The McRae Series 01 - Twelve Days Sam and Rachel

still smelled wonderful. Whatever the baby smell was, it didn't come from a bottle. "She's so beautiful. How could anyone leave her like that?"
    "I don't know," Rachel said. Miriam still hadn't found out anything about the children's mother when Rachel had talked to her a few hours ago.
    "It's so awful."
    Rachel nodded. People did awful things to children in this world. It was one of the things that had fueled Rachel's anger over the years, wanting children so badly, thinking she had so much to give, when there were so many people who had them and didn't give a damn about them. Or worse, hurt them.
    "Maybe if their mother doesn't come back," Ellen suggested. "I was telling Bill last night that maybe you and Sam—"
    "No." Rachel stopped her right there. "I've been hearing that all day, and with most people, I just let it go because... Well, because." People didn't need to know everything about her life. But with her sister, she was more forthcoming. "I can't think that way. I promised myself and Sam that I wouldn't. Not after what happened with Will."
    "But, Rachel—"
    "This is just until after Christmas, and it's..." Rachel started to say it was okay, but of course it wasn't. If things had been different, she'd love to keep these children, to make them her own. But Sam was leaving, too. Rachel had her goals firmly in place. They were simple and very straightforward. "We're just going to give them a good Christmas. That's all."
    And then she could start trying to fix everything else, starting with what was inside of her.
    "Ellen, do you think I'm selfish?" she blurted out to her sister in a moment of pure panic and fear.
    "No."
    "Do you see me as someone who thinks of no one but myself?"
    "No, you're just... You're the baby of the family. I guess we've all always tried to take care of you, to make things as easy for you as we could."
    It was true. They had. There'd always been somebody to pick her up and dust her off and help her out.
    "You do." Rachel took a breath, scared. "You think I'm selfish."
    "That's not what I said. I just know that it's hard for a mother to let her baby grow up. My Steffie's in middle school now, and I still find myself wanting to take care of her. We all did that to you. Not just Mom. All of us."
    "That's how you see me? Like a woman who still needs someone to take care of her. Poor little Rachel."
    "That's not what I said, either."
    "Do you think I'm a nice person?" Rachel asked.
    "Of course I do."
    "I'm just not strong enough—is that it? I just haven't handled things as well as I should have."
    "I think you're someone who's had her share of problems—"
    "My share?" As if we were all allotted a certain amount and maybe someone was weighing them all, to see if they were evenly distributed?
    "More than most people," Ellen said.
    "Have I really?" She'd always thought so, but...
    "Rachel, you lost a child. I can't imagine anything harder than that."
    She nodded. It was that hard. And yet, other people had lost children and found a way to go on. She'd tried grief groups before. She'd seen people who seemed to be able to resolve it somehow, and she'd resented them for it. She hadn't wanted to come to terms with any of it. She'd hung on to the hurt, to the anger. She'd been waiting for someone to come along and say they'd made a mistake, that this was not her life and that she was going to get everything back. She'd been waiting for God to bring her baby back.
    Those other people who'd dealt with their losses had just made her mad. She wanted them ranting at the injustice of it all, the way she had been for a dozen years. She wondered if they'd hurt as much as she had, if they'd actually loved their children as much as she had, and yet how could they not have loved their children and suffered the same way she had? She knew they had.
    But they hadn't sunk into a dark hole and not come out for twelve years.
    "Hey?" Ellen asked. "What's happened?"
    "I don't know," Rachel said shakily. "I've just been thinking that I haven't handled anything well, not for a long time."
    "We do the best we can, Rach. That's all anyone can expect from us. Have you done the best you could?"
    Rachel hesitated, panic creeping in once again. Had she? At the time, it felt as if it was all she could do to simply get through each day. And after that phase had passed, she'd been so angry. At everyone. She'd never really moved on from there, and it had been twelve years. She felt every one of them now, every day, now that