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You really think this will work?" Alfred asked, his sterile tone voice barely faltering into mockery.
Monika sigh, trying to ignore her husband's skepticism, and finished making the bed. She kissed him slighty, and he wrapped her with his arms.
"Blue sheets will help with boys my love. Don't you dream with a little Alfred running around this halls? A boy willing to steal his father's lab coats and reading anatomy books in hopes being just like him?" She sweetened her speech more and more as the words went by. Men were always more willing to listen if you disguise your demands as suggestions, her grandmother and mother had told her so.
"I'm quite content with the little Monika we already have. Besides, there's no way to be sure, but I have a feeling Aya will have a keen interest in medicine like I..."
Aya.
Monika was also content with her to be sure. Strong since the beginning, she managed to beat the odds, determined to be born like she had to, refusing to follow the same destiny as the three Drevis scions before her, lost too soon. Not born as a bloody sack of soft tissue in the toilet, or ill formed beyond repair, and best of all in Monika's eyes.
Not in silence.
The worst part of her first pregnancies's failures were, by far, the silence. The silence of her babies once out in the world. A silence that could envelop her home whole. The cold quiet of her ancestors, watching her from their portraits, with judging and dark blue eyes, witnessing her incapacity to be dutiful.
When Aya was born, she roared the instant she came out of the womb. A victory song. And Monika allowed herself to weep with joy, but not for long, for only Aya was half the puzzle. She needed a brother that would join her forever.
"I just don't want you to risk your health, or your sanity, more than what you already have." Alfred added, sitting on the bed. Monika smirked, sitting gracefully right beside him.
"My sweet, you must know by now how deep my resilience go. It won't kill us to try again."
"...certainly not my love."
Alfred had to swallow his skepticism months later, when they found out they were having a baby boy.
Monika had swallow her pride, when the their son was born dead, bringing with him dissapointment, wisps of his grandmother and sister's black hair, and the silence. At least he was beautiful.
"Maria... take him away, down the basement... his siblings would like the company." Said Monika, looking at her reflection in the vanity. Blue sheets wrapping her, covered with the red pool of her efforts.
Life's cruelest joke.
"Yes mistress. I'll have a new glass jar ready right away." She quietly took the baby in arms, a tear running down her cheek.
Alfred started having questions again.
"We are young and healthy... why are we having such issues with fertility?" That doubt had dissipated from his mind when Aya was born, but this last stillbirth brought it back. They started going to doctors again. The first times were out of necessity, and now, out of Alfred's ever lively curiosity. And everytime, none of them would have answers.
Until one of them started asking about Alfred's family, their history with fertility, or ilnesses. Everyone already knew Monika's family, after all, the Drevis clan was always well known and well regarded in the community, and all the senior medics and doctors would tell you they were always a fertile family, giving life to healthy, attractive, intelligent folks, so the problem was more likely Alfred.
Monika then insisted in stopping with this consultations, telling her husband that she reflected, and realized that Aya was enough of a blessing after all.
Perhaps she shouldn't have done that. Alfred knew she wasn't one to change her mind just like that.
More questions surfaced after that.