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Late into the night, Vittorio still couldn’t believe his eyes. They were his? His girls? His daughters? One of the little things yawned without opening her eyes. Her father backed up an inch, partly afraid that if he moved closer they would disappear, that he’d go back to not being a father, a deep pain he’d already suffered once. But Beatrice Charlotte and Eleanora Florence weren’t Cristofano. Their mother was not Cathalina. Their mother, Elizabeth, his future bride, had saved them all from the threat that had taken his first wife and their son.
And now, he had these two precious little girls in their two little wooden cradles lined in silk. Two little girls. His two little girls, A second chance at fatherhood. A second chance to do things right.
And he was scared out of his mind about all the mistakes he could make with them.
In reverence, he collapsed to his knees between the cradles, one hand on each to gently rock them. He glanced back and forth at his daughters, one dressed in blue, one in cream. His heart wept with a joy that soon leaked over into his eyes. Tears ran down his face. The more he tried to smile, the more the tears came. He took deep breaths and bit his lips together to keep himself quiet to let the three loves of his life sleep.
Elizabeth, his Elizabeth, had made him a father again, and he didn’t know what he could have done to deserve it, to have deserved this. She’d given him the greatest gifts anyone could have. She’d given him herself, and she’d given him their daughters. He glanced over his shoulder at her sleeping form on the bed. The labor had been long and difficult, but she’d made it through. He got up from the floor and went to her bed to sit beside her. She was still so pale. No matter how much the midwife tried to convince him that she’d be all right, he was still nauseated with a gut-wrenching fear that something could happen to her. He brushed a little of her strawberry blonde hair off of her face and kissed her head. It was warm, but a comforting warm. She was still there with him, still there with him and their two baby girls.
One of them fussed. He nearly tripped over himself getting back to the baby. Which one was this? Beatrice? Eleanora? What kind of father was he to not know? Oh! Beatrice! Beatrice was in blue. He lifted her from her cradle, careful to hold her head, careful to pull his daughter in his arms where she’d be safe and sound and he could. He still couldn’t believe what he saw even as he felt her light weight against his forearm and her fine blonde hair under his palm. Surely she’d be some shade of her mother. When she yawned a big yawn and opened and closed her mouth and stared up at him with her big, slightly-crossed dark blue eyes, he laughed to himself, gave her his knuckle to suckle on with her south baby gum, and lowered his faces to hers making sure she could see him. How he’d missed that sweet baby scent….
“Mia figlia,” he crooned to his tiny child, “è tuo papà.” He wanted to tell her he loved her as well, but his mouth couldn’t form the words. His chin quivered too much. For just a moment, she was his son, his little Cristofano taken from him too soon by the same monster who’d taken his mother and had almost taken his Elizabeth. His heart skipped a beat. The monster was gone, but the memory of him was a boogeyman who’d haunt his growing family forever.
Unable to let go just yet, he brushed a thumb one of Beatrice’s eyebrows and carried her back to the bed with him. When he sat, Elizabeth’s eyelashes fluttered open and she stretched her arms overhead. She watched him with a small smile on her angelic face while she struggled to sit.
“Elizabeth, shh, lay back down,” he said, “you need rest.”
But she continued pushing herself up. “I’m fine, silly man. Don’t you worry.” She licked her lips as if she wanted to say more but shook her head and scooted closer to him, worming her way under his arm. She leaned into his solid, warm mass and nearly touched their baby’s cheek, but stopped short lest she wake their daughter. “Is this what it’s like? To love more than you ever thought you could, and to worry as much?”
“Wait until they start crawling,” he chuckled. “ When your son-“ He froze. “When your…when your child…” He squeezed his eyes closed.
Elizabeth pulled his head down to kiss his cheek, and when he opened his dark eyes, she stared into them with patience and love. “They can’t replace Cristofano, and I’m sorry.”
He gazed at her, half lost in his own thoughts. “I would never have expected to be in a place where I can’t fully wish to undo the past.” When Elizabeth’s eyebrows knit together, he dropped a quick kiss to her forehead. “If I had Cristofano back, I wouldn’t have these girls, or you. I could wish I could undo what happened, that would be like wishing you and our daughters away, and I…I can’t do that now. He’d be eight years old, and if he came back to me, I wouldn’t know him, but I know you, and we have our daughters.”
Elizabeth nodded, understanding. There would be no way to have both, and only a sense of decision, of conflict. Eleanora let out a soft cry. Elizabeth tried to stand, but her weak legs wouldn’t let her, not yet. Vittorio held Beatrice tighter and threw out an arm to grab Elizabeth before she could fall to the ground. She stared toward the whimpering baby with despair. “She needs me.”
“I’ll take care of her. Come. Lay back down.” Vittorio said, coaxing Elizabeth back into the middle of her bed and tucked the sleeping Beatrice in her mother’s arms. He went to the cradle and lifted the second daughter who had come into the world. As soon as he did, his tiny Eleanora fell back to asleep as if she knew she was safe and sound when her daddy held her. He rocked her as he carried her to go sit next to her mother and her sister.
For the first time, the four of them had a chance to be together. Vittorio bit his lips together again, fighting back tears. Tears of joy. Tears of sorrow. Bittersweet,
“Fai la ninna, fai la nanna, con'sto fialio…” He struggled to whisper the words to the old lullaby that his mother had sung to him when he was a young child, but he choked up and couldn’t continue.
“Fai…la.. What was that?” Elizabeth nuzzled her head against his shoulder. “Would you teach me that song?” She smiled up at him, growing exhaustion apparent on her soft face.
“Another night, mia principessa. Tonight, you need to sleep, and so do our girls need to sleep. I just can’t believe…” He smiled and laughed. “I never deserved you.”
“Don’t say that,” she sighed. “If you didn’t deserve me, then I didn’t deserve you, and if we didn’t deserve each other, then we couldn’t have created these girls.” Without warning, she burst into tears. “I’m so scared, Vittorio! What if I mess up? What if I do everything wrong? I don’t know what I’m doing. I was out of my mind to think I could do this when I’ve never held baby before. I don’t know anything about any of this. How did you pin their nappies, or dress them without breaking them? I’ll break them, and then…” Fear broke her heart.
Vittorio adjusted his hold on Eleanora, and cuddled Elizabeth. “Put your trust in me,” he murmured close to her ear. “We can do this together. I didn’t think I could the first time either, but…” He pressed his lips to her temple. “I miss him. I’m sorry. I wouldn’t give you and the girls up for anything, but I still miss what I had.”
“I know, darling. You’ll always miss him and his mother.” Elizabeth sniffled, momentarily insecure about her place. A widower didn’t become single against by choice. Vittorio would still be married and loving another. A bittersweet thought to her even though she knew he loved her just as much and would never let go of her until death parted them. “But Francesco’s gone now. What happened before won’t happen again. No more good-byes.”
“I don’t think the fear ever goes away.”
“No, it probably won’t, but there’s a better chance we’ll grow old old together and that they’ll grow into happy, healthy adults. At least, as long as I don’t mess up too much.”
“Trust your heart, Elizabeth.”
“I always have, ever since it told me I loved you.”
He brushed a small kiss to her lips and another to the tip of her nose. “I’ll always mourn what could have been, yet I’m thankful for this new beginning. Grazie, mia principessa. Ti amo, con tutto il mio cuore.”
“Ti amo,” she whispered back, “with all my heart too.” She she leaned against him, exhaustion overtaking her.
Vittorio wrapped an arm a little further around her to help support Beatrice be secure in her mother’s arms as Eleanor was secure with her father. He held his wife-to-be and their daughters and swallowed hard, his heart fuller than it had ever been.
“Fai la ninna, fai la nanna
Con'sto fialio non c'è più pace
Fai la ninna, fai la nanna
Pupo bello della mamma
Ninna oh, ninna oh…”