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Once, Sarah had a Mama.
Sarah was young when her mother died, and she barely remembers her. What she does remember are more flashes than true memories—Mama’s long fingers on the piano, banging out God Save the King; the sound of her laughter in the nursery; her tea and roses scent so similar to Morgan’s. She knows from the portraits she’s seen that Mama was beautiful, and she knows that Father must have loved her very much because his scent goes sad every time he looks at her portrait.
She doesn’t much remember her father from the time before Mama died either, but she thinks sometimes that he must have been like this—because now, Sarah has a Papa, and Papa is able to draw smiles and laughter from Father when he’d never done so before. Father joins them in the gardens during their lessons, even though Papa isn’t the one teaching them anymore. He sits quietly with Sarah in the early mornings while they sketch the mist in the forest and compliments her when they show each other their drawings once they’re finished. It’s worlds away from what he was like when he was grieving, before Mr. Carbonell came, and she hopes they never go back to that.
Sarah adores her new Papa, not just for bringing light and laughter back to the castle and for restoring their father to her and her siblings, but for helping her find herself too. It had been so hard to see herself as talented as her siblings before he came, too downtrodden after years of being told she wasn’t as smart as them to believe she had any worth of her own. But then Papa had come and—well, he’d never told her precisely that she had worth, but he’d shown her, and that had made all the difference. She doesn’t know that she would have ever believed him if he’d simply told her.
“What are you up to, Sarah dear?” the very object of her thoughts says before dropping down onto the bench beside her.
“Hello, Papa,” Sarah says softly, shyly smiling at him. It’s so nice to get to call him that. They had dreamed when they’d met Mr. Carbonell that he would be the one, but it had never been a truly serious hope. The reality is so much better than the dream though, because she can wrap her arms around Mr. Carbonell now and know that he’ll hug her back unflinchingly.
“Well, this is nice,” Papa laughs, and Sarah nods into his sleeve.
After a moment, Sarah pulls away and pulls out her sketchbook. “I was trying to draw Miss Natasha, but it isn’t very good.”
Papa glances out the window where they can see Harley and Miss Natasha practicing his footwork. Harley doesn’t look very good at it to Sarah’s unpracticed eye, but Miss Natasha sings his praises every night at dinner, so he must be doing something right.
“Your brother’s going to get himself stabbed if he keeps holding his grip like that,” Papa remarks idly. Not long after, Miss Natasha must say something similar to Harley because he corrects his grip, making his motions seem much more fluid. Satisfied, Papa nods and turns his attention to Sarah’s sketch.
He laughs, and Sarah almost flinches before she realizes it isn’t meanspirited at all. “This is amazing!” he exclaims delightedly.
“You don’t need to lie,” Sarah says crossly, taking her sketchbook back. “I know her nose is all wrong.”
Papa winks at her. “That’s what makes it so amazing. You know what you should do? I think you should go take it to Miss Natasha and tell her your father drew it.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because it’s been far too quiet in this castle lately, and I think it’d be very amusing to see her chasing your father through the halls, threatening his manhood.”
It does sound funny, and Sarah, while quieter than any of her other siblings, is just as devious as them.
“You can always ask her later to sit for a portrait so you can work on her profile,” Papa adds. “I’m sure she’d be honored.”
Well, that settles it. Sarah scribbles her father’s signature, learned after years of seeing it on official proclamations, at the bottom of the page where he normally signs his sketches and rips the sketch out of the book. She stands, calculating the fastest way down to the training yard. Papa stands as well, though it takes her a second longer, placing a hand to her back as she breathes out.
“Are you okay?” Sarah asks curiously. Papa is young still, and Sarah’s never known him to act so pained. Now that she’s thinking about it, she thinks his dress might be fitting a little tighter than usual too, though she has no idea what might be causing that. It isn’t as though Papa eats very much.
“I’m fine, Sarah dear,” Papa says, smiling at her. “Just a little tired. Your father keeps me busy. Why don’t you go on down to the training yard? I’m sure Harley would be more than delighted to help you with your plan.”
Sarah turns to go, but—“You’re not coming with me?”
“Oh no, I much prefer to watch the aftermath. Besides, I have the strangest desire for anchovies and pickles. I think I’ll go see if I can bribe the cook to give me some.”
Sarah wrinkles her nose at the very thought. “Bye,” she says quickly and darts away, half-worried that if she stays any longer, Papa will offer her some of his gross snack.
The thing is, Sarah isn’t an idiot, not like how people used to think she was. She might not understand arithmetic or science the way her brothers and sister do, but she understands literature and art much better than any of them ever will. She knows people too, like how she knows that Mister Barton is sweet on Mister James and that the girl who turns down the blankets at night is afraid of one of the gardeners (she told Miss Natasha about that one and now the servant girl isn’t so scared anymore).
Sarah knows people, which is how she knows that something is going on with Father and Papa. She just doesn’t know what.
Father’s always been gentle with Papa, ever since they got married, but there’s something different about it now, something in the careful way he helps Papa into his seat like the omega is something fragile. There’s something about the way she overheard one of the seamstresses talking to Papa about how he’ll need to let out the waistline of his dresses. There’s something about how almost every time she sees Papa that isn’t at a meal or bedtime, it’s when he’s coming out of the physician’s quarters. There’s something about how his scent is softer these days, milkier than it used to be.
She feels like there’s a puzzle to be solved here and she has all the pieces in her hand but one—the one crucial piece that’ll make all the others fit together and make sense. She wants to ask, but for so much of her childhood, she wasn’t encouraged to ask questions. Even now, after Papa’s been with them for so long, it’s hard to know if she can speak up or if he’ll get angry with her.
But then there’s a morning when she’s sitting down to breakfast, watching her parents from under her eyelashes. Papa looks tired this morning, deep shadows under his eyes, and Father looks worried. He keeps asking if Papa would rather have the cooks prepare something different or if he’d like to go back upstairs to get some more sleep or if he needs to go see Doctor Banner. There’s something here, she just knows it, something that would help her solve this puzzle, if only she could see it.
It isn’t until Papa rests a hand over his stomach that she gets all of the puzzle pieces and even then it’s only because Harley’s eyes go wide as he exclaims, “You’re having a baby?”
There’s a stunned silence from the head of the table and then Papa laughs. “We should have known better than to try to keep it a secret. Remember when Peter figured out we were getting married before you’d even asked me?” he says.
Father shakes his head ruefully. “We were going to keep it quiet a little longer, but yes, you’re getting another sibling.”
Peter shrieks gleefully, darting up from his spot and to Papa’s side. He rests his own hand on top of Papa’s, babbling about babies and what he remembers from Mama’s pregnancy with Morgan, being too young to remember what it was like before Sarah was born. “Can I touch your stomach? Is the baby kicking? Can I feel him kick?”
“Her,” Father corrects him, looking away from Harley, who’s been shaking his hand for the last two minutes, stammering congratulations over and over again. “We think it’ll be a girl.”
“A sister!” Morgan yells excitedly. Now she’s scrambling around the table too, climbing into Papa’s lap. She rests her head against his shoulder. “Can we name her?”
“Absolutely not,” Father says firmly. “You’ll call her Chipmunk or something equally ridiculous.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Papa says slyly. “I think Chipmunk might work rather well.”
Father gives him a besotted look, but still insists, “She’ll have a good Christian name as has been tradition in my family for the last four hundred years.”
“And what if I want to name her something else?”
Before Father can respond, Morgan asks, “If we’re getting a sister, can I get a puppy too?”
“Well, Miss Morgan, I don’t think that’s biologically possible, but we’ll think about it,” Papa says, tapping her nose.
It takes Sarah a moment to realize that Father is looking at her. She offers a weak smile, which seems to appease him, but he still asks, “Isn’t it wonderful?”
“Yes,” she echoes, feeling colder than she has in a long time. “Wonderful.”
It isn’t wonderful.
It’s terrible, and Sarah wishes she could explain why it’s so terrible, but she can’t even explain it to herself. It’s like there’s a pit in her stomach and it yawns open wider when she overhears Morgan asking if Father and Papa have decided on a name yet or when she walks by the old nursery where she and her siblings grew up until Papa and Father got married and sees the staff putting together things the new baby will need or when she spots Miss Potts knitting a tiny yellow blanket. And she knows that she should be excited, just like her siblings and the rest of the household are, but she isn’t, and she doesn’t even know why, except—
Except—
Sarah is ten years old and she has been the forgotten sibling for most of her life. She knows it can be easy to overlook her. She isn’t loud like Harley is, or brilliant like Peter, or the only omega like Morgan; she’s just Sarah—quiet and thought dull and easy to miss. Most of their past tutors and nannies liked her the least out of her brothers and sisters, all the way up until Papa, who loved her just as much as the others. Even their newest tutor, Miss Sersi, didn’t quite know what to do with her until Papa took her aside and explained how Sarah was different than their siblings. And she’s never begrudged her siblings that! She knows that they’ve all had their own private problems to work through.
But—but she just—she feels like she’s being—left behind somehow. Like everyone is so excited for the new baby and she’s still trying to get used to the idea of such casual affection being shown to her. She doesn’t want to lose that, and she knows she will. Sure, Father and Papa love her now, but what about when the baby comes and they get to have something that’s all their own? Part of the reason Father couldn’t bear to look at Morgan for so long was because she reminded him so much of Mama. What will happen when he has a new child that’s all his and Papa’s and the only reminders of Mama are Sarah and her siblings? Will he stop loving them again?
She doesn’t know if she can handle being all alone again with only her siblings and a few of the other adults in the castle to lean on. She doesn’t know if she can handle losing Papa and her father again. She doesn’t know if—
“Sarah?”
She jerks, her pencil tearing a hole through the paper. “Yes, Papa?” she asks automatically, not sure what he was asking but certain that he’ll tell her again. Papa has never minded when she needed him to repeat things.
“I was asking about your thoughts on the baby’s name,” he says, frowning a little. “Are you feeling okay? You’ve been very quiet these last few months.”
“I’m fine,” she lies. She doesn’t want Father to know how she’s feeling, and she knows perfectly well that whatever she tells Papa will eventually end up in Father’s ears as well.
“You know you can talk to me or your father about whatever’s bothering you, right?”
“I know.”
Papa still looks doubtful, but he nods and continues, “We were thinking about calling her Gwendolyn Maria. What do you think?”
“It’s your baby,” Sarah points out, unable to stop herself. “What does my opinion matter?”
Papa looks taken aback, but only for a moment before his expression turns shrewd. Sarah glances away, feeling as though she may have revealed more than she wanted to. “It’s your sister,” he tells her. “We’d hoped to get yours—all four of you—opinions on her.”
“Really?” Sarah asks, surprised. She can’t remember being asked about her opinion on Morgan’s name.
Papa nods. “We thought it would be nice, like it might help the four of you feel like we’re not leaving you behind. I know Peter’s been worried we might.” There’s something in the way that he looks at her that makes her think she hasn’t been as discreet in her feelings as she thought. She averts her gaze, turning this new revelation over in her mind. She isn’t alone. Peter was worried too, and if Peter has been worried, then—then maybe Harley and Morgan have been too.
She isn’t alone.
“Um, I think Gwendolyn Maria sounds nice,” she offers. Papa beams at her.
“See, I knew coming to you first was a good idea.”
Surprised, she smiles shyly back at him.
It’s an easy pregnancy—as far as Sarah knows, since she’s only seen a few—right up until it isn’t.
She wakes one morning to the castle in an uproar. All anyone will tell her—if they bother to tell her at all; most of the staff are far too busy to talk to her—is that Papa fell earlier that morning. She doesn’t really understand what it means until she and her siblings are finally allowed into Father and Papa’s room and find Dr. Banner hovering over Papa, saying worriedly, “I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the baby, but we’ll have to see.”
“The baby might die?” Morgan shouts, rushing forward. Father catches her around the middle, stopping her from jumping on the bed.
“I—” Dr. Banner stops, wringing his hands as he looks at Papa and Father.
“It’s possible,” Papa says calmly, but his eyes betray how worried he is. Father makes a distressed noise, causing Papa to look up at him with a stern expression. “I don’t want to lie to them and say everything is alright when it might not be.”
“I want you to stay on bedrest for the rest of your pregnancy,” Dr. Banner orders.
“Bedrest?” Papa exclaims. “That’s two months! No, I can’t stay still that long!”
“You can or you risk losing the child,” Dr. Banner says sternly, peering over his glasses at Papa. “I’ll be calling in one of the midwives from the city as well. I’m not familiar with pregnancies.”
“We understand,” Father says. “I’ll make sure he stays in bed. Thank you, Dr. Banner.”
Dr. Banner bows and allows himself to be escorted to the door by Father, who leaves with him, both talking in a low undertone. As soon as they’re gone, Harley, Peter, and Morgan crowd around Papa. Harley’s offering to fetch some of the books from the library both so that Papa has something to read when he’s on his own and so that they can read something to him when they’re visiting. Peter is listing off plans for a few inventions that he think will help make Papa’s bedrest easier—it all goes over Sarah’s head, but Papa seems to understand if his fond smile is anything to go off of. As for Morgan, she’s already climbed up on to the bed like she’d obviously wanted to do earlier and curled into Papa’s side. She isn’t saying anything, just resting her hand on Papa’s large belly, but it’s clear that her presence is helping Papa relax as he sinks back into the pillows.
Sarah doesn’t go anywhere near the bed, her feet rooted to the floor as her mind spins. She won’t deny to herself that she’d half-wished that the baby would never come so she would never have to see her parents drift away from her, but she hadn’t wanted this. She hadn’t realized that she wanted to know what the new baby would be like, if it would be another artist like Sarah or a chemist like Harley, Peter, and Morgan, until that possibility was nearly snatched from her. And now that she can see the worry in Papa’s eyes, the fear lining Father’s face, and the sheer terror in all three of her siblings, she feels nothing but guilty.
Papa glances over at her, eyes narrowing shrewdly. “Alright, kids, time to go,” he says abruptly. “Go find Miss Natasha and bother her for a while. I want to talk to Sarah without any of you listening in.”
He waits until their footsteps have faded down the hall before he opens his arms up to Sarah and says, “Come here, Sarah dear.”
And she can’t hide how miserable and confused she is anymore, doesn’t even want to. Sarah bursts into tears, nearly running across the room in her haste to crawl onto the bed and tuck herself into Papa’s side.
“This whole affair’s been somewhat rough on you, hasn’t it?” Papa asks, and he sounds so understanding that Sarah can’t help but nod.
“I don’t want to be forgotten,” she admits, still half-ashamed of how she’s been feeling.
Papa hums thoughtfully. “I see.” He’s quiet for a while, long enough that Sarah checks what he’s doing. He just looks like he’s thinking, rather than judging, and she settles back down.
“I’m excited for the baby,” he says eventually. “Your father and I are opening a new chapter in our lives, one that I’ve been looking forward to since we wed. And I’m excited to share that with you. But I don’t want you to think that we will ever love you less, because even though this baby is mine, even though they may be the greatest artist in the world or remarkably empathetic or so sweet they give me a toothache, there will never be another Sarah Rogers. And since they will never be able to be Sarah Rogers, I will never be able to love them the way I love you, just like I can’t love you the way I love Harley or Peter or Morgan.”
It’s everything that Sarah wanted to hear, everything that she needed to hear. It’s reassurance and a promise rolled into one neat little speech. She lets out another sob, burying it in Papa’s shoulder. He croons wordlessly and strokes her hair, pressing his lips to the top of her head.
“I’m sorry it took me so long to realize how you were feeling,” he murmurs, kissing her again.
“It’s okay,” she says. She doesn’t want Papa to feel bad when she can tell he’s been worried about her. “I should have said something before this.”
Papa hums again. “We’ll have to work on being better, won’t we? You on telling me when you’re not happy with something, and me on realizing when you’re not okay.” He leans over to the nightstand and plucks a book off of it. “Now, what do you say we read one of Mister Dickens’ works? I believe Miss Sersi said you were working on Oliver Twist?”
Sarah nods and shimmies down the bed so she can rest her head next to Papa’s stomach—not on, not when Dr. Banner is so concerned about the baby, but next to should be okay. “I like that one.”
“I like that one too,” Papa agrees, opening the book. “Which chapter are you on?”
“Twelve.”
“Ah. Here we are, then. ’The coach rattled away, over nearly the same ground as that which Oliver had traversed when he first entered London in company with the Dodger; and, turning a different way when it reached the Angel at Islington, stopped at length before a neat house, in a quiet shady street near Pentonville.’”
Sarah has heard people say before that they didn’t fall in love with a baby until the first time they held one. Maria, the cook, has two children and she’s always said that she wasn’t sure about having them until the first time she looked into her little James’ eyes. Sarah’s heard these things before, but she had never fully understood them until Papa lays baby Gwendolyn in her arms after Dr. Banner lets her and her siblings into Father and Papa’s rooms.
“This is your new sister,” Papa says softly, sweat-soaked and exhausted. Father is proudly beaming at him and the baby alternately, his head practically on a swivel. She doesn’t remember much about Morgan’s birth, but she likes to imagine that Father must have looked like this back then too. Maybe he’d even looked like this when Sarah herself was born.
“What’d you decide to call her?” Harley asks.
“Gwendolyn,” Father announces, his words fading to the background as Sarah stares down at the baby in her arms.
Gwendolyn has Father’s eyes, she realizes—Sarah’s eyes. Every single one of her siblings, Harley, Peter, and Morgan, have their mother’s brown eyes, leaving Sarah as the only one with blue eyes—and now Gwendolyn too. It’s a nice feeling, one that makes her feel not quite so alone, and it effuses to a warm glow spreading throughout her.
She’s not alone, just like Papa promised her she wouldn’t be.
“She’s perfect,” she says, sniffing just a little.
Father leans over to take Gwendolyn from her arms. For a moment, Sarah wants to hold on tighter and continue to hold the baby forever, but it wouldn’t be fair to the others, so she lets go. Papa holds an arm out to her though, and Sarah goes, tucking herself up against him.
“How are you doing, Sarah dear?” Papa asks her, low enough that the others won’t hear, not that they would over Morgan’s rapturous exclamations.
“I’m okay,” she promises, and it’s true. “I love her.”