The Meeting

The Meeting, Again

Amanda POV

I waved Leah and Alex off from the doorstep, closing the door and peering through the glass in the window to watch the taillights of Leah's car make their way into the distance. Please let everything go well for them I thought to myself. I always thought that the person Leah would end up with would always have to work for my approval, no matter how many years of happiness they brought her; Alex was different though. Alex had so many parts to her personality; the funny side, the loving side, the caring side, the stubborn side, the vulnerable side, but every single part of her as a person had one thing in common - her love for Leah. Watching the two of them grow from Leah's reluctance to speak to her after the show that night despite dragging us to Ireland to 'bump into' her again, to being married with children had been the proudest time in my life. They love one another in a way that I don't think anyone believed existed, devoted solely to the happiness that they could create together. They made mistakes, but they did it together. Even if they didn't know it, everyone around them knew they would find each other again.

I tried to fall back to sleep, my body tired but my brain unable to stop worrying about Alex. She had been through so much recently, between her Dad and media attention, I worried that her fatigued body wouldn't be able to cope with another birth. The conversation I had with Leah not long after Peter passed was replaying in my mind, filling me with anxiety.

Flashback

Leah and Alex had returned from Ireland the day after the funeral, a tired a dishevelled looking Alex stood in the doorway with eyes that told a story of someone that hadn't slept in days. Leah stood behind her, her arm proudly draped around her back almost as if she was holding her up, which I suppose she was in a way, even if not physically. Leah called everyday, but we no longer had the daily drop in, just until things had settled a little more at home. As I sipped a cup of tea and sorted through some paperwork, the closing of a single car door outside jolted me to crane my neck and investigate the arrival, smiling to myself as I saw Leah walking towards the front door, my smiling quickly fading as she threw herself into my arms and let out sob after sob, her hands making fists to grip the material of my T-shirt. I knew this was coming, I'm her Mum and I knew her better than anyone; I knew how much Peter meant to Leah, and how much it would be killing her to see Alex so broken, something she hadn't witnessed when Alex had first lost a parent.

"I don't know how to help her, I feel completely useless." She cried.
"That's the best kind of help, Leah. When you feel like you're not doing enough, it usually means that you are truly showing just how much you want to help."
"She doesn't talk to me about it, just acts like everything is normal. She plays with the kids, laughs and jokes with them, she has been writing a lot, still going to the gym and wants to do this Stand Up To Cancer gig in her Mum's memory. She's going to burn herself out, she's pregnant. I can't even tell her that because I know she doesn't want to be. I'm so scared that she will resent me, this baby was my idea. I had no clue the day we would find out would be the day she would lose her Dad." I let her finish, knowing she needed to get it all out.
"Life doesn't pause for death, Leah. Not for everyone, and no matter how much we think it should. Alex knows that, she's been here before. She's watched the world carry on as if she hadn't just lost her Mum, the people still going about their daily lives, laughing, joking, all those things you said she's still doing. She knows that no matter how much it hurts, she has to carry on."
"But I want her to feel like it doesn't! I want her to know that I think the world should stop too. He was the most incredible man, he devoted his life to Alex, him being strong was the reason she -"
"She?" I said, knowing she had come to the realisation I was hinting at.
"Carried on when she lost her Mum."
"So what do you think Alex is doing right now?"
"Being the reason we can all carry on, Mum she's amazing." Leah spoke.
"She is. Does she still eat the healthy foods she ate when she was pregnant with Theo? Still go to baby birthing classes? Still protectively put her hand on her stomach when she walks through a crowd of people?"
"Yes."
"She might not be able to be excited about it right now, Leah. She might not be able to look forward to something so many months away because all of those months that she has to count are months without her Dad that she can't face right now. Those little things that she's doing though, they are proof that she still wants this. Proof that she still knows she has another life to protect now."
"I just wish it had been at a different time, Mum. I wish I had known this was going to happen, so she didn't have to worry about yet another person throughout all this." Leah sighed.
"This little one will be the light, even if we don't know it. The reason she knows she has to keep herself from burning out, she's too selfless to allow the baby to suffer just because she's grieving, we all know that about her."
"I miss him. I miss calling him to tell him about something Aoife said, or the latest space fact that Theo has told me. I miss him sending me blurry selfies from the holidays he was on with Janice, or randomly showing up to surprise us."
"I know. You have to let yourself miss him, just because he was Alex's Dad doesn't mean you can't grieve for him too, Leah."
"I know. I just feel like I have to be strong."
"Maybe if she knows you're missing him too that will help her to feel like she can talk about it. Talk to her, that's what you two have always done best."