For a while, I watch the sky morph into an entirely new time of day. First it was a deep purple of the night that blankets you into its darkness, then it slowly shifts into a lighter shade of purple until it has become a gloomily light blue, the crack of dawn.
Days and nights were always the same to me. Neither even dared to indicate what I should do with my life anymore. The night never actually told me to go to sleep as the day time never really bid me to stay awake and be productive.
Maybe it was because I tried to remain awake for an entire twenty-four hours, not knowing when his call would come. He never remained in the same time zone for too long, so it was hard for me tell when he would call and what time it would be, so it was best if I remained awake forever.
My eyelids only start to close after the sun has fully revealed itself. I crawl back into my bed after sitting at the window for so long, my phone clutched in my hand. I'd even fallen asleep with it, in hopes of feeling the vibration.
-
It had only seemed like an hour later, but I wake abruptly, not wasting anytime to stretch, bat eyelashes, yawn, or attempt to rejuvenate in any way.
Immediately, I click my phone to awaken the screen incase I'd missed a call, but the screen remains black.
"Oh, no," I mentally moan, hopping up from the bed.
I rush downstairs for my charger that I'd left plugged in the living room wall, emerging into a breakfast smelling aroma. I peer around the brown couches to find that my charger is missing, and the sockets are covered with baby proof pieces.
"Maura," I poke my head into the kitchen. "Did you move my charger?" But it was then that I realize my deafness to the world without my hearing aids, that I had set down somewhere.
Niall's mom is standing over the stove, not quite turning to scold me about leaving the sockets uncovered, as her head lays on her shoulder, indicating that she's on the phone with someone. So I peer around her, in attempt to read her moving lips.
In a quick movement, she points her elbow towards the socket between the microwave and the blender that lays on the counter, and I see my charger in the wall. Maura's cellphone is plugged in, but I remove hers to plug mine in.
I groaned, as I know it will be a few minutes until it will turn on, but while I wait, I begin to search for my hearing aids.
When I turn, I catch sight of a child in a high chair with her hands against her ears, as if to ward off everything that makes noise while her eyes focus on her untouched food that lays on her table. This was my child.
I approach Rosemarie, trying to hold in laughter.
"Baby, can I have those?" I say, holding my hand out. I must have been really loud because she flinches and within a heartbeat, she rips her hands away from her ears, dropping my hearing aids into my hand.
She knew better not to play with them, but I also knew better not to set them down in her reach. I couldn't even be mad at her.
"You're so smart," I praise her for knowing what they were meant for.
When I can hear the world again, Rosemarie reaches for me, trying to get out of her seat. "You have to eat," I say, pulling up a seat in front of her. I aid her in cutting her pancakes into small pieces, and try feeding them to her.
"Mmmm," she clamps her mouth shut, turning her head away from me. When the pancake bit that I try to feed her touches her mouth, she splurges into a river of tears. When she opens her mouth to let out a cry, I put the pancake in her mouth. She digs it out of her mouth, screaming for dear life.
Lately, she's been the complete opposite of her father when it comes to food.
"All right, all right," I sigh, picking the child up in which she quickly stops crying, laying her hot head on my shoulder, hiccuping, her curly auburn afro tickling my neck.
"Yeah, that's Rosemarie," Maura says, flipping the new pancake that she has on the stove. She usually makes a gargantuan amount of food to send down the street to my dad and Sophia.
Then my eyes slightly go big, as I realize whom she might be on the phone with. It couldn't be my dad, because he doesn't wake up until noon, and I'd just seen him two days ago for him to be asking about his grandchild. "Is t-that him?" I whisper to her when she turns to look at me.
Maura nods and says "Yes," as though she's both confirming my question and answering something that he might have said over the phone to her.
When she laughs a heart warming laugh, I can hear a minuscule ring of laughter that comes from the phone that I know for a fact belongs to Niall.
For one moment, I'm overwhelmed, not knowing if I want to demand to know what they're laughing at, or if I want to snatch the housephone from her to talk to Niall.
"That's exactly how she's reacting. She's about to have some sort of nervous break down," And she laughs again, and he laughs again, making my heart pitter-patter in my chest.
"Let me hand you over, before she has an heart attack of some sort," Maura says, and I don't wait a moment to snatch the phone away. I even almost click the 'end call' button.
"Hello?" I say simultaneously as Rosemarie slides down off my hip, and leads me to the living room by my index finger.
"Rosaline," is all he says to make me short of breath.
"Niall," I say while smiling, imagining him smiling back at me. I stumble over a toy as Rosemarie leads me to the couch, when I'm in front of the couch, she pushes at my knees indicating that I am to sit down. "How long do you have before you have to go?" I ask. This was a question I asked him nearly every time that we got on the phone so I could mentally prepare myself of how many minutes I would be allowed to talk his ears off.
"I've got as long as you want, baby," Niall says, and I've come to know that that means that it's late at night and he's willing to stay up as long as I'd want him to. "How's Marie? Is she still rejecting food?"
With hearing aids, I could hear the birds at the end of the street chirping as I could also hear the frown in his voice so well. I watch as Rosemarie trots over to the television, clicking the glowing power button. Even though it pains me that she's growing weaker, I smile at how intelligent she is. She reminds me of when Sophia was smaller, except Soph talked everyone's ears off in which Marie doesn't talk at all like nearly every two year old does.
"No," I reassure Niall, "she's just eaten a whole pancake." Lies.
Two days ago, he made me promise that if she continued to reject food, I had to tell him, and he would drop everything to be back home, but I couldn't bring myself to sabotage his career. He would be back home in about two weeks more for their tour break, anyway.
I would just continue to feed Rosemarie rice milk until her doctor's appointment. It's not like she was completely starving.
Rosemarie's small hands tugged at me to pull her up into my lap. Immediately, she crawled into my lap as some cartoon movie appeared on the screen of the television.
"I know you better than you think, Rose. And I just heard her screaming..."
I sigh, "Please, don't just up and leave. Hang in there for thirteen days more. She has a doctor's appointment tomorrow!"
It's like I can read his mind from across the world, debating on whether it was worth it or not. I would rather him let Rosemarie and I down than millions of other people. The last thing millions of fans need is a three-man band. As it is, their struggling with the recent resignation from Zayn, so it's best if our handful was left aside.
Rosemarie snuggled up against my stomach in my lap as though she's going to sleep, her body very hot against my skin making me slightly sweat. She never sleeps with me anymore because sometimes she needs her inhaler in the middle of the night, and I never hear her wheezing so she sleeps with her grandma, Maura.
I caress her forehead as she stares up at me with blank blue eyes. Niall's eyes.
"I won't come home, only if you can assure that everything will be dandy between now and the thirteenth day."
Maura comes into the living room straightening up everything.
"Every thing will be fine between now and then, I promise," but how was I suppose to know that what I was promising was something that I was not in control of keeping?
"Okay," he mumbles through the phone, both groggily and exasperated. "I love you, Rosaline."
"I love--" then I notice Rosemarie staring up at me with the same blank eyes that she'd had for the last thirty seconds. Had she fallen asleep with her eyes open?
The phone slips through my grip and onto the floor in realization as I try sitting my child up, her body limp. "Rosemarie?!"
Maura's in front of me within a moment, crying out what has already appeared to me, "My God, she's not breathing!"
Her face was as pale blue as her eyes.
In the midst of the chaos of panic and anxiety, I could hear Niall's tiny voice calling my name from the distance.
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