deserve this.

I listen to her short breaths, unsure which would be the last. The monitor on the left reveals the rate of her slow heartbeat. The fact that her little quivering heart had once stopped beating as she laid in my arms tears me apart.

As my eyes close, I force myself to think of a healthy Rosemarie running through a field of flowers.

-

Rosemarie stretches her little limbs, yawning against my skin, waking me.

"Good morning, beautiful," I yawn a raspy yawn contagiously, combing her curls from her forehead. I didn't know what time of day it really was, considering I had gone to sleep in the very late hours of the day after convincing everyone to go home, but it was light out, the start of a new day and that was all that mattered.

My back was aching from sleeping in the small hospital bed that was required for children. My throat stung as dehydration set in.

She starts to tug at the tiny tube taped to the side of her face, inserted through one nostril.

"No," I say, "don't do that." But Rosemarie starts to whine. It surprises that the needle in her hand doesn't bother her as much as the tube in her nose does.

"It's tickling her," a voice from my right side startles me, making Rosemarie immediately stop tugging. "Oxygen is being provided from that tube."

His dyed blonde hair is flat on his head, but the length doesn't touch his eyes like it did when I last saw him. He's wearing a pair of black sweats with a plain white wrinkled t-shirt. His blue eyes tell me that he's sleep deprived. On his hip, a green badge is pinned that says he is a visitor.

"Niall!" I say.

I wasn't sure whether to smile and be happy at the beautiful sight of him, or if I should dive into his arms and cry at the news.

Before I can reach out for him, Rosemarie has beaten me to it, reaching out for her father. When he's scooped her up and into his arms, I jump out of the bed to welcome him too.

Rosemarie giggles, hugging him around the neck and I don't waste time to throw my arms around his midsection and Rosemarie's legs.

I can hear Rosemarie's pulse increase as she wraps her other arm around my neck, hugging as a unit. A family.

The warmth and comfort of his body told me that we were home in his arms. Safe and reunited.

In the background I hear a long beeping noise, but ignore it. "My two beautiful Roses," Niall says with a chuckle, and just as I began to tell him that I love him and how we missed him a lot, a doctor and two nurses rush in.

"Oh," says the nurse wearing green scrubs with cartoon alligators or crocodiles all over them. Either way, I could never tell the difference. "We thought..."