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The room is dim, but not entirely dark, the blackout curtains pulled only partially shut. Moira pushes the door halfway open, peering in at Alexis, whose hair has been corralled into a slipshod bun on the crown of her head and whose body is enveloped by a housecoat that must belong to Theodore. Alexis is gazing down into the crib, and singing, in a much softer, sylphlike voice than she ever deigned to use when cantillating “A Little Bit Alexis.”
“You’re the lullaby,” she whisper-croons. “That’s singing me to sleep… you are the other half… you’re like a missing piece…”
Moira takes a step into the room, and Alexis turns quickly, sensing her arrival. She’s already got a finger pressed to her lips to ask for quiescence by the time her eyes land on Moira’s face.
“Mom,” she says, incontestably surprised, her voice carefully hushed. “What’re you - ” She sighs. “Is Ted telling the story about the hamster that needed its leg amputated? I told him that wasn’t good dinner conversation. Sorry, I thought she’d go down pretty quickly, but she was fussing - ”
“Relax, Alexis,” Moira cuts in smoothly, mindful to keep her voice low as well. “Theodore is being a perfectly charming host; he’s only told one pleasant story about a Dalmatian’s adoption.” She pauses, clasping her hands. “I merely came to see how you were getting on.”
Alexis attempts not to look startled, but she’s always had such an interpretable face. “Oh,” she breathes.
Moira crosses the nursery, its floor covered by a rug shaped like a turtle, and joins her daughter by the crib. The baby is asleep, the little onesie patterned with boats that she was wearing when she’d gurgled at Moira and John upon their arrival now covered by a dove gray sleep sack. The few wisps of hair on her head are so blonde they're almost diaphanous.
“Can you believe,” Moira asks, “that you were once so small, Alexis?”
Her daughter has a hand resting on the baby’s stomach, her thumb stroking lightly - a comforting gesture, though now that little Beatrice is asleep, Moira supposes that gentle touch is more for Alexis than it is for the infant: a silent, steady gesture of love.
“Ted says she looks like me,” Alexis murmurs.
“And he’s made a veridical assessment.” Moira places a hand delicately against the crib’s rail. “What a lucky girl,” she adds.
Alexis’ focus on the baby breaks, then, and she looks over at Moira, the skin at the corners of her eyes creasing as she smiles. They’ll need to have a tête-à-tête about Botox soon, but Moira knows this isn’t the moment. Alexis does not look her most glamorous - there’s the matter of the housecoat, and the mysterious stain on her shirt, not to mention the state of her pedicure - but she is still beautiful, a serene sort of contentment giving her skin a glow that not even the most expensive serum could bestow.
“I just hope she doesn’t inherit Dad’s eyebrows,” Alexis quips.
(John wept when Alexis told them they were going to be grandparents, a sudden heaving of his chest, a handkerchief hastily procured to dab at his eyes. Moira had hardly known what to say.
She felt too young to be a grandmother - and she certainly wasn’t going to be called Gram or Nanny; she eventually opted for Baka, the Bosnian term - and it seemed to her that Alexis was also too young, not yet old enough to be embarking on the abstruse journey of parenthood. But in truth, no matter how she felt, Alexis was in her thirties, and had come into her own, had built herself a comfortable life and a flourishing career, had married a man who looked at her like she hung the stars, and was going to have a child.
Ted, puffed with pride and with moisture in his ocular regions, gave John a hug that involved much hearty patting of shoulders, and Alexis met Moira’s eyes, nearly demure, and said, as tenderly as if she was divulging a cherished secret, “It’s a girl.”
This piece of news was, apparently, also fresh for David and Patrick, who’d displayed such composure in the face of Alexis’ initial announcement that they must have known antecedently. David was suddenly very engrossed in pressing his fingers against his lower lash lines and blinking up toward the ceiling, and sweet Patrick hugged him while also cheering quietly, like his preferred team had won some sort of athletic spectacle -
But Alexis just kept looking at Moira, so many unvoiced things in her aqua eyes.)
The baby’s eyebrows have yet to make much of an appearance, which Moira suspects bodes well. Beatrice is very small, in the midst of a crib large enough for her to grow into, but she holds every single ounce of Alexis’ attention.
Moira never did this during the first few months of Alexis’ existence. She didn’t watch her daughter slumber, feel her breathing with a soothing touch, bear witness to the pursing of her little rosebud mouth, the flicker of remarkably minuscule eyelashes. Babies were not her forte; she shone as a mother when Alexis was old enough to be interested in designer gowns, to make a brief attempt at an acting career.
And then Alexis signed her first modelling contract, all of eleven years old, and seemed to take charge of her own life, as though Moira’s work was done.
She has, at times, felt contrite, in passing, upon hearing one of her daughter’s tales about gallivanting the globe, hanging off the arms of men with wealth and power or being held at their compounds for ransom, depending on the day. But overall, she’s given very little thought to the hours of peaceful sleep she enjoyed when Alexis was small, or to the way Adelina was always there to swoop in when Alexis released an impressively boisterous, demanding wail.
Until now.
Until these last few weeks, since Beatrice’s arrival in the world, a scrunched pink face greeting Moira on the screen of her phone when she awoke one morning.
Until now, watching her daughter watch her daughter, and longing for something - for a memory like this to call her own, to share with Alexis, something that will tie them together, that will weave a thread through each of their lives, three generations of Rose women in the same small room.
She presses a hand to her throat, briefly, and says, “You’re doing a wonderful job, Alexis. To raise a child without the assistance of a cadre of domestic attendants is no small undertaking. But you’ve risen to the challenge. Dare I say… you’ve even surpassed it.”
Alexis smiles at her again, a breathless thing, almost disbelieving. “Thanks, Mom,” she whispers.
“Miss Beatrice Adaline is very fortunate to have you as her mother.”
Even in the fractionally shadowed room, Moira can see a multitude of emotions pass through her daughter’s eyes, which are weary but shining. Alexis’ voice sounds like it’s been strung tautly through her throat when she says, “You remembered her middle name.”
Moira removes her hand from the crib’s railing so she can loop her arm through Alexis’. Both of their centers of gravity shift, their bodies tilting together. “And I shan’t forget, my darling,” she promises.
There is a catch in Alexis’ breathing, the kind of sound that can only come from being positively overwhelmed. Moira does not shush her, only uses their linked arms to draw her daughter closer, and together, they watch Beatrice sleep.
fin.